Wake-up Calls: Defending Our Religious Freedoms

breakpointFrom John Stonestreet at Breakpoint:

Threats against religious liberty and freedom of conscience are no longer theoretical—they’re real, and they’re growing. Just ask Jack Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Denver, who declined to make a wedding cake for two men who got “married” in Massachusetts.

Phillips said this would violate his Christian beliefs, and there are other shops who would make the cake. But Colorado’s new law on civil unions does not provide religious protections for businesses, so Phillips is being hauled before Colorado’s Civil Rights Commission. If heloses, he faces fines of up to $500 per case and a year in jail. Phillips’ attorney says that forcing him to “choose between his conscience and a paycheck . . . is intolerable.” But that’s a choice that same-sex “marriage” is forcing upon those of us with traditional religious beliefs. The once rhetorical question “how will gays getting married affect you?” is being answered all around us.

And the Obama administration is still requiring Catholic charities and other religious institutions to provide their employees with insurance for abortion inducing drugs—or face crippling fines.

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Philadelphia says, “The day when Americans could take the Founders’ understanding of religious freedom as a given is over. We need to wake up.” Chaput is responding to the latest revelations in the IRS scandal. It’s not just conservative political groups that were targeted. The Alliance Defending Freedom has released a tape of an IRS agent telling a pro-life Texas group that they can’t “force” their religious beliefs on others. How handing out brochures is forcing anything on anyone is not explained.

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