The left has one overriding passion: to destroy the nuclear family.
In place of the family, the left wants government, totalitarian government dressed up as a “people’s democracy.”
The move to redefine marriage is also a direct assault on religious traditions.
Once you understand that everything the left believes and does is designed to undermine traditional religion and the family unit, you begin to comprehend the grim social engineering that is the core of leftism.
Gay marriage does not end with legalizing gay marriage. That’s where destroying the family and the traditional religious community begins. And the battle to destroy the family is, ultimately, a religious battle, as the story of the persecuted Christian bakers illustrates.
The next step is obvious. A Jewish homosexual couple will ask an Orthodox rabbi to perform their wedding. The rabbi will refuse and he will be sued for discrimination, and then hounded and persecuted by those who claim the mantle of tolerance.
Such is the fate of religious and economic liberty in the face of liberal fascism.
A husband-and-wife bakery shop team in Oregon were forced to close their shop doors and move to cheaper digs — their home — after gay-rights activists hounded them and drove away contract business because they refused for Christian reasons to bake for a same-sex wedding.
Aaron and Melissa Klein own and operate Sweet Cakes by Melissa. In the past few months, they’ve faced heated scrutiny — some in the form of physical threats — from those in the gay-rights crowd who decried their May refusal to bake for a lesbian couple who wanted to marry.
The Kleins cited their Christian beliefs of traditional marriage when they turned down that business gig, The Blaze reported. But the lesbian couple filed a complaint with the state, accusing the shop owners of discrimination.
Since, they’ve been hounded by vicious telephone calls and emails.
Some of those threats were shocking. One emailer wished for the couple’s children to fall ill. Another expressed hope that Mr. Klein should be shot and even raped, The Blaze reported.
And yet another wrote: “Here’s hoping you go out of business, you bigot.”
The couple said on top of that, their vendors were “badgered and harassed” into stopping all associations with the bakery.
The Kleins say they’re now closing up their doors and moving their operations to their home. Their business, they say, has suffered a serious revenue hit from the unexpected activism and backlash.
My first thought was that a private business has the right to decide whom it will serve and whom it will not without fear of reprisal.
Then I remembered that it wasn’t all that long ago that certain groups could be denied service because they were the wrong skin color or the wrong faith.
I’ve seen people get upset over reports of Muslim taxi drivers refusing to take a passenger who has a guide dog, or who is carrying a six-pack of beer among his groceries. How is this different? Where does it end?
That said: there is no justification for bullying the business owners. People have the right to choose where they will do business, but bullying and hounding are out of bounds — and illegal. I hope that the people who are making the nasty phone calls will soon have to answer for their behavior in court.
Rahel:
The difference is that the refusal to serve blacks was institutional and widespread, part of Democrat Jim Crow laws. Here, there is no institutional bigotry against gays. In fact, the opposite. The institution of the American government is squarely behind gays/bisexuals/transgender/transvestite/whatever, and now it is religion that is under fire. Make no mistake about it, soon, an Orthodox rabbi or a Catholic Priest will be sued for refusing to perform a gay/bisexual/transgender/transvestite/whatever wedding.
All of this civil rights legislation has evolved from the abominable Jim Crow/segregation era. It was right then and it is right now. Same thing implemented against many Jews. I believe that currently the enforcement is being mishandled but the guiding principles are right on.
The left’s war on religion has been ongoing since socialism was birthed in the French Revolution. This is nothing new – the left must destroy religion because religion provides a moral framework that is immutable. The left, on the other hand, wants government to be the only arbiter of what is moral in society. And in gay activists, the left has found the perfect tool. No group of people hates Christianity more than gay activists. I confess to being unsure how Judaism treats homosexuality, though I take it from the above comments that it is similar to Christianity.
Thus the perfect for vehicle for the modern left is to use gays claiming their “civil rights” trump religious beliefs. It really does stand the First Amendment, and indeed, the entire basis for our nation – i.e., non-interference with religious freedom and beliefs, on its head. Jefferson, one of the drafters of the First Amendment, explained in a letter that the Amendment was designed to protect individual religious beliefs and that the same would be held completely beyond the force of government so long as those beliefs were not injurious to public order. For two centuries they have not been, and now they are under attack. Honestly, I don’t know how this nation will survive the left’s rampage and their use of the court’s to get what they cannot through democracy.
The business has the right to refuse service… and prospective customers have the right to withhold their patronage… but not to threaten or hound the proprietors.
You have a short memory — or none. But there was a time in our history and not so long ago that people could be denied service. Not a good American Plan.
This comparison is false and misleading. The refusal to serve blacks was institutional, part of the Democrat Jim Crow laws. This is not the case with gays, who are a minority treated with special status by the levers of the U.S. government. No such protection for traditional religion seems to apply under the current regime.
Robert:
As I’ve stated in a prior comment, I do not care for the application, but I firmly believe that civilized people can and should be served by institutions that deal diretly with the public. No Gentleman’s Agreement approved by me.
Christians and Jews who regard the Bible as the Word of God and take their faith seriously can only expect things to get worse. In the face of such hatred of divine truth we will need to encourage each other all the more to stand fast. But God will help us and we shall endure.
When the government can tell you who you can serve and not serve it’s no longer “liberal” fascism, it’s just plain fascism. Freedom of association? Never heard of it.
In this case, it was not the government who put the bakery out of business, but activists who pressured their customers.
In New Mexico, a couple was found guilty of violating the state’s Human Rights Act for refusing to photograph a gay wedding. Here we have official government intimidation, as opposed to the free-lance intimidation in the Oregon case. The idea that a photographer or a baker is a “public accommodation,” in the same sense as an airline or a restaurant on an Interstate, is ludicrous on its face, of course.
