So-Called "Persecution Against Christians":

Funny how we're the bullies when it's the law forcing gay marriage on us against our Biblical conscience that is the bully, putting us in the position of refusing specific services to gay weddings. Now we can be sued and driven out of business for holding a viewpoint that goes back to Eden and was shared by all cultures until very recently.Also what is your problem with the End Times prophecies? Why should any of that impinge on you in any way?

You don't get to define what's biblical. We know what's biblical, and our rejection of gay marriage is determined by the Bible. So shoot us. You're working up to that anyway.

What you think you "have seen" is what is not true. Marriage is clearly defined in the Bible as a man and a woman, and homosexuality is clearly defined as a sin, not a legitimate "lifestyle." You are not allowed to define another person's reading of the Bible or another's conscience, sorry. In any case you will find that the more Christian businesses are challenged to do something special or personal that validates gay marriage the more Christians will have to refuse and be punished for it. Your thinking they are wrong carries no more weight than the Catholics thinking the Protestants wrong who refused to accept papal law and chose torture and death instead. Sorry. Of course calling us evil will justify whatever your group want to do to us too, just as it justified the RCC. And how childish of you to pretend I want to harm you in any way. I'm called to die for my beliefs and bless my enemies. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

They were sinners. What's your problem?

Besides, that's irrelevant, since what I've been saying is that it doesn't matter what anybody else thinks, there are Christians, me among them, who understand the Bible to forbid gay marriage, and if we are put in a position requiring us to do something personally that legitimizes it we will refuse and be prosecuted by the law, which is a form of persecution, and how that makes us the bully is beyond me. Everything else is irrelevant.

That's ridiculous. It would be so much easier not to fight it. It takes courage to stand up to a law like this one and we are the ones who suffer from it, not you. Nobody's enjoying excluding people, just don't ask us to validate gay marriage, we're open to anything else you want. You don't have to go to Christians for your gay wedding, but you want to get even with us because we represent all the pain you've experienced. Why, I don't know. We aren't the only group that can't support gay marriage, orthodox Jews can't and neither can Muslims. They also run bakeries, make wedding cakes, arrange flowers and do photography. So do atheists.

Wow. THIS is the "load of crap." You actually think we like making people unhappy? Wow. It is not "biblical" to own slaves, it was tolerated because it was universal, it was also powerfully hedged about by laws protecting the wellbeing of the slaves, and then it was Christians who finally ended slavery. It was condoned and practiced by every people on earth and still is by a great majority of the world. Your views are just the standard anti-Christian propaganda that is historically false that has become so popular in recent years. YOU are the ones who want to make US suffer, it is not the other way around. All the rest of what you call biblical is a ridiculous pack of lies, at best out of context. You confuse historical facts that are condemned by the Bible though reported accurately, that are representative of sin and not of God's law -- confuse them with God's commands. It is really not hard to tell the difference if you read the Bible honestly; it is a report about sinful humanity, along with a record of God's laws that SHOULD be obeyed but never are and never were. Your post is the proof that it is Christians who are being demonized and persecuted. Trump up false accustaions and you can do anything you want to the group so vilified, as the Nazis knew. Thanks for that much.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

By rights we should not provide wedding services to polygamists or divorced people either, but if you keep the situation to yourself that conflict of conscience wouldn't become a problem. Same if it isn't revealed it's a gay wedding you want catered. Sorry, but we will deny service for any purpose condemned by God. And it's we who suffer for this, contrary to the innsanity being expressed here. Go ahead persecute us. You've been waiting for years to "get even," haven't you? Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Twist and lie, Paul, you're good at it.Yes I've felt like punching you on many occasions. That's me personally reacting to a snark, not anything prescribed by my beliefs though you twist things to mean that.The Bible does NOT require us to obey any "secular" law that conflicts with God's law. It is CLEARLY stated that we are to obey GOD AND NOT MAN when there is a conflict.I do not have to respect any reading of the Bible than the reading I understand to be the correct one. A person's conscience is a personal thing. If I act on it by denying wedding services to gays it is I who will suffer, despite all the stuppidity being said about this here.This place is a madhouse.

