There is as always, a struggle between an ostrich with its head in the sand and Chicken Little insisting the sky is falling. We are in the midst of a cultural free fall that has been going on for some time. The love that dare not speak its name has become the love that dares anyone to deny its legitimacy. The Obergefell decision by the Supreme Court in 2015 made homosexual “marriage” legal in all 50 states. On the one hand, this is culturally calamitous, a level of legal decadence unheard of in the sorry, sordid history of humanity. On the other hand, apart from genuine but isolated examples of suffering experienced by bakers, wedding photographers, and other businesses that cater to those getting “married” no great assault on the church has ensued.
The Equality Act may just change that. This bill, high on the priority list of the Biden administration, would add to existing law (including the 1964 Civil Rights Act) sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of “protected classes” of people. What’s wrong with that? Every Christian I know is quick to affirm that all humans bear the image of God, are due justice and should be treated with dignity and respect. So what’s the problem?
The problem is the marrying of the Equality Act with the scope and sweep of government. If, for instance, the government were not in the education business, the ideology behind the bill would not gain the force of law in the nation’s schools. If, for instance, the government did not take it upon itself to create public accommodation laws that strip businesses of their own God-given right to determine whom they wish to do business with, then the consciences of all involved would be protected. If, for instance, the government, through the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission weren’t in the business of making sure people don’t get their feelings hurt at work, then we would be free to call boys boys and girls girls without fear.
The Equality Act is an atom bomb in the culture wars, providing for progressives total victory and for Christians status as enemies of the state. It is the final piece of the plan, that starts with asking for, and then demanding acceptance, followed by asking for denying acceptance to the opposing view and now, demanding that Christians, the Christian faith, God’s Word be deemed beyond the pale, the equivalent of neo-nazis and subject to legal sanctions for being so.
The folly of writing law wherein certain classes of people are afforded “protections” that other classes of people are not has come home to roost. The sheer fact that in a “free” country we can even speak of protected classes is shocking enough. That those classes now include the mentally ill, that the law requires we accommodate by pretending to buy into that illness is actually quite natural. Progressives have been playing the long game for a long time, while conservatives have been playing the surrender slowly game for a long time. This is where it all leads.
A day is coming, not in some misty future, but in our own lifetimes, when affirming out loud that homosexuals are not married, that boys are not girls, that sex outside a husband married to a wife is sinful will not only get you kicked off twitter, but will get you fined or imprisoned. The Equality Act is the “made to” in the “You will be made to care.” The question is, how much of the church will embrace the spirit of the age, and how much will cling to the Spirit of the Ages?