The huge brouhaha in Indiana over the last few days has all been a manufactured event designed to paint people with religious beliefs as extremists who want to segregate homosexuals from the general public. The left and the media have both taken a page directly from the Alinsky playbook and have launched attack after attack on Indiana, their legislature and governor and anyone who supports religious freedom legislation. In short, the legislation protects a citizen or business owner’s right to decide with whom to do business and to choose not to if doing so would violate their religious beliefs.
Naturally, the media and the left have pounced upon this legislation as being the next best thing to rounding up homosexuals and putting them in a ghetto, but the truth of it is that the legislation mentions homosexuals exactly zero times. The NCAA, Angie’s List, Salesforce.com and other entities have all announced either displeasure with the new law or that they will henceforth be limiting their business activities in Indiana. The hashtag #BoycottIndiana was trending on Twitter at one point as the left stirred up the masses over wording that was not even in the legislation. But since when has the truth ever stopped the left from making an issue of something?
The left makes the fraudulent claim that this new legislation will allow restaurants and other businesses to refuse to serve homosexuals. This fraudulent claim is designed to appeal to the uninformed who will believe whatever they hear on MSNBC or read on Yahoo, without ever reading the legislation for themselves and finding out they’re being duped by the left. The left knows why this law was passed and they can’t allow the reason to be discussed or it would damage the position from which they attack, claiming to be the victims. But in reality, not only are they not the victims; they are the aggressors and have been for years.
The Blaze – This isn’t one of those instances of a law passed for symbolic reasons or to make a bunch of sedentary representatives look productive; it was enacted because gay crusaders have long since taken to forcing themselves on private citizens and business, which is especially ironic considering literally their entire philosophical position rests squarely on an argument for ”freedom of association.”
The examples are too numerous to list in one post, but if you want to take a trip down Gay Fascism Lane (which is an actual street in San Francisco, according to the brochure), start by investigating these examples:
–The Catholic couple fined for not hosting a gay wedding on their farm.
–The owners of a lodge in Minnesota legally penalized for declining a gay couple’s business.
-The bakers, photographers, bridal shops, and florists all accused of or charged with human rights violations for choosing not to participate in gay wedding ceremonies.
-The t-shirt company charged with human rights violations for the crime of not printing gay pride shirts.
And, though not instances of governmental intrusions, gay fascists have, in their single minded pursuit of ideological conformity, also set their sights on Catholic priests who follow Church law; fast food restaurants whose owners haven’t pledged allegiance to their cause; Christian TV hosts on the Home and Garden Network who talk about the Bible sometimes; football commentators who don’t properly worship at the altar of a gay defensive end from Missouri; reality stars who talk about the Bible sometimes; tech CEOs who donated to legislation protecting traditional marriage, and many, many others.
In all of these cases, offenders have been threatened, blackmailed, bullied, boycotted, fired, or legally punished for, in the minds of the gay mob, “discriminating.”
Also, in all of these cases, not a single gay person was singled out, victimized, persecuted, or otherwise preyed upon for being gay. The bakers and bridal shop owners and florists and t-shirt companies and photographers never once “refused service to gay people.” They refused to participate in activities involving gay people, but they never said, “you are gay so you may not purchase a cupcake in my establishment.” Why would they do that anyway? The act of serving a delicious pastry to a homosexual is not, by any Christian teaching I’ve ever heard, intrinsically immoral. Nobody is refusing service to gays just because they’re gay. That’s not the point. That’s not what’s happening.
We are only talking about people who opted not to play an active role in a gay wedding ceremony or gay pride festival. And, on the other side of that coin, we’re talking about gays who wish to force private individuals to play that role, whether they like it or not.
That’s the issue.
So is the Indiana bill necessary? Tragically, yes.
Not only is there no right to not be discriminated against, but that pesky old First Amendment is still around, in spite of the efforts of Democrats and leftist judges over the years. I know that some of you might not know what the First Amendment says, especially if your education was in recent years, so you may read it here, perhaps for the first time in your lives.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
I realize that people on the left would do away with the First Amendment if they could, but it still endures and absolutely trumps the nonexistent right to not have your feelings hurt.
That’s what this is all about for homosexuals and people on the left – they don’t want their feelings hurt by those mean old, Bible thumping, hateful Christians who decline to bake them a cake in celebration of their homosexual marriage. Instead, they want to use government coercion to force everyone to bow down to their beliefs and put a stamp of approval on it, even if it means acquiring said approval under threat of financial ruin and fines that will put someone out of business and in the poor house.
