For the better part of these last two years there has been coming a head on collision.
In one corner is a group who define their identity by the sexual anarchy they wish to engage in. They pursue absolute societal conformity, to ensure a right that is undefined in constitutional terms. Not satisfied with merely being tolerated by the culture, the activists in their midst seek to enforce perfected preferential status permanently.
In the other corner is a group who define their identity by what they believe. They pursue peace with their community, even with little belief of societal tolerance towards them. They take comfort in their right to believe as it has been specifically included in the most important law in modern history. Only now in the final moments before a head on collision are they realizing that mere survival requires an activism few of them are accustomed to.
People hoping to continue to experience religious freedom are running headlong into people who wish to shut down the voice of any person who may disagree--even privately--with their sexual appetite.
This last week demonstrably proved that the "rights to have sex without disagreement" side is putting a beating on people "seeking to merely practice their faith free of intrusion" side.
The sad thing is--on multiple levels--it is the fault of Christians themselves that faith-based people find themselves in this dilemma.
For leftists there is little distinction between political, cultural, and theological leftism. All of them share the vision of corporately using government to force the individual to conform to the moral norms that they establish.
On the right while there are similarities in those arenas, the political right is often less serious about cultural issues, and cultural warriors are less fussy about theological purity.
As a result Christians--who have the most to lose with the loss of religious liberty--have begun to be co-opted by politically and culturally conservative colleagues who do not share their intensity in matters of faith.
To the left faith just doesn't matter. There are no objective definitions of God, good, evil, sin, hell, judgment, heaven, salvation, etc.
The default position for most of them is "do more good things than bad" and God will let you in. (If they hold that God is even there, or that he cares.)
Over the last several election cycles, people of faith have also been tricked by political leftists. President Obama appeared at Saddleback church in 2007 and made people believe that he wasn't a hardened pro-abort, and that he stood solidly behind protecting the institution of marriage. Both tricks worked, and people believed something about him that was not true.
Sadly though the failure of the apathetic or uninformed Christians was only part of what contributed to the fall of religious liberty.
Sometimes those who very much know better cave to the left out of sheer white knuckle compromise of their long held beliefs.
They do so because they fear man more than God.
Governors Mike Pence and Asa Hutchinson, for no reasons of substance--and attempting to come to some strange sort of Chamberlainesque genius are just such types. Hence they caved on the idea of actually explaining why they're versions of Religious Freedom Restoration Acts did not allow mistreatment of anyone, and in fact reinforced one of the most important constitutional ideas to ever exist.
Both men purport to be men of faith.
Oddly they seem nearly scared of believing it publicly.
Which brings us to the only real premise of this discussion that matters.
The free practice of one's faith is a sacred and divine right granted by God and reinforced in the United States Constitution. But if those who "practice" faith do not consider it important enough to their own lives to even defend it--who shall?
Atheists? The left? Those who think just $3 worth of God will get them by?
No... Serious defense of the free practice of faith will only occur by those who practice their faith seriously and holistically. America's sad decline in personal faith parallels the culture's eager enthusiasm to do away with religious liberties all together.
In other words if we're not living our faith, it's really unlikely that we are voting our faith. And the rest of the story writes itself from there.
The defense of our liberty to believe in God was a miraculous plank to our nation's founding.
Sadly... We are such an arrogant people that we no longer have much use for such miracles.
Just so long as we can bed whoever we wish without criticism.
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