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 Conservative Christians say their churches have been unprepared for cultural shifts on same-sex marriage.
June 28th, 2013
06:19 PM ET
Conservatives brace for `marriage revolution'By Daniel Burke, CNN Belief Blog Co-Editor (CNN) - With its ivy-covered entrance and Teddy Bear bouquets, Arlene’s Flowers seems an unlikely spot to trigger a culture-war skirmish. Until recently, the Richland, Washington, shop was better known for its artistic arrangements than its stance on same-sex marriage. But in March, Barronelle Stutzman, the shop’s 68-year-old proprietress, refused to provide wedding flowers for a longtime customer who was marrying his partner. Washington state legalized same-sex marriage in December. An ardent evangelical, Stutzman said she agonized over the decision but couldn’t support a wedding that her faith forbids. “I was not discriminating at all,” she said. “I never told him he couldn’t get married. I gave him recommendations for other flower shops.” Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson disagreed, and filed a consumer protection lawsuit against Arlene’s Flowers. The ACLU also sued on behalf of the customer, Robert Ingersoll, who has said Stutzman’s refusal “really hurt, because it was someone I knew.” Among conservative Christians, Stutzman has become a byword - part cautionary tale and part cause celebre. Websites call her a freedom fighter. Tributes fill Arlene’s Facebook page. Donations to her legal defense fund pour in from as far away as Texas and Arkansas. “For some reason, her case has made a lot of people of faith worry,” said Stutzman’s lawyer, Dale Schowengerdt of the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal group. Those anxieties have only increased, conservative Christians say, since the Supreme Court struck down part of the Defense of Marriage Act and opened the door to gay marriage in California. Taking a line from Justice Antonin Scalia's sharp dissent, Southern Baptist scholar Albert Mohler said it’s only a matter of time "before the other shoe drops" – and the high court legalizes same-sex marriage from coast to coast. “Christians will have to think hard — and fast — about these issues and our proper response,” Mohler wrote on Wednesday. “We will have to learn an entire new set of missional skills as we seek to remain faithful to Christ in this fast-changing culture.” His fellow Southern Baptist Russell Moore put the matter more succinctly. “Same-sex marriage is coming to your community.” `The debate is over' Well before the Supreme Court’s rulings, many conservative Christians said they saw the writing - or the poll numbers - on the wall. Survey after survey shows increasing support for same-sex marriage, especially among young Americans. That includes many religious believers. Most Catholics and mainline Protestants, not to mention many Jews, support same-sex relationships, according to surveys. The bells of Washington National Cathedral pealed in celebration on Thursday. Even among those who oppose gay marriage, many think it’s a losing battle. Seventy percent of white evangelicals believe that legal recognition for gay nuptials is inevitable, according to a June poll by the Pew Research Center, though just 22 percent favor it. “The gay marriage debate is over,” said Jonathan Merritt, an evangelical writer on faith and culture. “Statistically, all the numbers move in one direction.” Young Christians have grown up in a far more diverse culture than their forebears, Merritt noted, and many have befriended gays and lesbians. Pew found that more than 90 percent of Americans overall personally know someone who is gay or lesbian, a 30 percent increase since 1993. “It’s far easier to wage war against an agenda than it is to battle a friend,” Merritt said. At the same time, many conservative young Christians say they’re weary of the culture wars, and of seeing their communities labeled “judgmental.” When Christian researchers at the Barna Group asked Americans aged 16-29 what words best describe Christianity, the top response was “anti-homosexual.” That was true of more than 90 percent of non-Christians and 80 percent of churchgoers, according to Barna. Tired of being told the country is slouching toward Gomorrah, many young Christians have simply tuned out the angry prophets of earlier generations, evangelical leaders say. “The shrill angry voices of retrenchment are no longer getting a broad hearing either in the culture at large or in the evangelical community,” Merritt said. But the battle over same-sex marriage is far from over, said Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage. “I don’t believe most Christians are going to give up the fight,” said Brown, who is Catholic. He said his movement includes many young evangelical and Orthodox Christians. “And they are more energized than ever.” Love thy gay neighbors Energized or not, conservative Christians must prepare for the moral dilemmas posed by the country’s growing acceptance of same-sex marriage, said Moore, the new president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. “Is