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As a Christian, and as a human being, I feel compelled to speak out on some of the legislation and so-called “religious-freedom” laws (laws that allow businesses to refuse service to people based on sexual orientation due to an individuals “sincerely-held religious beliefs”) that have either been passed in places such as Indiana, or are making their ways to various governors’ desks as I write this.
I do not want to pretend for a moment that Jesus came into this world to be a politician or to be a legislator or to be a right-winger or a left-winger, liberal, or conservative. But now that Indiana Governor Mike Pence signed a “religious-freedom” law people, some Christian Politicians, GOP Candidate Ted Cruz being one of them, have openly supported this type of legislation. I want to ask Cruz, and any other Christian Politician who supports this law, the age old question: What would Jesus do?
Before I answer this question, I want to investigate the Bible to show reasonable back-up to support my answer. Those in support of these laws would contend that it is in line with their “sincerely-held religious beliefs” to not allow homosexuals into their restaurants, to serve meals to them, etc. But on the contrary, Mark 2: 16-17 says, “When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw [Jesus] eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: ‘Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ On hearing this, Jesus said to them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.’”
Jesus actually ate with sinners. He went into their homes, sat down at their tables, conversed with them, ate their food, drank their wine, and later some of these sinners became his disciples and apostles.
The idea that if Jesus were alive today he would refuse to give food to people simply because they are homosexual is not true, and it is quite sad that people believe this.
On another note, homosexuality seems to be put onto a pedestal – by some – as the gravest sin a person can commit. But in reality, there is no evidence of this. In fact, Jesus said that we are all sinners. Pride, envy, greed, lust, wrath, and even negativity are all considered sin. Would Jesus refuse to feed or provide a service to people because they are sinners? If that is the case, then why did he feed 5,000 of them? And why did he say that he came to help the broken sinners that every person who has ever lived is?
Yet there are laws being passed that allow people to use their beliefs to refuse to provide service to people because they are gay. In all honesty, if your sincerely-held belief is, “they are sinners, and it is against my religion to serve them.” Then I have to ask why you would serve anyone.
I am a sinner, you are a sinner, my church pastor is a sinner, my brother is a sinner, my parents are sinners, my teachers are sinners, and the people who choose to refuse service to people because they are sinners, are sinners.
The idea that refusing service to gay people is somehow what Jesus would want you to do is preposterous at best. Jesus ate with sinners and loved sinners, and when he died on the cross he did the ultimate service for all of us.
And all of us are sinners.
