Thoughts on RFRA

I could be wrong, but...

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 rightly prohibited discrimination on the parts of companies that provide services (such as restaurants and hotels) based on things like race, creed, or ethnicity.

Federal law also rightly prohibits discrimination on the bases of such things as gender or age. (Thought such discrimination remains and is often difficult to prove.)

All of these prohibitions, in other words, ban discrimination or refusal to serve clientele on the basis of classifications.

And that is as it should be. Every American, including those who identify themselves as LGBT, should be protected against discrimination.

But the RFRA law in Indiana appears to have been about an entirely different subject altogether.

It was meant to ensure that businesspeople who have moral objections to gay marriage did not have to violate their consciences by being part of such a procedure.

People may disagree with such moral scruples. But just as I would hope that we would recognize the conscientious objection to war of someone seeking exemption from military service or the legitimate refusal of a businessperson not wanting to do business with the Ku Klux Klan, I also hope that we would recognize the right of conscientious objection to gay marriage. In America, no one should be forced by law to violate their conscience either in their personal or business lives.

Discrimination based on gender identification is immoral.

Commanding people to violate their consciences is immoral too. And deeply Un-American.

While admittedly I'm unaware of all the stipulations of RFRA, I cannot see how protecting people's right to exercise conscience threatens anyone's civil rights.

Who is "Pure in Heart"?

In studying the lesson on which I'll be preaching this Sunday, Matthew 5:1-12 (The Beatitudes), I've been looking at Dietrich Bonhoeffer's chapter on the passage in The Cost of Discipleship. I love what he says about, "Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God":

Who is pure in heart? Only those who have surrendered their hearts completely to Jesus that he may reign in them alone. Only those whose hearts are undefiled by their own evil-and by their own virtues too. The pure in heart have a child-like simplicity like Adam before the fall, innocent alike of good and evil: their hearts are not ruled by their conscience, but by the will of Jesus. 

The old saw about letting your conscience be your guide is foolish nonsense. Unless our consciences are guided by the God revealed in Jesus Christ, we will always drift into self-delusion, harm to ourselves and others, and dishonor to the One Who made us. (I know. Being an imperfect sinner, I "drift" a lot, which is why I repent--that is, turn back to Jesus for forgiveness and new direction and new life every day.)

Martin Luther famously told the Diet of Worms, "My conscience is captive to the Word of God." God grant that I will be just such a captive and so be set free to be an innocent child of God, my true self.