Exploring the rocky reefs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All aboard! 🙂

Thanks for joining me again on this potentially perilous passage to prudent professional policies and practices in a progressively prurient population. (Sorry…I couldn’t help myself. There are so many good ‘p’ words.)

Yesterday I set off on a course to determine how a Christian should conduct business in this new world order where millennia-old concepts have been redefined and what was once rejected is now accepted and even celebrated. Today I want to explore the rocky reefs of This, Not That.

As a small-business owner I expect to be approached someday to provide a service for a same-sex wedding, so I’ve been giving this a lot of thought. And one of the first things my logic-loving mind began to turn over was the matter of consistency. If a provider refuses a service for a same-sex wedding because they believe a homosexual union to be a sin, should they not also refuse a heterosexual couple of whom one or both are divorced from a previous spouse? Jesus said, “whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.” – Matthew 19:9 So if I rent our party center to a remarrying couple, am I contributing to the sin of adultery? One might respond that we can’t know that there wasn’t infidelity, which would nullify the sin. But just a general knowledge of why couples divorce…doesn’t meet my needs, fell out of love, can’t agree on anything…makes it certain that at least some of those couples are entering into and/or celebrating an adulterous relationship in the eyes of God.

So I began exploring hypothetical situations to help myself perceive the parameters for principled party permits (I’m telling you…plethora of p words). And I made a list of events which I would confidently refuse to allow at our facility:

• filming or fundraising for pornography
• orgy
• Satanic ritual
• planning event for criminal activity
• actual criminal activity (I could be prosecuted for this)
• Ashley Madison meet-n-greet
• fundraiser for Planned Parenthood

And another of events I can or do allow:

• family picnic for pornographer
• any kind of family event for any kind of sinners
• events where people drink too much
• events where people are going to lie, boast, covet, etc.
• meeting of the American Humanist Association

What is the determining factor or factors distinguishing each list? In the first, by providing the venue I would be complicit in the performance of or planning for actual and serious sin. The events have the commission of sin as their purpose (oh, those p words keep popping up). In the second list the sin is incidental to the event itself.

Some events fall easily into either the this or not that list. Others are not as clearly categorized. And my lists are individual to my own beliefs and personal involvement in the service I provide. A baker, florist, or photographer whose very unique and personal artistry is required will have a shorter this list and a longer not that.

Tomorrow I’ll go a little deeper into this distinction and further explore these reefs. My destination is the decision: can I rent our facility for a same-sex wedding? I see it on the horizon. I hope you’ll stay with me till I reach it.