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Late last month, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed a controversial bill that would have permitted businesses and others in that state to deny service to anyone based on religious beliefs. The measure, S.B. 1062, would have permitted not only business owners, but also churches, other legal entities and individuals, to use it as a defense when charged with discrimination.
Though worded more broadly, the bill was generally understood as enabling a refusal of services to homosexuals in situations where to provide the service would go against the "sincerely held religious beliefs" of the provider.
The Arizona bill was sparked when neighboring New Mexico courts ruled that a photographic artist who produces photojournal stories of weddings must also produce photojournal stories of same-sex weddings (the artist does provide portrait photography of homosexuals: the photographer's objection was to being required to tell a positive story about something she believed wrong. She also has refused to do photojournals of polygamist "weddings" and violent events. A baker in Colorado and a florist in Washington state have both faced similar lawsuits.
In a similar case, Hobby Lobby is seeking to escape the federal government's imposition that they be forced to fund abortions as part of their employees' health insurance -- something the owners strongly oppose.
In vetoing the Arizona bill, which was supported by social conservatives, Brewer said it had "the potential to create more problems than it purports to solve. It could divide Arizona in ways we cannot even imagine and no one would ever want."
Civil Rights groups and many Democrats had opposed the measure, but so had several Republicans, including both of Arizona's GOP U.S. senators and former presidential nominee Mitt Romney. One of those senators, John McCain, said afterward, "I appreciate the decision made by Governor Brewer to veto this legislation. I hope that we can now move on from this controversy and assure the American people that everyone is welcome to live, work and enjoy our beautiful State of Arizona."
There had also been considerable threat of economic loss to the state when Major League Baseball, the National Football League, Arizona's Super Bowl Committee, the Hispanic National Bar Association and several business organizations denounced the bill.
Public opinions continue to run strong on this matter (see the difference in the two opinion pieces included in the links below), with some considering it an issue of religious freedom and others viewing it as an issue of civil rights.
Actually, there is currently no law in Arizona that prohibits people in business from following their religious beliefs regarding to whom they offer their services. The bill was designed to forestall the imposition of such requirements on religious people by courts.
More on this story can be found at these links:
Arizona Governor Vetoes Controversial Bill ... Fox News
Text of Arizona SB 1062
After the Veto. New York Times (opinion)
The Terms of Our Surrender. New York Times (opinion)
New Mexico Photography Business Seeks Supreme Court Review. Heritage Foundation
A Firsthand Account
For discussion, you may wish to consider the following firsthand account which a married couple, who have asked to remain anonymous, shared with TWW.
"On this subject, we have a vested interest ourselves since we have a bed-and-breakfast establishment (B&B). We have housed gay couples before (we see refusal to provide basic services such as housing or food as unjust, no matter what our personal views of a person's lifestyle). But we have not felt comfortable marketing to the wedding market, because the issue of gay marriage touches on our understanding of the meaning of marriage and on our religious views. While we would make a distinction between the rights of people to form civil contracts or unions as their own religious beliefs permit, we would not be comfortable hosting a wedding between homosexuals on our premises because it is also our home. We have both been pastors and could be again in churches that might also feel as we do, and it could be construed as our giving tacit approval or even celebrating such relationships when we do not feel the Bible gives us that flexibility.
"So for us to be required to host a wedding we find objectionable on religious grounds seems to infringe on our constitutional right of freedom of religion. What are our options?
1. To acquiesce to the force of the state and agree to host such a public event which could be publicized beyond any control of ours and which would portray our business in a manner that is completely counter to our religious beliefs.
2. To refuse to provide this service to homosexual couples and risk one or more lawsuits that could drain us of our livelihood and even our very home.
3. To not offer the service to anyone, homosexual or heterosexual, out of fear of lawsuits and reprisals.
This last option is pretty much where we are, but unfortunately it means we are losing potential income that could be forthcoming from the weddings of heterosexuals. We don't see any of these options as optimal.
"We don't feel free as Americans to run our business as we see fit, in a way that reflects who we are as people of faith with a particular set of beliefs that may not be popular but to which we have a constitutional right.
"We don't see any easy way out of this conundrum. We feel less free with each passing year (politically speaking)."
One TWW team member responds: "I think your remarks get to the heart of the subject, and weddings, after all, are one place where church and state intersect. Even if you could say such and such sort of wedding took place on our premises and we did not officiate, some people are color-blind to these matters and any association is anathema. In our social networking age, no deed is ever forgotten -- or left unpunished."
The Big Questions
1. When should religious conviction be allowed to trump a generally applicable law? Is a generally applicable law that is opposed to religious freedom in effect the establishment of a state religion on the matters the law touches upon?
2. Should individuals and/or businesses be forced to act in a manner that is antithetical to their religious beliefs? And if they refuse, should they be penalized and punished to the point of losing their jobs, their homes, their reputation, their livelihood? Use reason and Scripture to flesh out your answers.
3. Is there a point at which practices arising from religious belief become sinful discrimination? If so, where is that point and how can we recognize it? If not, why not? What discrimination is righteous, what discrimination is a matter of liberty, and what discrimination is sinful? On what basis do you make these judgments?
4. Should churches be permitted more leeway than private businesses in making distinctions between what they will and won't do? Explain your answer.
5. To what degree is living the Christian life and applying it to real situations a matter of fresh thinking? What are the risks of being static or monochromatic in our understanding of what it means to follow Jesus? What are the benefits?
Confronting the News With Scripture and Hope
Here are some Bible verses to guide your discussion:
Romans 13:1
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. (For context, read 13:1-7.)
