Gay Marriage as an attack on Christianity

This brings up a point I have been thinking about (but haven't had time to post) and maybe you or others could offer some feedback.A custom made wedding cake seems to me to be an artistic creation... a form of expression, or a form of speech and as such it should be protected under the right to free speech. More specifically, no one should be forced to use their speech to support a position they don't agree with. I think we would all agree that if one was approached to give an oral speech that supports the validity of same sex marriage, they should not be compelled to do so. Also if someone was contracted to write or publish an article supporting same sex marriage in their public newsletter, they should have the right to refuse to do so. I would think this should apply to other forms of artistic expression as well, such as painting, photography, music, etc... If a wedding cake represents the artistic expression of the creator of that cake, is it not a form of speech very much like using words? But that would be a standard "off the shelf" cake, not a custom, artistic creation. And providing that service should not violate the server's conscience since there is no "speech" involved. It should be little different than serving a steak. I agree that would be denial of service.But where I see issues is that just about anything could be defined as 'artistic' in an attempt to deny service (such as the stock cakes mentioned above) and I would not be in favor of that. But I tend to agree with Tangle in Message 522 in that there are two sets of rights involved here and both sides should be respectful of the other's rights.To be honest, I am not sure what I would do under those circumstances. I don't agree with same sex marriage, but I understand that not everyone feels the same way and I respect their right to have a different opinion and to choose a lifestyle that I disagree with. So, Idk, I think the whole thing is blown way out of proportion and both sides, in an attempt to preserve their rights and be true to their conscience have made it way too big a deal.HBD

I took a bio-ethics course in my undergraduate training that really helped me understand this issue in a whole new way. The course was done in a debate format where the Professor offered some debate topics and the students chose what they wanted to do. Somehow I got the short end of the stick and had to defend abortion (keep in mind this is a Christian liberal arts university). At first I was like "how can I possibly defend this in a way that I would have any chance of winning the debate?" But I decided to make the most of it.One argument I used was the different value we put on life at different stages. To illustrate this I said imagine a fertility clinic was on fire and inside there were 100 frozen embryos and 1 5 year old child and you only had time to save one or the other. I don't think any of us would hesitate to save the 5 year old child. There definitely is a different value we place on those two life stages.But the main thrust of my argument was based on a video I came across where this guy was interviewing people who were pro-life protesters. He asked them two main questions: "Is abortion murder?" and "should it be illegal?" To which they all answered "Yes, definitely."Then he asked "If it were made illegal, what do you think they should do to women who have an abortion?" And the answers were like "Pray for them.", etc. but the answer that really got me was "I never thought about that before." And it hit me, we are concerned about these unborn children, who are probably better off not coming into this world, but we give no thought to the mothers who have made this choice.They are told to not think of this as a human life, just don't feel guilty. Yet it can haunt them for the rest of their life, as with your experience. I believe that in some ways more harm is done to the mother than to the unborn child.So now my position on abortion, while I still consider it to be taking a human life, focuses not so much on what happens to the unborn child, but to the mother. I don't think making abortion illegal is the answer, although I'm not really sure what the answer is. But I feel the church should be more concerned with the lives of the women who are faced with these decisions than they are with the unborn child. I agree. I think this type of solution serves people far better than protesting outside an abortion clinic or "right to life" chains.However, the church too often condemns people who are faced with these choices. We had one of our teens become pregnant a couple years ago and we were going to have a baby shower for her. One of the ladies in the church (a good lady, mind you) was like "why are we celebrating the pregnancy of an unwed mother?" That attitude is devastating to our cause of ending abortion, right? We don't need to celebrate her status as an unwed mother, but we do need to show her we love her and support her through a very hard time. She knows she screwed up and doesn't need our heaping of shame and guilt. It is that shame and guilt and feeling of despair that could push her to abort; that would be the "easy" way to escape.By the way, I won the debate pretty much unanimously... HBD

OOPs sorry Phat. Posted before I saw the warning.