Responding to Powers, Scalia remarks that "more worth consideration is her claim that “Whether Christians have the legal right to discriminate should be a moot point because Christianity doesn’t prohibit serving a gay couple getting married. Jesus calls his followers to be servants to all. Nor does the Bible call service to another an affirmation."
"Well, yes and no. While Jesus socialized with those the temple priests would condemn, and healed the “unclean” lepers, he used those opportunities to teach about the love of God and the wideness of God’s mercy. A soul opened to God’s love begins to love God in return, and—for the sake of that love, and in honor of that mercy—eventually conforms life and manner to God’s will."
”Jesus’ service, then, was a means to gentle evangelization and that is perhaps something these Christian businessmen and women should consider, even if it seems counterintuitive to the character of evangelization, as Americans understand it . . . "
". . . Perhaps he might [bake a cake]; it seems to me that baking a cake for a same-sex wedding, even if one does not agree with the concept, may well come under the heading of walking along a road for two miles with someone who “presses you into service” for one."
Finally, I love the way Scalia closes with these final two paragraphs.
"Meanwhile, if we lose the ability to respect that people can only go as far as their consciences will allow, we risk becoming mired in a muck of illusion, imagining hate where none exists, equating compelled behavior with authentic love, and losing sight of the fact that traveling together sometimes means that we walk the extra mile on one challenging road, and they walk it on the next. Everyone spares a bit of shoe-leather for the sake of the other. This is how love travels.
"Jesus observed the law and fulfilled the law. He did not throw the law away, for the sake of love. For the sake of love, he threw himself away. That’s another counterintuitive lesson he gave to us, as we all proceed together, slouching toward “tolerance” and carrying our consciences along the way."
Scalia may offer the best path forward, the path that most conforms to Jesus' own path. I can't help to imagine how Jesus would respond to us as Christians today. I think he would be sorely disappointed in most because of the rhetoric and the division that we create in his name.
O Father! O Son! O Spirit! Blessed three in one help us during this Lenten season to learn what it is to love without restraint and to die without regard for self.
BD