Lux Lucet

The comments came fast. The comments came loud. The comments, to no one’s surprise, came in overwhelmingly

Mike Pence, Indiana Governor

negative. I’m speaking of the reaction among the movers and shakers to Indiana governor Mike Pence’s signing of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a piece of legislation widely understood as providing legal protection for business owners who refuse to service to homosexuals on religious grounds. Below is a sampling of comments from around the internet.

• “Apple is open for everyone. We are deeply disappointed in Indiana’s new law and calling on Arkansas Gov. to veto the similar #HB1228.” – Tim Cook, Apple CEO
  
• Some in my band are gay & we have 2 gigs in your state next month. Should we call ahead to make sure the hotel accepts us all?” – Broadway star Audra McDonald
  
• “Sad this new Indiana law can happen in America today. We shouldn’t discriminate against ppl bc of who they love” – Hillary Clinton
  
• “Cummins believes it’s bad for business and bad for Indiana and sends the message that the state is unwelcoming. We are a global company in a competitive environment and it could hinder our ability to attract and retain top talent.” – Spokesman for Indiana-based Cummins Engine
  
• “Today we are canceling all programs that require our customers/employees to travel to Indiana to face discrimination.” – Marc Benioff, Salesforce.com CEO
  
• “As a Hoosier, I’m deeply saddened and embarrassed. A government exists to protect its citizens; instead, it is legalizing their oppression.” – John Green, Children’s author
  
• “Outraged over Indiana Freedom to Discriminate law, signed today. LGBTs [Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transgender] aren’t 2nd class citizens.” -George Takei, Actor
  
• “Indiana’s anti-gay ‘Religious Freedom’ bill signed by Gov. Pence is absurd & insulting. This is 2015. Ridiculous.” – Talk show host Larry King
  
• “Indiana? Seriously? Really? Bravo Salesforce for taking a stand….Hope more companies follow.” Ashton Kutcher, actor
  
• “We are especially concerned about how this legislation could affect our student-athletes and employees.” – NCAA President Mark Emmet
  
• “Discrimination is any form is unacceptable to me. As long as anti-gay legislation exists in any state, I strongly believe big events such as the Final Four and Super bowl should not be held in those states’ cities.” Retired NBA star Charles Barkley
  
• “Let’s be 100-percent clear: Indiana’s brand new Religious Freedom Law is a measure that fell off the stupid tree and hit every branch on the way down.” – CNBC columnist Jake Novak
  

What is the Christian to make of all this? Elite opinion obviously has come out against Pence and the legislation he signed into law. But for the Christian, it is not elite opinion, but what Scripture teaches, that is normative. And when we examine Governor Pence’s act of signing the religious freedom bill, it becomes clear that he is in the right and his critics in the wrong.

The Role of the Civil Magistrate

In Romans Ch. 13, the Apostle Paul outlines the job of the civil magistrate. Magistrates have two functions we are told: they are to praise those who do what is good and punish those who practice evil. Beyond these two things, governors no legitimate authority.

One way governors praise what is good is by defending those whose conduct is upright. And we know a man’s conduct is upright if it comports with what the Law of God teaches. It is not the purpose of this post to examine in detail what the Bible has to say about homosexuality. That, Lord willing, is something I shall do at future date. But suffice it for now to say that homosexuality is unequivocally condemned in Scripture as not only a very serious sin, but it was also considered a crime in both the case law of Israel and in the United States. No one has the right to practice homosexual acts, neither should anyone, especially a Christian, lend his support to those who do.

The concern Christian business owners have over the militant homosexual movement is well founded. There have been several recent cases where Christian business owners have run afoul of the law for their refusal to provide services to gay weddings. A baker in Colorado and a photographer have been charged with violating their respective state’s anti-discrimination laws when they turned down work that would have involved them in a gay marriage ceremony. If these states had legislation of the sort signed into law by Gov. Pence, it is doubtful that these Christians would be undergoing what is in essence fascist persecution at the hands of state officials.

In signing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Gov. Pence did what is right: he praised those who do good by their refusal to give sanction to gross immorality.

The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrate

By his signing the bill, Gov. Pence not only praised the good, but he also fulfilled his duty as the lesser magistrate by standing up to overreach of the federal courts. The doctrine of the lesser magistrate is credited to John Calvin and states that, while it is not the part of private citizens to rebel against the governing authorities, a civil magistrate has the right, and indeed the responsibility, to prevent the abuse of the people by another government official who has overstepped his bounds. Calvin put it this way,

For if there are now any magistrates of the people, appointed to restrain the willfulness of

John Calvin

kings…I am so far from forbidding them to withstand, in accordance with their duty, the fierce licentiousness of kings, that, if they wink at kings who violently fall upon and assault the lowly common fold, I declare that their dissimulation involves nefarious perfidy, because they dishonestly betray the freedom of the people, of which they know that they have been appointed protectors by God’s ordinance (Institutes, IV, 33.31, Battles trs.).

In a ruling the Washington Post called lengthy and often sarcastic, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit overturned laws banning gay marriage in Wisconsin and Indiana in the fall of 2014. In what amounts to a sneering statement, judge Richard Posner of the Court wrote,

The only rationale that the states put forth with any conviction – that same-sex couples and their children don’t need marriage because same-sex couples can’t produce children, intended or unintended – so full of holes that it cannot be taken seriously.