Your Church Ready for the Marriage Revolution?” Moore asked, while promoting a special session on homosexuality at the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting in Houston in June. Many evangelical pastors have seen homosexuality as a distant culture-war battle that’s fought far from the doors of the churches, Moore said. Now, it’s as close as their front pews. “I think it’s not so much that churches haven’t wanted to talk about it,” he said, “but they haven’t recognized how much the culture has changed around them.” The first step, said Moore, is learning to defend traditional marriage without demonizing gays and lesbians. Walking through Washington’s Union Station last Thursday, Moore said he saw several lesbian couples kissing in celebration of the Supreme Court rulings. “If we can’t empathize with what’s going on in their hearts and minds, we’re not going to be able to love and respect them.” Then come a host of secondary questions: How should conservative pastors minister to same-sex couples? Should Christians attend same-sex weddings? Should florists like Barronelle Stutzman's agree to work with gay couples? `Don't give in'  Florist Barronelle Stutzman. In the 17 years she’s owned Arlene’s Flowers, Stutzman said, she’s worked with a number of gay colleagues. “It really didn’t matter if they were gay, or blue or green, if they were creative and could do the job,” she said. Stutzman suspects that some of her eight children privately don’t agree with her on homosexuality, even as they publicly support her decision. Online, Stutzman has been called a bigot, and worse. She said she’s lost at least two weddings because of her refusal to provide services for the same-sex marriage. Conservative activists say her case is the first of what will surely be many more, as gay marriage spreads across the country. As she gets ready to face a judge, the silver-haired florist offered some advice for fellow evangelicals. “Don’t give in. If you have to go down for Christ, what better person to go down for?” soundoff (5,210 Responses)« Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 Next »
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The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.  |
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If Florist Stutzman could just remember that she is simply selling a product – flowers, how the customer uses them belongs to the customer. I wonder how many flowers she may have sold to Gay folk?
I guess she feels she can sell to them as long as they are in the closet.
The gays are still only 2% of the population, but look at how CNN shamelessly pushes their agenda. CNN is a wicked organization.
Like Fox News doesn't push an extreme agenda at all? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA you've been brainwashed.
More like 4-6%, but who am I to quibble?
marriage equality is coming, louie
equality only bothers bigots
welcome to the wrong side of history
So gays, then, are wicked? You are one tortured individual.
4-7% of the population, but the way the lib news outlets cover it you would think it is 50% of the population.
errr it was the Supreme Court which decided these cases.
Where do you get that statistic?? And percentages do not matter when it comes to equal rights. People do not choose what their sexual orientation is...it is only the bigoted christards who thik this way and they only think this way due to a 2000 year old book that doesn't count for anything when it comes to the laws that matter.
CNN is the official and exclusive news source for the U.S. Supreme Court. CNN – The most trusted name is news.
Oh, Dear Elliot Carlin, you've missed the point again. One's " courtesy " is not the issue.
Christians are why i quit going to church.
They assume they are moral.
They talk like they are moral.
They think they are moral because they get on their knees for their god every Sunday.
Unfortunately, they do not live their lives as moral people do. They support hate and bigotry. What ever happened to loving your neighbor? Not judging? Loving your enemy? Turning the other cheek?
The bible is as much anti-gay, racist, and pro slavery as it is about love. Christians prove this through their actions.
THAT is most of the reason young people are leaving the church.
Exactly
They do love you.You will still go to hell this is why they want you to change.I have also never met a christian who thinks they have the greatest morals the ones I know believe they sin everyday and this is why they go to church.Please understand faith and trying to be christian.Openly being gay and not trying to change is not.
I have lived all over this country including California and have never met so many "traditional" conservative Christians on their second, third, fourth, fifth "traditional" marriage as I have since moving to the Deep South.
I could not agree more. I don't want to worship God in a temple of hate.
I guess this is what conservatives get for insisting from the beginning that the government recognize their rituals. Now, they have to share it with everyone.
