I know lots of Christians who take that view, Medicine4theDead, and it’s appealing for sure. As a non-Christian gay man, I very much appreciate your saying it.

From the point of view of my article, though, even if homosexuality were clearly condemned in the New Testament and even if Christians were on firm theological ground in morally condemning LGBTQ people (which I know a great many Christians don’t accept), Christians should STILL not have the right to use their religious beliefs to claim exemption from civil rights laws.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 doesn’t impose any burden on the free practice of religion believers by forbidding discrimination in the public sphere.That it does is a new-fangled legal concept that threatens to gut civil rights law in general.

If it’s unconstitutional to tell Christians that they can’t discriminate against gay people, then it must also be unconstitutional to tell Christians that they can’t discriminate against Jews or Muslims, or Black people and Asians.

And as I mentioned in the article, some Christians have already started down the path of discriminating against Jews using the legal arguments meant to discriminate against gay people.

It’s a big can of worms. And it’s open.