The truth is that the media’s deliberate mischaracterization of the legislation passed in Indiana is a red herring. To hear the media tell it, Indiana is bringing back segregation. But what the Religious Freedom Restoration Act really accomplishes is to prevent the government from discriminating against the free exercise of religion and balances compelling government interests with the religious liberty guaranteed in the First Amendment.
But the left never lets the truth get in the way of their argument. Apple CEO Tim Cook summed up their position in an op-ed for the Washington Post, writing that religious freedom laws are “dangerous.”
Washington Post – Men and women have fought and died fighting to protect our country’s founding principles of freedom and equality. We owe it to them, to each other and to our future to continue to fight with our words and our actions to make sure we protect those ideals. The days of segregation and discrimination marked by “Whites Only” signs on shop doors, water fountains and restrooms must remain deep in our past. We must never return to any semblance of that time. America must be a land of opportunity for everyone.
This isn’t a political issue. It isn’t a religious issue. This is about how we treat each other as human beings. Opposing discrimination takes courage. With the lives and dignity of so many people at stake, it’s time for all of us to be courageous.
Funny how Tim Cook is concerned with how we treat each other as human beings at the same time Apple is negotiating with Iran to sell iPhones there. If you didn’t know, Iran hangs homosexuals and puts them on public display. But I guess his wallet is more important to him than his principles.
Tim Cook also throws out the word segregation. I’ve seen that word a thousand times in the last week and expect to see it a thousand more. Indiana has brought back segregation and will now be decreeing that all homosexuals wear a scarlet H. That’s what the left and the media say. This is ridiculous, of course, and it’s also an argument that has no merit to it at all. And the reason for that is something the left and the media are completely ignoring and hoping no one knows, because it completely destroys their claim.
Did you know there are many other states that already have religious freedom restoration laws?
Have you read about all the segregation and discrimination taking place in these states? You haven’t, because it’s not happening. Not even in Illinois, where the state religious freedom restoration law was passed with a yes vote coming from then-State Senator Barack Obama. Nobody is refusing service to people just because they’re homosexuals.
All these claims by the left and the media are nothing more than a distraction from the truth – that people with religious beliefs who go into business should have the right to decide not to do business with someone if the requested service is a violation of their religious beliefs. Of course, the left is the anti-matter to religion. Sure, there are those on the left who claim to have religious beliefs or to be Christian, but you’d never know it from their stance on religious freedom. Everything you need to know about the left and religion can be learned by watching this video of the Democrats booing God at their 2012 convention.
For all the talk about tolerance from those on the left it seems pretty clear that the tolerance only comes when you keep your mouth shut about your beliefs and do what they want, even if that means violating your own religious beliefs. How gracious of the left to tolerate your silent dissent as long as you comply with their wishes.
I have no compunction about being labeled a homophobe and I’m sure some reading this post decided way back in the first paragraph that I am one. Being a Christian I’m sure I would be the recipient of that label no matter what I said, so I have no incentive to be other than brutally honest. Name-calling is something children do when they don’t get their way and the left has adopted this tactic as a way to get their way with weak people on the right who are hurt or offended when being labeled as a homophobe. I find it interesting that the left considers those who disagree with endorsing the homosexual lifestyle to be ‘haters’ or ‘afraid’ of homosexuals. Apparently, one cannot disagree with someone’s views without hatred or fear. If that’s the case, are those on the left Christianphobes? Using their own twisted logic, they must hate and fear Christians since they disagree with them.
There is no Constitutional right to protection from views that you find offensive. We live in a melting pot society where people are (gasp!) allowed to have different views! I know it’s a strange concept to those on the left that others might actually have principles and opinions that don’t align with their warped sense of morality. Even that stalwart of Democratic morality, Bill Clinton, thought protecting the free exercise of religion was important. When he signed the federal version of the RFRA in 1993 he said,”What this law basically says is that the government should be held to a very high level of proof before it interferes with someone’s free exercise of religion. This judgment is shared by the people of the United States as well as by the Congress. We believe strongly that … we can never be too vigilant in this work.”
What the RFRA in Indiana does is give someone the right to assert a religious freedom defense when faced with legal action claiming discrimination. The law does not give immunity from legal action and does not allow people to discriminate based solely on sexual orientation. But you won’t hear that from the left because it doesn’t fit the liberal narrative. In their delusional world, restaurants and other businesses in Indiana have already placed the order for signs that say ‘No Gays Allowed’ and will hang them in their front windows shortly. In reality, there will be no such signs and there are none in the states that already have religious freedom laws. If the left is correct and this law is all about discriminating against homosexuals, where are the signs? Where are the signs in the other states? The absence of signs is a sign in itself that the left and the media are lying and they know it. But the left and the media have never let truth get in the way of their agenda before, and they certainly won’t this time.
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