Full civil rights for blacks in the USA has been a positive for all Americans. Whites are better off with African-Americans not compelled to sit in the back of the bus or attend second-rate schools. The expansion of justice for black Americans has meant that white Americans don't have to fear an aggrieved under-class is going to break out in race riots. They are better off morally and spiritually in not treating some of their neighbors as inferiors. Civil rights for ethnicities is a positive sum game, meaning we all come out winners. "Freedom and justice for all"results in a positive gain for all.

But "gay rights" is different. With every expansion of "gay rights" comes a loss of freedom for others, particularly those who, whether for religious or purely rational reasons, refuse to acknowledge the functional and moral equivalency of homosexuality. It is a zero-sum-game, meaning when one side wins, the other loses. A baker or florist or photographer or reception hall owner who believes that homosexuality is wrong and does not want to offer his services to a homosexual wedding is now increasingly likely to be compelled to do so or face the loss of freedom to earn a living. Today people are facing the choice between whether to stay true to their beliefs or lend material support to a practice they regard as immoral.

Just here, the homosexual rights advocate will insist that this is no different than the white racist having to serve blacks at his lunch counter or let them sit at the front of the bus, if they so choose. The difference is that in no case was discriminating against blacks called for by a religion. Some misguided churches may have interpreted their religion that way but the pages of the Bible are quite clear that "in Christ there is no Jew nor Greek" (Gal. 2:28) that the Lord wants us to "do justice" (Micah 6:8). Even such churches that succumbed to the cultural sin of racism were the minority. The late Professor Robert Fogel, Nobel laureate, found that it was Christians who ended the institution of slavery. Other religions also do not call their adherents to oppress people based on race. I know of no major religion that supports racism. Hence, there never was a precedent of a religion encouraging people to oppress a race and that was over-ridden by the constitution's "equal protection" clause.

What we have now is something entirely new in US history: people's 1st amendment rights to practice their faith are being abrogated for the sake of furthering legal legitimization to a sexual preference. The Puritans came to America for the right to live and worship as they believed God had told them in the Bible. Now that right is being stripped from Christians in the nation they helped create. As homosexual rights increase; Christians' freedoms decrease.