What compelling government interest is there to force someone to support a same-sex wedding? It’s not like there is a shortage of people willing to do so. If a 70 year-old grandmother who is a florist can’t arrange flowers at your same-sex wedding, why not just go to someone else who would be happy to do it? Why don’t we ever hear about traditionalists suing gay business owners for refusing to print up anti-gay marriage fliers? “Tolerance” is a one-way street to the religion of sex.

The Bill of Rights guarantees Americans the free exercise of religion while forbidding Congress from establishing a single religion. But the media and courts seem to be establishing a new religion nonetheless. Same-sex marriage (SSM) is the new official religion, which means it must be a religion of the sword.

Exhibit A: the controversy in Indiana. A determined and vocal minority from the religion of SSM is bullying and cutting down traditionalists who need a law that would allow them to be left alone. This clash of orthodoxies has opposing values with moralists on both sides demanding their rights. Rather than preserving the free exercise of competing religious claims, however, one is becoming established at the expense of the other.

But the two views are hardly parallel. One requires compulsion, the other doesn’t. One side says, “everyone must celebrate my same-sex marriage” (a moral claim). The other side says, “God or my conscience prevents me from doing so” (also a moral claim). Can anyone see any middle ground here? There is none. The state must either compel adherence to the new religion or preserve religious freedom, but it can’t do both.

Governors in Indiana, Arkansas and several other states see the need to protect religious liberty for a very good reason — it is under attack. The scales have tipped decidedly against the free exercise of traditional religion — against the right of Christians, Muslims, Jews and anyone else who can’t celebrate the new established orthodoxy.

Forget tolerance. This is well beyond tolerance. Now, if you don’t agree to celebrate same sex marriage, the established religion will commence an inquisition and, without a trial, punish you for heresy. That’s why this legislation is necessary. Florists, bakers, photographers, real estate agents, Internet CEOs, and speakers like myself have all discovered personally that the people who say they are fighting for “tolerance” are often the most intolerant. In the name of “inclusion and diversity,” those of us who have a different view are being excluded, and even fired and fined because we won’t violate our beliefs to satisfy the overbearing clergy of the religion of sex.

A few years ago Cisco and Bank of America fired me as a training consultant because I had Christian beliefs about sex and marriage even though my beliefs were never expressed on the job. When a homosexual manager at Cisco found out on the Internet that I had authored a book giving evidence that maintaining the natural definition of marriage would be best for society, he couldn’t tolerate me and demanded that I be fired. An HR executive canned me within hours without ever speaking to me. This happened despite the fact that the leadership and teambuilding programs I led always received high marks (even from the homosexual manager!).

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