It's not a Christian country. It's a secular country, that allows freedom of and from religion. Christians have NEVER understood or come to grips with that simple fact. Perhaps now it will begin to sink in. Long past time.
Why do you think it is just christian's that think you lifestyle is sick.Everybody who is against it are not christian.
Go back 50 years; people used the same justification for not serving someone in a restaurant becuse of their race or color..... Ignorance and bigotry have always been wrapped in quasi-moral justifications.
Hey, remember back in the sixties when soap operas were on tv and there was a commercial
for perfume called 'My Sin'? Those shows were pretty funny. Love the theme song.
The gays don't realize it, but they are pushing the USA toward not just moral suicide, but also total suicide.
I always think of the underpants gnomes from South Park when I hear this argument. Step one: gay marriage. Step two: something. Step three: the downfall of America! But...what was step two?
Welcome aboard.
"the sky is falling! the sky is falling!" – louie
Who truly cares. The people that will benefit the most from this is divorce attorneys. They now have a few million more couples to exploit in divorce cases. This is the headline when in the scheme of what is wrong with place is almost nothing. Debt, wars, healthcare, immigration, taxes, etc etc are all bigger problems we face. Could care less with who sleeps with who etc etc. This is a nice little distraction that like many other things to keep people distracted.
We support you Barronelle Stutzman. You are conservative if you stand up for what is right, but you are open minded if you allow anything and everything. What a shame...
People said exactly the same things after Loving v. Virginia in 1967. The sky didn't fall then either. Christians will adapt using the same techniques they've always used when our culture evolves and outdated ideas fall by the wayside. They've done it countless times already. This is nothing more than the last, desperate gasps by those who fear change. The world will keep rolling right on past them, as always.
Yes, and 50 years ago, she might have done the same thing to a black-and-white couple.
And 75 years ago, she'd have done the same thing to a couple who didn't both belong to the Baptist church.
Isn't it nice that we've evolved.
Ultimately, we live in a pluralistic society, and if that society chooses to embrace this particular lifestyle, so be it. Perhaps what bothers me the most however, is the animosity, malevolence and misrepresentation of those who simply believe it to be morally wrong.
Who are you to judge, devin, isn't that your mythical god's gig, so shut the fvck up already.
There is a false dichotomy that gets touted between "gay rights supporters" and "traditional marriage supporters." Nobody is against traditional marriage. Nobody wishes for straight people to stop getting married or for their families to disintegrate. When you take up the mantle of a traditional marriage supporter, what you are really saying is that you get to vote on whether I am allowed to marry the person I love. Yes, that makes me mad. It would make anyone mad.
Romans 1:18–32 (NASB95)
18For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. 20For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. 21For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
22Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. 24Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. 25For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. 26For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, 27and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. 28And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, 29being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, 30slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; 32and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.
It's not a lifestyle any more than being hetero is. Educate yourself outside your belief before coming across as a bigot!!
Icarus
But the reason you are mad is because you disagree with our moral premise, not because we ( at least not most Christians) are bigoted, hateful individuals as many would depict.
Truth
Refer to my second sentence.
Devin: I'm not mad that we disagree. Disagreement is fine. I'm mad that your side sees itself as having the right to interfere in my life and my marriage. This is important: that makes sense to you, right?
if they kept it a moral issue, there would be no issue
once they make it a legal one, by deny others their rights, it becomes a problem
devin: It's the use of the word lifestyle. Being attracted to someone of the same gender is not a lifestyle.
Only in the same sense we feel the need to "interfere" in situations of polygamy, adultery, incest, etc.. These are all issues of morality, not unwarranted persecution.
Devin,
wake up. Learn history.
This is EXACTLY the same thing people like you said about giving women and black people the same rights as while land owning men.
Alias
As much as I realize it serves your purpose to equate the issues, it just simply is not the case. Apples and oranges.
