Sunday, December 10, 2017

The 3 - December 10, 2017

In this week's edition of The 3, spotlighting three stories of relevance to the Christian community, there is the story of the United States now recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.  Also, the Parliament of Australia has decided to legalize gay marriage.  And, the case of a baker who would not provide a customized cake for a ceremony celebrating a gay wedding went before the U.S. Supreme Court this week.

3 - U.S. recognizes Jerusalem as capital of Israel

This week, President Trump announced that the United States now recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.  A piece on The Stream website stated the Trump...
...instructed the State Department to begin preparations to move the United States Embassy from Tel Aviv. The historic announcement fulfills both his own campaign promise as well as the promise America made with 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act. That Act, passed with broad bipartisan support, recognized Jerusalem and declared the U.S. would move its Embassy there within four years. However, presidents from Clinton to Obama have signed waivers stopping the move. President Trump did so himself six months ago.
According to the article, in his announcement, the President said:
After more than two decades of waivers, we are no closer to a lasting peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.
It would be folly to assume that repeating the exact same formula would now produce a different or better result.
Therefore, I have determined that it is time to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
Columnist for The Stream, Michael Brown wrote:
Jerusalem is the historic capital of the Jewish people, going back to roughly 1,000 BC. Jews face Jerusalem when they pray and synagogues in the West face East. Every year at Passover, the hopeful prayer is recited, “Next year in Jerusalem!” And in terms of functional reality, Jerusalem is the capital of the nation. There’s nothing to discuss or debate. As the President said, that’s reality, plain and simple.
Brown also believes that God will bless the President for what he calls a "bold and courageous move." He gives four reasons:
  1. On doing so the president is blessing Israel. God still blesses those who bless His covenant nation, despite that nation’s sins.
  2. Out of all the cities on the earth, the Bible only calls us to pray for the welfare of Jerusalem (see Psalm 122; Isaiah 62:1-8).
  3. The tremendous resistance to the president’s decision gives evidence to the intensity of the spiritual battle over this city.
  4. There are prophetic scriptures that speak of a Jewish Jerusalem welcoming back the Messiah. So the decision to fortify the unity of the city is in explicit harmony with those Scriptures (see especially Zechariah 12 and 14).
2 - Australian Parliament approves gay marriage

Gay marriage is now legal in Australia, as the result of votes in both chambers of the nation's Parliament, following a mail-in survey that occurred a few weeks ago.  According to Life Site News, the bill passed the lower house of Parliament "almost unanimously," after having passed the Senate.

The report states:
The new law deletes “the union of a man and a woman” from the definition of marriage and inserts “the union of two people” in its place. Australia already had “equality” laws giving special status to homosexuals in the workplace, and for government benefits and tax laws.
Significantly, none of the promised amendments protecting freedom of conscience, religious liberty, and parental rights were allowed. All opposition concerns were defeated, including the right of parents to opt out of homosexual or transgender indoctrination in schools.
The story also points out, based on an earlier article on the site:
The path to legalization came via a referendum sent through the mail to all registered voters. Nearly 62 percent of returned forms favored gay “marriage.”
Although the postal referendum was an end-around after 22 legislative attempts to legalize homosexual “marriage” failed, former Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the popular vote was the best avenue for a country to take.
The Life Site story quotes from current Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who said, according to The Hill: “This is Australia: fair, diverse, loving and filled with respect,” adding, “For every one of us this is a great day.”

1 - Baker's case goes before high court

This past Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court held oral arguments on the Masterpiece Cakes case, which involved a Colorado cake baker named Jack Phillips, who declined to provide a customized cake for a ceremony celebrating a gay marriage.  He was represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom and the U.S. Department of Justice had entered the case on his side.

Issues at stake in the case were framed by Emily Belz of WORLD Magazine, who made these comments about the conflict at hand:
Would providing an accommodation to religious bakers like Phillips undermine civil rights laws? Was it compelled speech to require him to put out a cake that conveys a certain message? Is a wedding cake a form of speech, and what counts as speech? Is a wedding hair stylist using expression in hairdos?
Belz writes:
Alliance Defending Freedom’s Kristen Waggoner, arguing her first Supreme Court case, had clearly prepared for an array of hypotheticals. A premade cake is not speech (“it’s already been placed in a stream of commerce”), so Christian cake bakers should sell any generic wedding cakes off the shelves to gay couples. A hairdo is not speech. Other forms of participation in a wedding ceremony, like delivering a cake in the event, would fall under a free exercise claim.
Justice Breyer stated: "We want some kind of distinction that will not undermine every civil rights law..." Waggoner contended, according to WORLD, that the "test was whether the objection is to a message (as she argues was the case with Phillips) or the person."

Ultimately, the case could come down to Anthony Kennedy, who has been sympathetic to religious freedom issues, but also wrote the majority opinion in the Obergefell decision legalizing so-called "same-sex marriage."  Belz points out that Kennedy said to the Solicitor General of Colorado: “Tolerance is essential in a free society, and tolerance is most meaningful when it’s mutual. It seems to me the state in its position here has been neither tolerant nor respectful of Mr. Phillips’ beliefs.”

As Belz said, "Kennedy was also critical of one commissioner’s remarks about Phillips’ religious freedom claims as 'despicable,' hinting that that might count as viewpoint discrimination."

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