Kiss Religious Freedom Goodbye

I think pretty soon we’re all going to be able to be arrested on a new charge called “Working while Being Christian.” Look at these two stories about religious freedom and look how they essentially take almost mutually exclusive rulings both against Christians.

This from Lifesite:

The Wisconsin appeals court has upheld the sanctions against a Catholic pharmacist who refused to dispense contraceptive drugs on the grounds of religious conscience. On March 25, 3rd District Court Judge Michael Hoover ruled in favour of the decision of the Wisconsin Pharmacy Examining Board to reprimand Neil Noesen and place limits on his license.

Neil Noesen, a Catholic, was working as a substitute pharmacist at a K-mart department store in Menomonie, Wisconsin in the summer of 2002, when a young college student asked him to re-fill a prescription for hormonal contraceptives. Noesen refused to fill the prescription for the abortifacient drug or refer to another pharmacist who would comply with the request. When the woman took her prescription to a Wal-Mart pharmacist, Noesen refused to provide the Wal-Mart pharmacist with the prescription information.

The woman lodged a complaint and the Pharmacy Examining Board found Noesen had “engaged in practice which constitutes a danger to the health, welfare, or safety of a patient” and had “practiced in a manner which substantially departs from the standard of care ordinarily exercised by pharmacists and which harmed or could have harmed a patient.”

So as much as you might not like it the court ruled that the company has standards and you have to live up to them if you want to work for that company. But then get this:

Yesterday, a new ruling from the New Mexico Human Rights Commission ruled against a Christian woman who refused to photograph a same-sex marriage ceremony. As a Christian, Elaine Huguenin is against efforts to legitimize same-sex “marriage.” The Albuquerque photographer was asked via e-mail in September 2006 to photograph a “commitment ceremony” for two women. The photographer, Elaine Huguenin declined. That was the end of the matter, she thought.

And just yesterday the New Mexico Human Rights Commission held that this violated state anti-discrimination law. Elane has been ordered to pay over $6600 in attorney’s fees and costs.

But wait a second here. This is her own company. Can’t she do what she wants with her own company? No. The real basis for both of these rulings is simply anti-Christian. (Think for a moment if the local KKK meeting wanted some pretty portrait shots and a photographer refused, would a judge rule the photographer had no choice but to take the job? Of course not. So what we’re really talking about is the promotion of state-approved people and groups.)

This is the danger our culture is in. First the secularists said they only wanted prayer out of schools, and out of government, out of adoptions, and now it’s out of the workplace. Quite simply, if these rulings are upheld and taken to their logical end pretty soon it will simply be illegal to act as a Christian in public.