No, those are issues of consent and harm, at least from a legal standpoint. I really object to people using their moral standards as a conversation stopper, and then as a veto. It's great that you are informed by morals. I am as well. But go deeper: what is so offensive about gay marriage that it violates your morals? Because for me it upholds the values of commitment, fidelity and consent that marriage is exactly supposed to represent. And even if we ultimately disagree on our guiding principles, at the end of the day it simply isn't fair that the state should interfere to the point that you get to go home to your spouse while I have to go home to my "partner." Even if you think my relationship is less than yours, that doesn't mean the state needs to arbitrate that belief for you.
After this, I'll stop beating this dead horse. As I've already alluded to, this ultimately comes down to this concept of the subjectivity of truth. I just happen to believe that there is something (someone) outside of our realm of rationalism and reasoning, who has given us moral guidelines that are not subjective to the individual taste. Now if you reject the notion of any outside source of morality, I can understand that and we can just peacefully disagree. However, I can not divorce my morality from my sense of how I feel society should function. I do wish I could make you realize that I hold these views totally apart from any arrogance or self righteousness, but I'm guessing you could not be convinced.
Actually, I'm enjoying our discussion and don't perceive you as being disrespectful at all, and it is not my intent to call you arrogant or a bigot (I try to avoid those kinds of judgy labels because they just shut things down). But I do passionately disagree on this issue, which is why I'm responding. Thanks for having the conversation.
To your last point, what I would say is that if God exists in that kind of outside of time way, and his principles really are the pillars of our universe, then neither I nor the Supreme Court have any power to touch that. I'm just not as omnipotent as all that. God doesn't need you to defend him through the law: he even gave you an out with the whole "let Ceasar be Caesar" thing. If what you say is true, everything is going to be fine for you. All I'm asking, from that perspective, is the freedom to make my own mistakes.
"Only in the same sense we feel the need to "interfere" in situations of polygamy, adultery, incest, etc.. These are all issues of morality, not unwarranted persecution."
How and when does the government interfere in situations of adultery? I agree that it interferes with polygamy (though it shouldn't) and incest which has been proven to increase the risk of birth defects, but almost no adultery laws still exist. There were many states that did have adultery laws on the books at one time but because the Christians who voted them out didn't want to have to keep those laws themselves, but they felt fine still banning gays. It's this double standard that is the reason religion must get it's dirty hands away from our secular government.
Icarus
If there is one thing we can agree on, it's the idea that God does not need me to defend him. That was never my intent. In the same vein, whether or not everything is going to be "fine with me" is irrelevant. The cultural shift has happened and I imagine this is just the beginning of the "freedoms" you will have to make your own mistakes ( Your word not mine:).
Jesus never told anybody to mistreat people based on what they believe. And he lived in a time when culture accepted a lot of things not considered mainstream today.
Romans 1:18–32 (NASB95)
18For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. 20For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. 21For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
22Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. 24Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. 25For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. 26For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, 27and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. 28And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, 29being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, 30slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; 32and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.
"When Christian researchers at the Barna Group asked Americans aged 16-29 what words best describe Christianity, the top response was “anti-h o m o s e x u a l.” That was true of more than 90 percent of non-Christians and 80 percent of churchgoers, according to Barna."
I just glimpsed someone quoting the above earlier, and I really can not digest it! I don't know if it's a misquote or just a typo! If it is neither, I believe the poll is flawed!
You just can't have Christian majority describing Christianity with such negativity!
Yes you can when it's TRUE.
And THUS, we see quite graphically just HOW profoundly the CINOs (Christians in Name Only) of the RRR Cult have wrought grave damage upon the image of Christianity within American society. The "Nones" (people who profess NO religion) now number more than 1/5 of all who live in America and that number has been growing exponentially in recent years - while the percentage professing Christianity has been dropping precipitously. The CINOs DISobey Jesus command in Romans 13:8-10, and now we see the gleanings from that. The bigoted PSEUDO-Christians of the RRR Cult. have left this nation with faith-fields filled with CHAFF. The Barna Group has shown us just HOW warped society's perception of Christianity has become, due to its having been infused with 4 decades of lying and incessant propaganda.
