It is impossible to have religious freedom of expression and protection of gay rights without requiring the religious expression to include endorsement of homosexual conduct.
Can gay rights be protected without demanding churches stop denouncing homosexuality as "sin" or as "offensive to God" or "evil?"
If a church believes homosexuality is sinful, offensive to God and evil, but cannot say what it believes because law protects against "discrimination" against such conduct, how are the two reconciled? One must trump the other. One must be given priority over the other. Which? How?
Can a church be called "hateful" when it expresses its honest view that homosexuality is morally wrong and sinful without any legal protection against the "hate?"
Should we be free to hate?
If a Muslim hates a Jew, does he have the right to say it publicly? Advocate for others to likewise hate Jews?
Should ideas be free from legal control? If they are, will we see KKK rallies, jihadist news broadcasts, black liberation ministers advocating revolution, white supremacists denouncing "mud people?" Is that sort of fall out bad? Bad in an absolute sense, not in a relative sense. Is foolishness portrayed as insight bad in a relative sense? That happens everywhere and all the time. Should the limits of free speech be nearly absolute?
The Supreme Court set a limit using the analogy of "crying 'Fire!' in a crowded theater" that results in injuries and even death. That analogy has been adopted to limit speech elsewhere by saying "hate" will result in injuries and even death, and therefore it is no different.
When it comes to freedom, however, there must be absolutes or freedom will continually be eroded and eventually lost.
We must allow people to say things we disapprove of, disagree with, resent and wish were never said. Tolerance has no meaning if we only permit things we like to be done, said or thought. The meaning of "tolerance" is to permit what I absolutely disagree with to be "tolerated." I don't have to love it, nor do I have to approve it. I only need to "tolerate" it.
If we "tolerate" it, is there an obligation to leave it unmolested, uncontrolled and uncurtailed by law? Whether that is homosexual conduct or condemnation of homosexuality.
The role of legislation is not to carve out ideas for suppression and punishment. Until someone actually assaults another, shouldn't he be able to think what he wants, and say what he thinks? If anyone assaults another it is a crime. Whether the crime was motivated by hatred of homosexuals, hatred of Jews, or Catholics, or Hindus, or Mexicans or Mudbloods or any other group, no one is allowed to assault another person. The crime consists in the act, not in the thought.
Thought should be as near to absolutely free as possible. No matter how peculiar or offensive, thought ought to be unrestricted. It is not possible to police thought without losing other freedoms.
