In first century Rome, Christians were considered dangerous to the harmony of society and that their failure to honor Roman gods meant they damaged the pact between Rome and the gods. Thus, when crops failed the cry went out to throw the Christians to the lions. While Roman persecution was sporadic, brutal, but founded in a belief that Christians were socially undesirable.  In many ways, that is the precise point for same-sex marriage and marriage equality.

It has recently been suggested by Senator Mike Lee that if Gay marriage becomes a “right” under federal law, Christian schools, Universities and other Christian organizations could lose tax exempt status (the goal of such a move would likely be to close the institution, itself). This has been called fearmongering, though I remember many on the left arguing that bakers and florists would not be sued for civil rights violations in the past, so I will remain skeptical of arguments that this will not happen. This was also mentioned in the Supreme Court’s hearings, and the Obama Administration’s lawyers did not substantively answer the question.

We live in dangerous times. We are in a time when we must not only be able to state what we believe, but we must also be able to coherently make the case why we cannot accept gay marriage as being equivalent to heterosexual marriage. Towards this end, I’ve written Offering Incense to the Emperor, which is currently available on Kindle for free today and tomorrow.

The thesis of our booklet, Offering Incense to the Emperor is that the point of gay marriage policies are to silence criticism of gay marriage in the public sphere, violating Christian’s first amendment rights in the process. I have argued this is essentially a use of economic force and pressure where gay activists have failed to make their case to Christians.

Kindle Publishing only allows me to do free deals for 5 days per quarter, so after Friday it will be a few months before I can offer it for free again. Download it today.