Wedding cakes, gays and the image of God

The outcry over Indiana’s religious freedom law – misinformed as it clearly has been – is an opportunity for conservatives to back up a little – or maybe a lot – and critically examine a lot of things it seems we are expected to take for granted.  But it is important that we also call for the same reflection from our neighbors who otherwise do not identify as conservatives.

I’ll start there; the last 40 years at least has seen a progressive erosion of what we as social conservatives generally believe are foundational liberties.  There seems to have been a movement away from freedom “of” religion and toward freedom “from” religion.

{mosads}I will ask my “non-conservative” neighbors to reflect on these questions:  Where would we be today, 150 years removed from the disgrace of slavery, if it had not been for the religious convictions of those like William Wilberforce who boldly took his Evangelical convictions into public policy debates arguing for the abolition of slavery?  Or of John Newton – the author of the hymn “Amazing Grace” – who when writing the words “…that saved a wretch like me…” was writing of the wretchedness of the slave trade – and of his prior life as a slave trader?

I will ask the ladies among my readers: Where would we be today if not for the Evangelical Christian women’s movement that has morphed into today’s feminism?  The ‘first wave’ of the movement began with the campaign to abolish slavery and ended with winning the right of women to vote.

I will ask my African-American neighbors: Was not Dr. Martin Luther King animated by his Christian convictions in his fight for civil rights?  What restrained the African American community from meeting violence with violence if not this leadership from Christian convictions?

I raise these questions to make this point: To lead from religious convictions in the arena of public policy is not to attempt to force one’s religion on others.  Leading from a foundation of moral convictions is not the same as attempting to lead toward the imposition of one’s conscience on others.

But it is exactly this distinction that seems lost among social conservatives today.  Here is what I mean:

The matter of baking a cake for, or taking photos of, a gay wedding ought to be a question of conscience.  I believe a Christian baker ought to be free to decide whether or not to bake a wedding cake as his or her conscience leads.  To say that this is no different than refusing to serve a black family at Denny’s is disingenuous and ridiculous.  The closer we examine the biology and genetics of race, the more similar we appear.  The closer we examine the biology and genetics of gender and sexuality, the more different we appear.  The design – whether you reason that it results from creation or evolution – of human sexuality, with the anatomy of the man being what it is, and the anatomy of the woman being what it is, is obvious without recourse to any religion’s scriptures.

But, having said that, my faith teaches me that my gay neighbor is created in the image of God, as am I.  Before I reason to any other conclusion, I reason that I am obligated to 1) show the image of God to my gay neighbor; and 2) see in him or her (or them) the image of God.

I believe we reflect that image no more clearly than when we are doing something we excel at, investing the very best of what we are capable of.  So, let’s say my passion is for baking cakes and I have chosen to make a business out of it.  I reflect that image best when I am making the finest cake I possibly can.  Now let’s say a gay couple in a state which allows gay marriage asks me to bake a cake for them.  Is my conscience allowed to lead me to love the image of God into their lives by making the finest cake possible?

Unequivocally, and gladly welcoming the criticism of the righteous among us, my answer is yes.

Not only do I believe a Christian baker ought to be free to follow their conscience either way on this question, I will state here that for my conscience, I believe the decision to love the image of God into their lives by baking the finest cake possible is the superior choice.

My point in writing is this: It seems the social conservative narrative is that a Christian baker agreeing to bake that cake is somehow endorsing gay marriage, elevating the homosexual lifestyle to a place of moral equivalence to heterosexuality, or participating in sin.  I think this is nonsense – and I suspect a lot of others do as well.  More of us who love freedom should so speak out.

I still believe that 5000+ years of moral reasoning to the heterosexual complement of nature provides the safest foundation for a society which seeks to protect the most vulnerable.  That inescapably means I believe homosexuality is unnatural, and therefore sinful.  But I am no less broken by tendencies toward sin than my homosexual neighbor.  Yet we both still bear the image of God. And this means nothing if not that we bear the responsibility to show that image to each other.  I have been freed by Amazing Grace for this purpose.  My hope is that my gay neighbor might be also.

But I refuse to look for that hope in the winning of an argument; it simply will not be found there.  I look for that hope in the excellence of whatever it is I can do to love the image of God into my neighbor, gay or straight.  If that were the baking of a cake, then bake a most excellent cake I would.

Horst is author of Community Conservatives and the Future: The Secret to Winning the Hearts and Minds of the Next Conservative Generation and blogs at http://www.communityconservatives.com.  Horst is Treasurer of the Mira Mesa Town Council in San Diego and Chairman of the Mira Mesa Community Planning Group.  He works as a software engineer and is married with two high school age boys.