In an election cycle woefully short on discussions of religious liberty, presidential candidate and Ohio Governor John Kasich has proven how little he apparently understands about religious freedom.
In a Thursday night exchange with talk radio host Hugh Hewitt during CNN’s GOP debate in Houston, Kasich reiterated a position that he recently made about the issue of religious freedom as it relates to commerce. After making allusions to the effects of repealing the 5-4 Hobby Lobby decisions to faith-based institutions and business owners whose personal beliefs don’t align with the current administration’s worldview, Hewitt asked Kasich to clarify remarks he made earlier in the week:
HEWITT: Governor Kasich, back to religious liberty. You've been a little bit less emphatic. You've said, same-sex couple approaches a cupcake maker, sell them a cupcake. Can we trust you as much on religious liberty as the rest of these people?
KASICH: Well, you know, of course. I mean, if -- look, I was involved in just being a pioneer in a new church. Religious institutions should be able to practice the religion that they believe in. No question and no doubt about it.
Now, in regard to same-sex marriage, I don't favor it. I've always favored traditional marriage, but, look, the court has ruled and I've moved on. And what I've said, Hugh, is that, look, where does it end?
If you're in the business of selling things, if you're not going to sell to somebody you don't agree with, OK, today I'm not going to sell to somebody who's gay, and tomorrow maybe I won't sell to somebody who's divorced.
I mean, if you're in the business of commerce, conduct commerce. That's my view. And if you don't agree with their lifestyle, say a prayer for them when they leave and hope they change their behavior.
This is an argument that has no place in a party that concerns itself with the right to freely express and practice one’s faith in the public square. It could have just as believably been uttered by any of the rabid secularists who wish to see any rights of conscience abolished from the public square altogether.
In fact, similar argument has been put forward by the Obama Administration’s Solicitor General, Donald Verrilli regarding whether or not Christian schools would be allowed to continue teaching the traditional Christian understanding of conjugal marriage, should the court mandate same sex ‘marriage’ as a constitutional right. When asked the question by Justice Samuel Alito, Verrilli admitted that, “It is…it is going to be an issue.”
It comes as no surprise that the remarks come on the heels of news that Aaron and Melissa Klein, former owners of “Sweet Cakes by Melissa” a bakery which they were forced to close due to the same sort of reasoning that Kasich is pushing here, announced that they would be taking their case to the Oregon Court of Appeals.
Aaron and Melissa Klein first made national news in 2013 when they told a lesbian couple that they could not materially contribute to their same sex wedding ceremony by providing a cake. The couple sued, and the State of Oregon condemned the Klein’s actions with a massive $135,000 fine. Subsequently, the Kleins were forced to shut down their bakery and had all of their savings forcibly seized by the state. In a disturbingly symbolic act, the state of Oregon even cleaned out a special bank account that the Kleins had set up specifically for their church tithe.
I.e. Caesar took money meant for God in the name of “equality” and “tolerance,” with the result of financially ruining a Christian family because they held religious beliefs shared by 99% percent of world religions until just a few years ago, all in the name of equality.
The Oregon/Kasich view of religious liberty works as such: If you’re a church ministry, fine. You can keep your First Amendment rights, but those stop as soon as you decide to engage in commerce.
While this position may seem correct and amicable to a conscience solely informed by the secularist agenda, and may even work to feed the moderate, ‘nice guy’ image that Kasich has tried to maintain since he announced his candidacy, it fails to address the crux of the actual argument being made by people like the Kleins, which has nothing to do with gay people.
What Aaron and Melissa Klein, along with the host of other businesses and organizations that have been victimized by the cultural cronyism of the sexual revolution, are saying has nothing to do with denying service to people they disagree with. They simply are saying that they cannot participate in an immoral action, a doctrine more commonly known as “material cooperation with evil.”
Materially cooperating with evil, according to the National Catholic Bioethics Center,“is assistance provided to the immoral act of a principal agent in which the cooperator does not intend the evil,” or doing any action which will directly lead to an act being done which contradicts the beliefs of the person assisting with the action. What this means in the cast of the baker is simple: If the lesbian couple had come into the store asking for a birthday cake, they would have gotten the same service that anyone else ordering a birthday cake would have gotten. There are likely no imaginable grounds for conscientious objection to materially cooperating with a birthday party.
On the same note, Kasich’s argument regarding divorced people is equally fallacious. Just as there would rarely, if ever, be a case for conscientious objection to a birthday cake for a person with same-sex attraction, there would not be one for baking a cake for a divorced person, “divorce ceremonies” a la T.V.’s “Scrubs” notwithstanding.
Marriage, however, is different. To those who believe that marriage is more than a simple contract that holds about as much significance as a car title loan, this distinction is very important. The Kleins and others of their ilk declined to participate in something that contradicted their millennia-old belief about the very nature of man and woman and their standing before society and God. See? The argument has nothing to do with gay people; it has everything to do with with fundamental questions about the nature of humankind on which the government should never be given a monopoly, even if “the court has ruled.”
Thank goodness that wasn’t the Republican party line following Dred Scott.
It’s understandable that bad court rulings happen. They’ve happened several times before in American history, but that is no reason to kowtow to bad ideas and fallacious arguments when essential constitutional rights and American founding principles--or rather, American identity itself--is at stake. Attacks on religious liberty in the United States have doubled over the last three years and conservative voters deserve a candidate with the moral courage to stand up to this insidious trend. This country was colonized and founded on the principle of a robust religious liberty, rightly understood. That first freedom doesn’t stop at the boardroom or the classroom, nor does it cease to exist when someone’s feelings get hurt.
Trying to build a persona as a “moderate,” may get you an endorsement from the New York Times, but is no excuse for denying these realities. As the late Senator and presidential candidate Barry Goldwater famously said, “Moderation in the protection of liberty is no virtue; extremism in the defense of freedom is no vice.” If Governor Kasich truly wishes to be the standard bearer of a party that values our Constitution and the precious, pre-political liberties her first ten amendments were written to protect, he would do well to think long and hard about the meaning of the very first one on the list.
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https://www.conservativereview.com/c....gWNtBmPy.dpuf