By linking opposition to the Respect for Marriage Act to (rightly) ostracized ideas like racism, advocates, like the president, are setting the stage for leveraging hate crime legislation and other cultural tools to criminalize dissent. For those who assured us otherwise, this is a step beyond what Obergefell v. Hodges imposed. In that opinion, Justice Kennedy assured us that good people could disagree. On Tuesday, the president assured us that no good person could disagree.
In Acts 10, Simon Peter was shown a vision of “all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air” (v. 12). He was told to “kill and eat” but refused, citing his commitment to Jewish dietary restrictions (vv. 13–14). This was the response: “What God has made clean, do not call common” (v. 15).
Just then, he received Gentile visitors asking him to accompany them to see a Roman centurion named Cornelius. Before his vision, Peter would have refused to speak with these men, but as he later testified, “God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean” (v. 28). He discovered his prejudice and learned to love all people as does his Lord.
