Consider the following beliefs, which are common even among conservative Christians:

The government should recognize civil unions which treat gay and straight couples equally. The government may (or even should) punish discrimination on the basis of innate differences. Sexual orientation is at least partially innate, beyond an individual’s control.

I will argue that if one accepts all three premises, then the following is implied:

Wedding photographers and bakers should punished for only offering their services to straight weddings.

Premise 3 is a matter of scientific debate, but is commonly held and has some merit. Premise 2 is popular except among the most strident libertarians, and has been legally established since the 1960s. In contrast, Premise 1 is not a scientific hypothesis, but instead a philosophical/theological claim, and one that was until recently opposed by essentially all orthodox Christians.

The sudden recent acceptance of Premise 1 is reason alone to give us pause. But the argument I will make in this post should make us even more wary. Indeed, the sudden acceptance of same-sex civil unions is often an attempt for a truce between LGBT activists and Christians who oppose gay marriage and want to preserve their religious liberty. However, if my argument is valid, then accepting gay civil unions actually undermines the basis of religious liberty with respect to “anti-discrimination” laws.

Why is it illegal for McDonald’s to refuse service to black people? Why is it legal for McDonald’s to refuse to serve pizza to customers? In the former case, the same product is being served, and the business is discriminating among different customers. In the latter case, however, we consider pizza and hamburgers to be two different products. McDonald’s cannot be legally required to offer a product. However, if it offers a certain product, legally it must offer that product to everyone without exception.

This distinction requires a civil judgment on whether something is a “different product” or the “same product offered to only some people.” For example, the government would regard a restaurant selling a “whites-only eating experience” as merely cover for offering an eating experience only to white people.

How does this all relate to same-sex civil unions? Those who accept same-sex civil unions are admitting that in a public, civil sense, there is no difference between a man-woman union and a same-sex union. They may still maintain that the Bible treats the two differently and that Christians are only allowed one but not the other. Yet to accept same-sex civil unions is to confess that there is no publicly-recognizable ontological difference between a man-woman union and a same-sex union. The two types of partnerships should be treated by the government as really the same thing.

Now let us consider a wedding photographer in our world where there is (to the eyes of the government) only one type of civil union, encompassing both straight and gay partnerships. She (to the government) offers a single type of product: photographs of celebrations of unions. If she refuses to take pictures for a same-sex nuptial, she is really just refusing to offer her product to gay customers. Assuming Premise 3, she is discriminating against a class of people whose identity is at least partially beyond their control. Thus, according to Premise 2, her actions ought to be illegal.

How do we respond to this? We must maintain that there is an ontological difference between a straight lifelong monogamous marriage and all other types of sexual partnerships, and that in fact the latter are not “unions” at all. We must argue that this distinction is not just spiritual, not just a moral requirement for Christian individuals or churches, but a real intrinsic difference that must be recognized by the government. We must hold that this difference is visible, and that our society can and should see it, if only we would open our eyes to the truth. A viable defense for religious liberty can be found only by reclaiming this lost ground.