Thankfully, though, America's ACTUAL Christians - who OBEY that commandment and thus are NOT bigots (and who vastly outnumber the RRR cultists, but not noticeably, because they are far quieter) have started to turn things around, beginning with Banner Day 11-6-12, when FAIRNESS won from coast-to-coast, with NO exceptions. And that finally is DOOMING the 40-year-long reign and infestation of the cult that the infamous Jerry Falwell hatched, by marshalling his so-called "Moral Majority." Which NEVER was either moral nor a majority.
The shop owner decided not to take a job because of her own personal beliefs. She states that it was a tough choice for her. Words like hate and bigotry are being thrown around. I feel that the shop owner is the one who is being attacked here.
I would agree, these are the wrong words. They are unkind and helpful. However, unless they were checking for prior marriages (Luke 16:18), they are hypocrites. And sadly, most of us fall into that category more often than we'd like.
So she should be allowed to not serve minorities? Elderly people? Have a whites only and blacks section? Yeah, let's just do away with civil rights, they're over-rated and they don't allow a persons bigotry to shine through.
classic conservative argument....accuse the other side of doing what you've done for years and then feign indignity...its over, you lost the war, and the world is a better place now....
Did she refuse service to people that shave, or eat shell fish, or eat fat, or lied, or carelessly made an oath, or wear clothes with more than one type of cloth, or adulterers, or non-christians, or people that have stolen ... etc, etc, etc ... all FORBIDDEN acts. She was very selective in her faith, which ironically makes her a sinner ... so she shouldn't even serve herself. She is a bigot and to someone that she knew and provide services to already .... she is a bad human being.
Folks are calling Stutzman a "Freedom fighter". They're right - she certainly is fighting freedom.
+1
Oh Dear GOD, please allow a true Conservative Christian to be elected in 2016 so the evil doers can be banished to hell like your enemy Lucifer so many eons ago. The gays have corrupted our children and our families and wreaked our economy. Please thy will be done.
AMEN
Sam you are an obvious troll with no education to speak of.
Sam isn’t particularly OBSERVANT, either, since anout a week befor the election, last year, God provided us with the most dramatic manifestation of the way He could choose to SPARE America from tyranny, in all of our lifetimes! And most people, Sam included, never put two and two together to see the OBVIOUS.
Superstorm Sandy was UNIQUE, and the timing was impeccable! Romney had been gaining steadily in the polls, and had that storm not derailed his momentum, he probably would be become President. And THEN he would have had four years in which to POISON the US Supreme Court with appointments that would have turned its majority AWAY from supporting human rights for the first time in American history. But now, with Obama in the White House, the appointments will be egalitarian ones, and that will guarantee a tyranny-free America for the next 40 years.
So WAS Superstorm Sandy an act of Divine Intervention? Consider these points in my NEXT post, and then YOU decide:
Our economy was "wreaked"? Why is it that fundamentalists can never spell anything correctly? Does it point to a basic lack of anything resembling an education?
Yes. Yes it does.
I'd love to claim that the gay gives me all the superpowers you describe, but I'm afraid I'm actually a whole lot more...well, not omnipotent.
A christard president can't use his beliefs in a secular country to deny equals rights to people. You're just going to have to suck it up and accept that you're not on the right side of history and whether bigots like you approve or not the LGBT are not going away. No harm will come to your precious little ones-gay is not contagious; no harm will come to you on any level. The only harm coming to children is ignorance, bigotry and hate taught by people like you.
When are you freakin' criztians going to accept the fact that the majority of the world does not believe your god exists or care if it does? Why do you think the rest of us should base our lives on what you think your god demands? Unbelievable. I just don't understand why or how your ignorance & arrogance has been allowed to dictate this country's laws for so long.
A agree.
I hear Bashar al-Assad is looking for a new gig. His religious and political viewpoints might align nicely with yours.
The country needs to step back and take a look t itself. Reading some of these comments and how harsh they are just gives us a glimpse at how willing we are to tear ourselves to shreds over what should be a simple issue. Even if you do not support the cause, there is no need to snap at everyone who opposes your viewpoint.
Amen to that.