Stan Moody:
One of the wisest proverbs I ever heard in my time in Christian ministry was this: “All sin goes back to, ‘I want to be somebody’”. America has no regal authority but is nonetheless ruled by the iron hand of 9 folks who have, by whatever means possible, reached the pinnacle of power and success under the assumption of unparalleled judicial brilliance. Whether that might lead to objective opinion is up to the classic “jury”, of which there is none. SCOTUSland is irrefutable!
Roe v. Wade and Beyond:
Having effectively overturned Roe v. Wade, a 1973 opinion by 7 male jurists, who in their great wisdom divined that the life of a fetus begins at 24 weeks and that criminal liability of one who has an abortion would be an invasion of privacy, where do we go from here? …back to the criminal liability of a woman who takes a bus to a neighboring state with abortion rights? …on to taking a run at criminalizing the sale of birth control medication?
Wedding Cake Case:
The 2018 case, Masterpiece Cakeshop, LTD., et al., Petitioners v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, et al., ruled that, while the Constitution can, and sometimes must, protect gay persons and couples from discrimination, religious objections to gay marriage are also protected. The court ruled in favor of the right of a wedding cake designer to refuse service to a gay couple on grounds of religious beliefs. Where do we go from here? …to a wedding website case!
Wedding Website Case:
The 2023 “Wedding-cake-in-the-face” case, 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, codified the right of a might-wannabee web designer to refuse service to a reportedly fake gay customer, all orchestrated under the legal guardianship of Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian nationalist law project. Considering that the plaintiff lacked even a modicum of standing before the Court and that the referenced customer is now reported to be a happily-married straight man with a child, there is yet no recourse for reversal. Where do we go from here? Madam Justice Sotomayor suggested in her dissenting opinion that the logical extension thereof is that of a conservative photographer refusing to photograph an interracial couple or a funeral home refusing to handle the body of a gay person.
Is There Room Here for the Kingdom of God?
Will we soon be treated to the wisdom of a straight couple being refused a wedding cake because they have had premarital sex, or might that be too threatening to the bottom line? How about refusing wedding invitation designs and printing to Mormons, Episcopalians, or Muslims?
Applying WWJD, “What would Jesus Do”, can we assume that the feeding of the 5,000 would never have happened had there been a gay person there? On the other hand, applying the Gallup US measure of LGBT adults at 7.2%, a crowd of 5,000 may have included up to 360 gays. There were 12 baskets left over, meaning that everyone had their fill.
This all drives me further into another realm that encourages the option of exercising love of neighbor while leaving judgment to Other. Too many Evangelicals having dropped out of the Abundant Life, what would we do without the ongoing amusement of witnessing vain attempts to build God’s kingdom on earth, wedding cakes, websites, Supreme Court justices, and all?