Line Of Separation

A barbershop in Canada is the target of a human rights complaint.
It is a barbershop that only grooms men.
The owners’ religious beliefs are such that he will not cut a woman’s hair.
He can only cut a woman’s hair if she is related to him.

A woman came into the shop and wanted a short haircut.
The owner refused.
The shop has been in business since 1925, operating the same way all these years.
The woman could have gone to other barbershops in Toronto but she chose this one.

Many are questioning whether the woman chose this particular shop on purpose.
Under Canadian law, business owners are not to discriminate because of gender.
According to his Muslim beliefs, the owner refused on the basis of her gender.
This case pits religious freedom against gender equality.

Did she purposely go to that barber shop to test the limits of the law?
Many are asking that question.
One may never truly discern her motive, if indeed she had one.
Where is the line?

Florists and photographers are being sued because they will not provide services to clients.
In some cases, these clients have been wonderfully served by the business for years.
Yet, the clients come in and ask for the one thing the Christian owners cannot oblige.
Where is the line?

It seems as if we live in a culture that wants to quiet all dissent.
It is not enough to say, I accept you.
It is now necessary to agree in order to accept.
Sometimes it is just not possible to lay aside beliefs for the sake of business.

In a free marketplace, we can choose many places to do business.
If we can’t find what we want here, we have the freedom to go there.
An owner does not leave his beliefs at the door when he comes to work each morning.

In 1802, Thomas Jefferson responded to a letter from the Danbury Baptist Church.
The Constitution protected the free exercise of religion.
They wanted to clarify that religious expression was not government-given (alienable).
The Danbury Baptists knew that religious expression was God-given (inalienable).

Thomas Jefferson agreed with the Danbury Baptists.
Government would not limit, restrict, regulate, or interfere with public religious practices.
The First Amendment prevented the federal establishment of a national denomination.
Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptist church is as follows.

To messers. Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, & Stephen S. Nelson, a committee of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut.

Gentlemen

The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, & in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.

Th Jefferson
Jan. 1. 1802.

We have turned the words, a wall of separation between church and state, into a maxim.
That was never Jefferson’s intent.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
(First Amendment)

The Constitution states that Congress may not establish a national religion.
The Constitution does not say anything about removing God from public life.

This one sentence is at the center of many legal battles in our country.
This one sentence has been pulled and stretched and twisted like taffy.
This one sentence is continually misunderstood.
This one sentence says what is says, not what we want it to say.

Unbelievably, some law students have never even read our Constitution in its entirety.
When asked to find Jefferson’s phrase in the Constitution, they actually look for it.
It is not there!
You will not find a wall of separation between church and state in the Constitution.

How did we come so far?
How do we find ourselves in this predicament?

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness…(Declaration of Independence)

We are twisting words to suit our own purposes.
We do not know what our founding documents say, so we argue on what we think they say.
We are continually trying to remove God from public life.
That was never the original intent.

Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. (Romans 13:1)

In public and in private, the Lord, He is God.