Heterosexuals get drunk and pregnant, producing unwanted children; their reward is to be allowed to marry. Homosexual couples do not produce unwanted children; their reward is to be denied the right to marry. Go figure.

While the begetting of children is not the only reason states should recognize marriage contracts only between one man and one woman, it is a mystery to at least one author why this point should be dismissed out of hand by the judge. After all, having children is a normal part of what marriage is all about. That homosexuals cannot have children by natural means strongly suggests there may be a problem with the whole concept of gay marriage. But this, judge Posner tells us, cannot be taken seriously. Posner further shows his contempt for Christian marriage by illustrating his point with an example of a heterosexual couple who get drunk and have a child by accident. It would probably never occur to him to paint homosexuals in such a derogatory light.

Gov. Pence, by signing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act did not overturn the court’s ruling, but he did grant some measure of protection to Christian business owners in his state from having to bear the full fury of the vicious homosexual lobby, which has been loosed by the 7th Circuit Court’s ruling. For this, he is to be commended.

Involuntary Servitude

Perhaps it would be worth asking those who so self righteously denounce Mike Pence why they support slavery. “Slavery?,” they would likely ask. Yes, slavery. The main reason the homosexual rights crowd is upset with the new Indiana law would is that it prevents state and local governments in Indiana from forcing Christian business owners to serve homosexuals. If a photographer does not believe in homosexual marriage, he can freely turn down a request to take pictures of a lesbian wedding. But the homosexual lobby objects to this, believing that it has the right to use the force of law to make a Christian, against his moral convictions, to provide services to them. Or to put it still another way, homosexuals want the right to make Christians their slaves. This, of course, contradicts what is said in the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which reads,

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction (Section 1).

While one could make the case that forcing Christian business owners to serve homosexuals is, in the technical language of the Constitution, an example of involuntary servitude rather than out-an-out slavery, nevertheless when the law requires an innocent man to serve another, this is clearly an injustice according to the Constitution. It is an injustice even if it is limited in scope. It is a breaking of the eighth commandment. It is theft. It is, in fact, a form of slavery.

Marriage as Legal Contract

According to Doug Douma, Gordon Clark denied that the state had any proper involvement in marriage. For that matter, Clark apparently held that there was no place even for church involvement in marriage, maintaining that it was a private matter between two individuals or their families. Clark may very well have been right in this. It would be interesting to see his argument.

That said, historically marriage has been viewed as a, “contract based upon a voluntary private agreement by a man and a woman to become husband and wife” (Marriage, Cornell University Law School). Since marriage is a legal contract, “The Supreme Court has held that states are permitted to reasonably regulate the institution by prescribing who is allowed to marry and how the marriage can be dissolved” (ibid.).

If we grant that marriage is a legal contract, and that magistrates have a responsibility before God to praise the good and punish evil, then we have another reason for the state not only to protect the right Christians business owners to refuse service to homosexual couples, but also to prohibit gay marriage in the first place. For if homosexuality is inherently immoral and in fact deserving of criminal sanction (which it is), this means that gay marriage is also inherently immoral. It is a contract to do evil. And not only are governments not required to enforce contracts the terms of which are themselves immoral and illegal, they are in fact required to punish those who make and carry out such contracts.

Take, for example, the case of a hit man. He may contract with another party to kill someone. But if the hit man fails to do his job, or the other party fails to pay him, neither can go to a judge and seek damages. If he were foolish enough to do so, he would be arrested and charged with a crime, because the terms of the contract are themselves illegal. It is against the law to murder for hire, or to engage pay someone to carry out a murder.

In like fashion, homosexuality has historically, and quite properly, been considered both a sin and a crime. Because governors are charged with praising the good and punishing those who practice evil, and because America was historically a Christian nation which took this idea seriously, gay marriage was never an issue. But since America has largely rejected Christ for secular philosophy, there is no moral basis to deny the legitimacy of homosexuality or of gay marriage. Indeed, the logic of our current system requires that they be upheld, which explains the rapid social and legal acceptance of gay marriage in the 21st century.

Conclusion

America as a nation is undergoing a remarkably rapid transformation in its view of homosexuality. Indeed, it is a bit a shock to this author to see just how far opinion has swung in favor of homosexuality even over the past 20 years. What once was viewed as sinful, or at least aberrant, is now considered praiseworthy. This does not bode well for the future of our nation. In particular, Christians have already become targets of an increasingly aggressive homosexual lobby. And it is likely that the pressure will continue to mount in coming years.

But this should not be cause for despair among Christ’s people. It is our job to be salt and light to a lost and dying world. And the rise of the obviously ungodly gay rights movement, while posing a genuine threat to Christians, is also a great opportunity to witness the grace and truth of our Lord Jesus Christ. In his letter to the Philippians, Paul exhorted his readers thus,

Only let your conduct be worthy of the Gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of your affairs, that you stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the Gospel, and not in any way terrified by your adversaries, which is to them a proof of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that from God (Phil., 1:27-28)

As Dr. Paul Elliott points out, the Greek word translated “not in any way terrified” was used in other contexts, “to describe the stampeding of men and horses when they were frightened by the enemy in battle.” As Christians, we have every reason to be confident. As a nation, we still are blessed with magistrates such as Mike Pence, who are willing to intercede on behalf of Christians and defend them from the predations of those who hate them. But even more than that, as believers we have Christ as our Savior. And he has overcome the world. Along with the psalmist and with author of Hebrews we may boldly say, “The LORD is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?”