Homosexual groups are celebrating in Europe this week
as once more they have triumphed in a court of law over believing
Christians. The European Court of Human Rights upheld decisions of
British courts that had decided homosexual rights trump the rights of
Christians whose faith teaches them homosexuality is wrong.
To be sure, the results of a handful of cases before the court were
ever so slightly mixed. The single victory was limited. A woman is now
allowed to wear her cross necklace to her job at British Airways, though
another woman in a linked case lost her right to wear the same necklace
to her hospital job.
The other cases, however, were substantial and far-reaching and make
it plain that with impunity Christians will be hobbled in the outward
expression of their faith and continue to be driven from their jobs.
The decisions were reached by the European Court of Human Rights,
which is the court that oversees human rights issues in the 47 member
states of the Council of Europe, which reviewed cases already decided in
British courts.
The truly troubling cases involved two British subjects who objected
to working within the regime of homosexual marriage in the UK. Lillian
Ladele spent 16 years as a marriage registrar. By all account she had an
exemplary record. When the British government mandated homosexual
marriage, she asked to be exempt from registering such couples.
The second case dealt with Gary McFarlane who worked as a counselor
for a large national counseling service. He was fired from his job for
“gross misconduct” after a training course during which he told
superiors that providing homosexual couples with “psycho-sexual therapy”
would violate his “conscience” and his “deeply held religious beliefs.”
He was fired simply for voicing his concerns.
In both cases the British courts held that marriage between one man
and one woman were not core Christian beliefs and therefore not
protected. The European Court upheld this dim view.
Homosexual groups are jubilant that freedom of religion has taken a
beating by the court. The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans
and Intersex Association “welcomed this decision and especially the
Court’s recognition that preventing sexual orientation discrimination is
an important and legitimate purpose that justifies restrictions on
freedom of religion.
Some conservative pundits have suggested that the debate over
homosexual marriage—and all that comes with it—is over and that what we
should focus our attention building certain fire walls that allow
religious folk to practice their religion.
If someone in Europe cannot express his reservations about homosexual
marriage without losing his job, and if another person’s religious
objection to registering homosexuals for marriage cannot be
accommodated, then it seems, at least in Europe, that the firewall has
been breached.
These European decisions clearly demonstrate that the firewall will
not hold if marriage itself crumbles. Europe largely allows for
homosexual marriage. Has that slaked the thirst of the homosexuals? No,
they want it all. They want Christians prostrate before them and before
the law.
Here is a similar example from the US just a few days ago.
An Evangelical Pastor was disinvited from delivering the Invocation
at the President’s Inauguration next week. His crime was that once long
ago he said the homosexual “movement is not a benevolent movement. It
is a movement to seize by any means necessary the feeling and mood of
the day, to the point where the homosexual lifestyle becomes accepted as
a norm in our society and is given full standing as any other lifestyle
as it relates to marriage.” Other than saying the movement is “not
benevolent”, this remark could easily be the mission statement of the
Human Rights Campaign. In this context, though, it was a firing offense.
Janice Crouse wrote an op-ed about this in the Washington Times.
“The Obama administration has thrown down a gauntlet, declaring that
anyone who espouses historic, biblical Christian teaching will be
prohibited from participation in events in the public square,” wrote
Crouse. “As Christians, we cannot back down from our religious freedoms,
nor can we betray our faith by watering down scripturally based
Gospel.”
Wayne Beeson of something called Truth Wins Out, a group that
persecutes those who believe homosexual behavior can change, went on the
attack. “No one is taking away her right to hold backward beliefs or
speak out against what she regards as sin. However, Crouse and other
evangelicals routinely confuse freedom with having free rein to insult
and demonize others without suffering consequences.”
But then Beeson goes on to say, “Crouse can either find a new way to
interpret her Bible or people will increasingly interpret her offensive
views as unfit for polite company.”
There is little doubt that the Wayne Beeson’s of the world would love
to silence Janice Crouse like they are silencing those in Europe. In
Europe they are farther down that road than here. Over there they can
now use courts to uphold unjust firings.
Over here they can only go after those who work in government or
those who work for private companies that can be bullied into
discriminating against those who hold nothing more and nothing less than
the ancient teachings of Christianity.
This madness one day shall pass. Who knows when? Certainly no time
soon. In those happier and saner days, people will marvel at how this
ever happened. How did the tiniest of minorities—no more than 2% of the
population—get in a position to silence the beliefs and punish the
practices of hundreds of millions?
What we know is this. No matter how many Christians they persecute
and prosecute, no matter how much society tolerates or even celebrates
their sexual proclivities, no matter how many Gay-Straight Alliances are
foisted upon our public schools, none of that will still in them the
nagging feeling that what they do in bed is unnatural, and their
attraction to their own sex is morally wrong. That nagging voice will
never go entirely away.