By the same logic as the New Mexico decision…a child of Holocaust survivors who did not want to cater the annual gathering of the Germanic Culture and Oompah Band Festival could be found guilty of a human rights violation, based on ethnic discrimination.
By that same logic…an atheist could be legally condemned for failing to cater a Catholic banquet in honor of various saints.
Sadly, most liberals seem to lack the abstract thinking capability to see these connections, and will see the issue as simply and simplistically about “gay rights.”
It was once said that if fascism ever came to America, it would be labeled Americanism. A reasonable guess, but that’s not how it turned out. Fascism has come to America indeed, and it is labeled Progressivism.
“The idea that a photographer or a baker is a “public accommodation,” in the same sense as an airline or a restaurant on an Interstate, is ludicrous on its face, of course.”
I don’t understand. Why are airlines and restaurants public accomodations? Are they not private property owned by people with the right to refuse service if they wish?
The degree to which it is legitimate to require a business to provide service to *anyone* should be based on the degree to which (1) it is a monopoly, (2) it receives direct government subsidies, and (3) time is of the essence in providing the service.
For example, I don’t think that the airline that serves Athens, Georgia (the ONLY airline that serves that town) should be able to deny me transport because they don’t like my political views, and this is doubly true if they receive subsidies under the Essential Air Service program (which I believe they do.)
Nor should a hospital emergency room be able to turn away a patient because they don’t like his politics or his sexual orientation.
However, an air charter service SHOULD, IMO, be able to refuse service to a group it doesn’t like. It is not a “common carrier” and there are plenty of alternatives, as there are for bakers and florists. Similarly for a plastic surgeon.
Anyone should be able to refuse for any reason. If the government doesn’t like it, let them pull their subsidies. I don’t see what being a monopoly has to do with anything.
Would you say the Union Pacific Railroad should be able to refuse transportation to a specific factory, which is entirely dependent on rail transport (as is by no means uncommon) and is served only by that railroad—on the grounds that they don’t like the politics of the factory’s owner?
What if UPRR has an investment in a company whose products compete with those of the above factory–should they be able to destroy the competitor by denying it transportation?
The impolite name for forcing someone to provide you with a good or service against their will is “slavery.” It doesn’t become “not slavery” just because you really, really need the whatever it is.
It certainly is not axiomatic that a company should be required to provide advantages to their competition. Where I think it makes sense is where their monopoly would destroy the marketplace, which is what the anti-monopoly laws [which have often been abused] were designed to prevent. You are now proposing that such laws be used to achieve other social goals, such as the acceptance of the gay lifestyle. I don’t see why it must necessarily be so.
If only the Lesbian couple picked a Muslim bakery first …
( and wouldn’t the Obama-promoted study about overweight Lesbians frown on high caloric indulgences such as wedding cakes ?? )
You wrote:
“The next step is obvious. A Jewish homosexual couple will ask an Orthodox rabbi to perform their wedding. The rabbi will refuse and he will be sued for discrimination, and then hounded and persecuted by those who claim the mantle of tolerance.”
It will probably happen, but not until they’ve targeted and attacked the Catholic Church first. In the hierarchy of acceptable leftist objects of hate, we still outrank Jews of any denomination by a long stretch, in their eyes.
We evangelicals and Pentecostals are right there with you. Especially in higher ed circles.
But not if the Evangelicals and Pentecostal churches are black – remember Prop 8? It’s very complicated keeping the hierarchies of legitimate targets straight.
I am reading The Forgotton Man by Amity Shales, on the Depression and the handling of it by Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt.
Exactly 80 years ago, the government, thought its “NRA” – “National Recovery Administration”, imprisoned some Jewish owners of a chicken butchery shop.
And like the above case, the Shechters were convicted for following their religious convictions.
Bill:
I have read the book and the section about the government’s war against kosher merchants is simply chilling. The transcript of the trial, with Harvard trained government lawyers persecuting Jewish merchants—with their Yiddish accents and imperfect grammar—is sad, cautionary tale.
Didn’t the Schechters deal the NRA a defeat? I too read the book (well, part of the book), and I remember that they prevailed.
So a private business made a decision based on their private beliefs – and they are hounded out of existence. Were there no other bakeries in that area for the couple to utilize? Or did they know in advance they’d be refused, thereby giving them a high-profile stake in the national debate. I’m not usually a conspiracy theorist but…sometimes you have to go with what your gut tells you.
KrisinNewEngland:
I too share your allergy to conspiracy theories. But in this case I think it’s obvious that the lesbian couple targeted the Christians for the their postmodern arena.
I am concerned about this trend, as my dad is a pastor. I’ve suggested to him that the church should look into strengthening their bylaws as much as possible, even though our denomination in general is not yet recommending churches take that action. After the shameful disruption of services at a church in Lansing in 2008 I’ve been watching for more of these egregious assaults on religious liberty by same-sex activists.
DrCarol:
I don’t know what you mean by strengthening church bylaws. But I have a strong feeling that bylaws will not hinder the fascists of the left.
What I mean is setting down stricter rules about things such as whether non-members can rent the church building or property for an event. Many churches don’t restrict access to their property to members only. The church board or council can refuse a request, but without written restrictions that leaves them open to charges of discrimination. Then again, members-only doesn’t protect against infiltration, another issue I am concerned about–since I’ve seen that happen to Christian groups on campuses across the country.
I don’t think anything will stop the onslaught from the liberal fascists, but we can certainly try to slow them down a bit.