“What would Jesus do?”

From issues of so-called wealth inequality to global warming to nukes in Iran, the Left is suddenly atwitter with that question.

Notably, however, many on the Left asking this question don’t even believe Jesus existed. (On that point, their position is contrary to the conclusions of most historians.)

So why are they asking what a person whom they think never existed would do two millennia after the end of his life that they believe didn’t happen, about issues in a country that hadn’t been created at the time he didn’t live?

Because they think the question helps them win certain political arguments, that’s why. They don’t believe in Jesus, but, on certain issues, they think he’s on their side.

The latest example is a law in Indiana allowing persons of religion to practice their faith.

This comes up in the ridiculous context of wedding cakes. Some little bakeries operated by Christians, Muslims and Jewish bakers don’t want to place plastic figurines of a same-sex couple atop a wedding cake on the grounds that doing so violates their faith. The Indiana law says that these little, family bakeries don’t have to.

The Left, naturally, sees this as a big problem. (Forget about nukes in Iran. The Left is worried about wedding cakes in Indiana.)

Let’s be clear about what this half-baked “problem” is and what it isn’t. It isn’t that gays are unable to find a bakery to make a gay cake. Nearly all bakeries will. The people who finally found ones that refused were not actually looking to buy a cake, but to pick a fight.

And the problem isn’t that these rare religious bakers are out to prohibit gayness. They aren’t. They simply don’t want their private, family-owned businesses endorsing it.

So the real “problem” that the Left sees here is not that gayness is being prohibited, because it’s not. It’s that religion is being allowed.

To address this “problem” of religious people practicing their religion, the Left mobilizes their usual arsenal of shouting, name-calling, mockery and intimidation.

They’ve called the religious bakers “homophobes,” even though there’s no evidence that the bakers are afraid of the gay customers or even dislike or refuse to serve them, but only that they refuse to make a gay wedding cake.

And they’ve called the bakers “intolerant,” apparently oblivious to the irony of hurling the epithet “intolerant” at people for the purpose of condemning them for their beliefs.

And they’ve called for boycotts, both of the religious bakers practicing their faith and, now, of the state of Indiana for passing the law allowing them to.

It’s worth noting that 19 other states have such laws, including Indiana’s liberal neighbor, Illinois. And there is a similar federal law which was approved overwhelmingly by both parties and signed by President Bill Clinton.

Amid all this silliness and hypocrisy, the Left now asks rhetorically, “What would Jesus do?” Surely, the Left contends, the son of man who ministered to tax collectors, mingled with prostitutes and urged us to “love thy enemy” would bake a wedding cake for a gay couple. And so, the argument goes, these bakers should too.

In short, the Left invokes a God in whom they don’t believe for the purpose of controlling the worship of him by those who do.

Even President Barack Obama has snarked about “less-than-loving expressions by Christians.” This is from a guy who enjoyed the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s anti-America, anti-white and anti-Semitic rants for two decades.

Personally, if I were a baker, I’d bake a cake for a gay couple. I’d decorate it however they like, congratulate them on their love, wish them happy lives together and accept payment, as would most Christians, Muslims, Jews and others of faith.

But that doesn’t mean that those who believe otherwise should suffer the business equivalent of a stoning and beheading. In America, the majority does not criminalize the religious beliefs of the minority — all in the name of tolerance.

As for Jesus, I don’t know if he would bake that cake or not. That question is beyond my pay grade. But I do know that he would not follow the dictates of the authoritarian establishment or the Lefty or Righty government in power or even the local religion poohbahs. He’d bake the frigging cake or he wouldn’t, because he himself believed that doing so was either right or wrong.

If the thought police had tried to impose their totalitarian political correctness on Jesus, he would have raised Cain.

Published on April 12, 2015  in The Aspen Times at http://www.aspentimes.com/opinion/15844647-113/beaton-the-left-finds-jesus-sort-of