Chris Christie announced this weekend that he would prosecute Christian business owners who refuse to take part in a gay “marriage” ceremony if state law requires it.
Appearing on Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace asked Chris Christie, “Should businesses be allowed to decide whether or not to serve gays or anyone else based on religious freedom?”
“Religious institutions should be able to decide how they conduct their religious activity,” Christie responded. “The rest of the folks in the United States need to follow the law.”
When Wallace asked specifically about Christian bakers—presumably about whether they must bake a “wedding” cake, even if participating in such a ceremony would mean they participate in sin—Christie said he was not “going to get into every example”—but Christians needed to do as secular authorities told them.
“I’m someone in this country who believes in law and order,” he said. “We need to enforce the law in this country in every respect, not just the laws we like, but all the laws.”
The “law” often says Christians have no right to exercise their faith outside the church’s four walls. When New Mexico photographer Elaine Huguenin of Elaine’s Photography said that shooting a gay “commitment ceremony” violated her First Amendment rights, the state Supreme Court ruled that she had no such rights. One judge even said violating her deeply held religious beliefs is the “price of citizenship.”
Unfortunately, crushing conscience rights is not a new position for Christie. He recently said Christian clerks who had a religious objection to issuing marriage licenses to gays and lesbians had no right to opt out—even if another clerk was available.
“You took the job, and you took the oath,” Christie said. “You have to do it.”
With Jeb Bush faltering, Christie is trying to use this issue to position himself as the Republican Establishment candidate-in-waiting. (Forget it—John Kasich or Marco Rubio are deservedly far ahead on that score.) His views will cost him votes without winning him anything except adulation (and more Wall Street support) in New Jersey.
This is just another reason Christians will not vote for Chris Christie in the primaries.
His position could hardly contrast more sharply with his more successful Republican rival. Since that’s most of the field, I should specify I mean Sen. Ted Cruz, whose “Rally for Religious Liberty” in Des Moines last month hailed a half-dozen Christian business owners and public officials persecuted for holding to their faith.
It’s hard to believe such diametrically opposed positions can exist within the same party.
That such polar opposite views could be allowed to exist over the First Amendment’s most precious of freedoms is discouraging and dispiriting to Christians and conservatives. for Christie, it should be disqualifying.
The question is part of the “lightning round” that begins at approximately 13:37:
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