To take these words of Paul's out of the context of the early church, we might think he is advising us to obey unquestioningly whatever law the governing authorities pass. But in Paul's day, Christians were still a new group in the Roman Empire and could bring brutal repression upon themselves if they challenged the governing powers.
In addition, Paul points out the legitimate sphere of governmental authority: "For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad .... [They are] the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer" (vv. 3-4).
Fortunately, except for a few periods of severe persecution, the Roman authorities often left Christians alone. And the social order Rome enforced throughout its empire, as well as the roads the Romans built, made travel for spreading the gospel relatively safe. Thus, Paul and other Christians saw God's hand in that social order and urged obedience to those who enforced it.
This advice was probably not intended to be universal or to apply to every government, no matter how repressive or notorious.
Questions: How might Paul advise us regarding the kinds of denial of service that the Arizona bill would have made legal had it not been vetoed? How might Paul advise us regarding lawsuits against businesses whose owners decline services to same-sex couples? How might the command to love our neighbor as ourselves affect how we view human laws?
Daniel 6:10
Although Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he continued to go to his house, which had windows in its upper room open toward Jerusalem, and to get down on his knees three times a day to pray to his God and praise him, just as he had done previously. (For context, read 6:1-28.)
Daniel, a faithful Jew, was living in Babylonia where a new edict had just outlawed praying to anyone but the Babylonian king. Anyone who did so was to be killed. Daniel, however, continued praying to God, and not in secret, but deliberately where he would be observed doing so, so as to cause a confrontation on this matter. Eventually, he was thrown to the lions, but God kept him unharmed, and the edict was rescinded.
Questions: Why do you suppose, biblically speaking, Daniel's resistance of a Persian law was blessed by God, but Paul (see Romans 13:1 above) did not recommend that Christians resist Rome's laws?
Not all resistance against laws the resisters consider ungodly ends as well as did Daniel's. Sometimes, the lions feast. How should that possibility affect our decisions about how to act where faith and the legal system intersect?
Ezra 7:26
All who will not obey the law of your God and the law of the king, let judgment be strictly executed on them, whether for death or for banishment or for confiscation of their goods or for imprisonment. (For context, read 7:11-26.)
These words come from a letter Persian King Artaxerxes gave to the Jewish scribe Ezra authorizing Ezra's journey from Babylon to Judah to teach the law of God to the Jews living there.
Judah, at that time, was part of the Persian Empire and, of course, was neither a republic nor a democracy, and Artaxerxes was not a Jew. Still, he seems to know enough about the law of the Jews' God to call for them to obey it, and he apparently assumes that God's law is in line with "the law of the king."
The penalty for not obeying this combined law of God and law of the king is severe: death, banishment, confiscation of their goods or imprisonment. Such potential outcomes surely squashed most resistance to the royal authority, but it may also have confused many of the people about where God's laws ended and where the king's began.
Questions: How do we distinguish God's laws from human laws today? How do we determine where human laws are a violation of God's?
Acts 4:18-20
So they called them and ordered them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered them, "Whether it is right in God's sight to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge; for we cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard." (For context, read 4:1-22.)
After Peter and John were found teaching about Jesus in the temple and also healing, the Jewish council took the pair into custody and ordered them to cease and desist. The verses above include the answer the two disciples gave. It was both courageous and a statement of religious conscience.
Questions: How might this biblical incident apply to those who advocated the Arizona bill? How might it apply to those who urged its veto? How does it apply to you? Based upon what you know, who would be harmed by the bill's enactment? Who might be harmed by its failure to be enacted?
John 4:7, 9
A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." ... The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) (For context, read 4:1-29.)
Here, Jesus is breaking down cultural, religious and gender barriers that were commonly accepted at the time.
Question: When are we to hold fast to long-cherished religious traditions, and when are we to relinquish them so that something more important might take root?
For Further Discussion
1. What advice would you give the couple who own the B&B and whose firsthand account is included above?
2. To what degree should religion and business mix? Why?
3. While the Arizona bill would have enabled denial of services to same-sex couples, it could have been applied more widely. A Hispanic person we know said, "I was troubled by the [Arizona bill] since it was a first step to allowing people to claim they had religious objections to Hispanics and might have given traction to some of the Aryan nation groups." A firearms civil-rights activist noted that the bill might also be a first step to allowing people to claim that they had religious objections to citizens carrying firearms, and given traction to some anti-gun groups. Others have pointed out that the law might be used to deny service to people with disabilities. What other possible unwanted applications of it might have occurred?
4. Respond to this, from another TWW team member: "Some people seem to think that people only have the right to their beliefs if they don't impact the way they live or the choices they make in their business. It's the privatization of faith -- the idea that you can be a person of faith as long as you practice it only for an hour or two on Sunday, and live the way the rest of the world wants you to live the rest of the week. Sometimes Christians are the first in line to promote this kind of thinking."
5. Consider this comment from Russian writer Nicolas Berdyaev and decide how it applies to today's topic: "It would be a mistake to think the average [person] loves freedom. A still greater mistake would be to suppose that freedom is an easy thing. Freedom is a difficult thing. It is easier to remain in slavery."
Responding to the News
Being aware that our view of same-sex marriage may color our response to this news story and the personal religious conflict it can raise -- and also that not all Christians agree about same-sex marriage -- this is a good time to pray for God's guidance in helping us avoid knee-jerk reactions to it and to consider whether it is calling for any fresh thinking about what it means to follow Jesus.
Closing Prayer
Keep us moving in our faith, O Lord, that we may ever be open to your direction and will. In Jesus' name. Amen.
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