Over the past decade, many Western democratic
nations such as Germany,
Sweden, Ireland, Norway, Denmark, Britain,
Canada and Australia have
Passed laws criminalizing religious speech that
is based on the Bible.
Specifically, these laws target speech that
could be deemed an
Aggression against the dignity of its citizens,particularly
those who engage in homosexual behavior.
Repression of religious speech is nothing new in
countries such as
China and Iran. Many people around the globe
live under the persistent threat of criminal penalties for espousing and sharing
religious views inconsistent with those of that particular nation's official
religion. But the recent development in those Western democracies is nevertheless
unsettling considering that a minister who preaches directly from the Bible on
the issue of homosexuality is likely to be prosecuted.
A second trend, however, makes this foreign
hostility to religious speech significant within our borders. Over the past decade, the U.S. Supreme Court has
turned with increasing frequency to
foreign law when ruling on hot-button issues such as capital punishment, racial discrimination and gay rights.
Even more
troubling, [October, 2005], the U.S. House of Representatives approved the
Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act (H.R. 2662) This bill would
extend hate crimes law, which currently covers classifications of race,
religion and national origin, to now include sexual orientation. This would
pave the way for banning speech directed at a lifestyle that millions of
Americans believe is contrary to the Bible. Such legislation would actually
obviate the need for the Supreme Court to draw upon foreign law to take this
leap.
What does this mean for the American clergy and Christians?
The net effect would be that a minister preaching against homosexuality as a
sin would do so under the threat of criminal prosecution. Simply pointing out
that a
Certain lifestyle is against the Bible's
teachings, without the suggestion of animus or violence against those who
practice it (which would certainly go against the teachings of the Bible),
could subject the speaker to possible
incarceration.
Fifty years ago, the Supreme Court recognized
that it is not "in the competence of courts under our constitutional
scheme to approve, disapprove, classify, regulate or in any manner control
sermons Delivered at religious meetings. . . . To call the words which one
minister speaks to his congregation a sermon, immune from regulation, and the
words of another minister an address, subject to regulation, is merely an indirect
way of preferring one religion over another."
If the Supreme Court holds true to its precedents,
America will weather the incoming storm of political correctness and preserve
our most cherished rights, that of free speech and free exercise of religion,
without the threat of criminal retribution. Should the court continue down this
foreign law slope, however, there is no telling the impact upon religious speech
in America (Marc C. Anderson is an attorney in Fort Myers, "Fort Meyers News-Press," 11/7/05).
TBC: It is better to take these issues before
the Lord in prayer than to rust in the shifting sands of the laws of man.