A committee of the Southern Baptist Convention has published a pamphlet teaching members how to subvert civil laws against discrimination. The main idea is to pretend all church employees are ministers so they can use the ministerial exemption.
Friendly Atheist has the info on the pamphlet:
The writers don’t really have an issue with non-discrimination measures for religion or race, but they argue that adding gender identity or sexual orientation to that list somehow uniquely compels an endorsement of those characteristics. How so? How is a homophobic Christian any more affected by these measures than, say, a racist Christian would be by laws protecting people of color?
But that’s how the argument goes. The manual goes on to cite instances of this alleged persecution — that these laws attempt to compel “Christian photographers, bakers, and florists to participate in same-sex ceremonies.” As if selling a product to a couple means “participating” in their wedding in any meaningful way.
Essentially, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Council is advising religious people to behave in some decidedly unethical ways to subvert the intention of the law. They bolster this with a reference to the Hosanna-Tabor case, in which the Supreme Court ruled that a Lutheran teacher’s job was ministerial work.
Southern Baptist Manual Offers Suggestions on How to Get Around LGBT Anti-Discrimination Laws
The suggestions were written with the misnamed Alliance Defending Freedom group and you would think the lawyers there would see how wrong the suggestion to pretend to be a minister is in the long term.
Back in the day, religious conservatives complained that laws protecting from race and sex discrimination would be the downfall of their religion but they made peace with it once it became clear such complaints never came true.
They will make peace with LGBT equality – eventually. Breaking the law is a bad idea and not a very religious way to deal with something one doesn’t like.