I am not responsible for the segregationists' opinion. I disagree with it and they either stick to it and suffer the consequences or realize they are wrong and give it up. I'm responsible for my own opinion and MAYBE it will only be a problem if I own a business but I wouldn't even count on that.There is no reason to keep arguing this. You've all decided Christians may not hold the opinions we hold, we're today's Jews, so you will punish us for your opinion no matter what. Why you bother to argue with something so obvious I don't really get. I guess you just don't like to think you are in the wrong and are punishing us the way the Nazis did the Jews, so you have to keep demonizing us just as the Nazis did the Jews and make it our fault by hook or by crook. So what else is new?

Could we please get this simple point straight? You ought to know from the context that I'm not saying you are disallowing my verbal statement of my opinions (although with the excoriating responses I get, including from you in this post, in a sense that's not even true), but in context when I'm saying I'm to be punished for my opinions it's for my obligation to act upon them when put to the test. The context is and has always been the situation where a Christian is asked to do something that their conscience judges as a violation of God's law, in which case we must refuse to do it.I think you all need to be called on your hatred of Christian beliefs and I don't think the Nazi example is too far-fetched for that, no. You've got us categorized with evil people who should hardly be allowed to exist, so where is there to go from that point?And I guess I need to point out that the Christian belief I'm talking about is quite standard. I share it with the five business owners I know of (Ithere are probably more by now) who have been put in the position of having to refuse a special order for a gay wedding. We all independently understand the Bible to forbid us from doing that. You all keep trying to isolate me as some kind of exception, but I'm arguing for those who have already suffered for the same beliefs I share with them. There are Christians who don't have those beliefs, some of them here at EvC, but that doesn't change the fact that these beliefs ARE quite standard for Christian evangelicals.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I disagree that there is any comparison between race and homosexuality so I reject your comparison with segregationists. It is really not hard to make the case that segregation is not biblical. They are taking an Old Testament position that applied only to the Israeltes, which had absolutely no racial connotations anyway, and misapplying it to Christianity. The Bible is very clear that all human beings are descended from one set of parents (and applying principles of genetics to that, we can understand that races are the natural genetic result of becoming isolated into tribal families.) The Israelites were to keep themselves separate from other CULTURES that practiced religions contrary to the doctrines the Israelites were to follow. It had nothing to do with race, it was all about idolatrous rituals, human sacrifice, animal gods and other such things forbidden to the Jews. Nevertheless members of other cultures who wanted to live like the Israelites and follow their laws were welcome. The segregationists really have no leg to stand on theologically.In any case homosexuality is nothing like race. I have no desire to hurt homosexuals, I think they have many hard things to deal with in their lives, but the Bible clearly identifies homosexual acts as sin so there is no way an honest Christian can call it normal, and certainly no way homosexual marriage can be treated as legitimate. Some gays actually agree with this as a matter of fact. Also as long as Christians aren't required to treat gay marriage as valid there is no problem, but this is exactly where the problem arises. So as long as this is required of us in any context whatever, we will refuse to comply and therefore be punished for it.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I meant that it would be easier for us Christians not to fight it, but just go along to get along. Resisting the law costs us.Of course if YOU insist on fighting us on the basis of the new law, suing us etc., it will also be the Christians who suffer. I gather this IS what you want so I'm right that you seek to punish us for your suffering due to God's law. Those who share the biblical view I'm talking about will not give in so you can sue us and drive us out of business to your heart's content.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I guess I COULD wait until the gestapo come to my door before saying anything, but it's always best to object to an unjust law before it comes to that.

As you yourself said, yes it costs all lawbreakers. Homosexual acts break GOD's law, we're only breaking a human law that itself violates God's law.I'm quite aware that you suffer from all this, but that doesn't make you right about the legal situation. You are still in the wrong and now supporting the punishment of people who follow God's law makes you all the more in the wrong.I grant that you are in a very difficult position. I don't know what the solution is, but punishing God isn't going to help you in the end. It would be nice to find a way to help you with your being bullied without having laws that merely turn the suffering against Christians, but I don't know what that would amount to. I can agree that nobody should bully or mistreat you, of course.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.