Kasich’s Ignorance Another Reason to Drop Out

Written by Laurie Higgins

John Kasich should drop out of the presidential race for a number of reasons, including his profound ignorance about the homosexual attack on religious liberty. On Monday he made this glib, feckless comment:

I think frankly, our churches should not be forced to do anything that’s not consistent with them. But if you’re a cupcake maker and somebody wants a cupcake, make them a cupcake. Let’s not have a big lawsuit or argument over all this stuff—move on. The next thing, you know, they might be saying, if you’re divorced you shouldn’t get a cupcake.

The issue is not now nor ever has been about making or selling cupcakes to homosexuals. If Kasich had bothered to do some research before self-righteously pontificating, he would have learned that the bakers (and florists, and wedding photographers) whose livelihoods have been destroyed by the tyrannical, unholy, and unconstitutional demands of homosexuals had, indeed, made and sold goods to homosexuals. What these Christian business-owners declined to do was make a product that they had never made before: anti-wedding cakes (or anti-wedding floral displays, or anti-wedding photographs).

The issue is now and always has been about being required to make and sell a product that these bakers had never made. Marriage has a nature, central to which is sexual differentiation and without which a union is not in reality marital. The union of two men or two women is not and never can be in reality a wedding. It is in reality the very antithesis of a wedding. It is an anti-wedding. The law determines what is legal. The law cannot change ontological reality. Our laws are often wrong, and when they are egregiously wrong, they may and sometimes must be defied.

For most of American history, no bakers have been asked, let alone forced, to make anti-wedding cakes. Christian (or Muslim, or Jewish) bakers have the constitutional right to refuse to make such cakes. Wedding singers have a First Amendment right to refuse to sing at anti-weddings. Florists, photographers, and videographers have a First Amendment right to refuse to produce products for anti-weddings.

There is another bakery case that is relevant. A baker in Indiana refused to decorate cupcakes with the rainbow symbol that stands for the normalization and affirmation of homosexuality and which were to be used for a homosexuality-affirming event. This baker didn’t refuse to bake or sell cupcakes to homosexuals. He refused to use his gifts to make a specific product that offends the God he serves.

Kasich’s concluding analogy that compares divorce to anti-weddings is deeply flawed and reveals clearly his ignorance. First, as mentioned, all the bakers in question were willing to sell baked goods and had, indeed, knowingly sold baked goods to homosexuals. It was not the person to whom they objected providing products. It was the specific product they objected to making and the specific event for which they were asked to provide the product. The reason these bakers refused to bake anti-wedding cakes was not that the people seeking them were sinners. All of their customers are sinners as are they. They objected because the product was for a celebration of a sinful event. Selling a cupcake to a divorced person is no more objectionable to these Christian bakers than was selling cupcakes to homosexuals, which they did.

Kasich should drop out of the presidential race and spend his extra free time doing some research.

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