CONSTITUTIONAL OR MORAL?

I read an article today that angered me. Michael Salman, a pastor and Bible study leader in Phoenix, AZ was arrested a couple of years ago for holding a Bible study in his house. The city says that it was because his house was not zoned as a church so what he did was illegal. I was astonished at how they did it too. It took over a dozen police officers and city officials to bust in his house and arrest him. The story goes on though. He just begun serving a 60 day jail sentence for the “crime;” he will serve 3 years on probation afterwards; and he was given a fine over $12,000. Let’s face it though; this is religious persecution, which will merely increase in the good ‘ol US of A in the future. We all know it whether we admit it or not. We no longer live in the freest country in the world. Not only is what they did unconstitutional (as are so many things that happen in our country…even things that we take for granted every day), but it is also morally wrong. I am typically good about separating morals from the Constitution. I don’t believe you can look at them as one and the same. When you do, you begin to create laws based on religious morality, which soon becomes a theocracy. That is wrong, in and of itself, because Christianity is proposed, not imposed. Jesus set this example. This is why we see no example of him protesting things that were legal despite the fact that they were immoral. As Christians, we should stand for what is right, but we should never impose our morals on anyone else. This is why I have no problem with saying that something that is sin should not necessarily be illegal. I am a constitutionalist, and when we create laws based on religious convictions rather than the Constitution, we become a theocracy faster than we might think. Our country has become unrecognizable in many ways. We don’t know what we are anymore. Stick to the Constitution, and we won’t have that problem. Our freedoms are vanishing little by little, but one day, if we are not careful, they will all be gone; and it will be no one’s fault but our own.