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Government forces closure of another Christian business

Fascists: Another Christian business forced to close because the owners refused to host a homosexual wedding.

If the trend continues as it has, expect the homosexual community to soon demand the imprisonment of some Christians for their beliefs, and expect some to go to prison as a result. And expect this to happen even though no one is preventing any homosexuals from having homosexual relations.

And we all know that the gay agenda has everything to do with tolerance, don’t we?

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
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"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

15 comments

  • Edward

    “And we all know that the gay agenda has everything to do with tolerance, don’t we?”

    I know that you are being sarcastic, Robert, but tolerance means different things to different people.

    When I was in college at Berkeley, I knew people who bragged about being intolerant only of the intolerant. To them, it turned out, “the intolerant” meant anyone whose opinion differed from their own.

    It seems to me that the gay community once was tolerant of points of view which differed from their own. Now that they wield it, they do not realize that great political power comes with great responsibility. Failing to understand this great responsibility is why dictators so often fail to be benevolent.

    Failing to understand this great responsibility is why some organizations cause the very intolerance they say they are against:
    http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/southern-poverty-law-center-website-triggered-frc-shooting/article/2520748
    “[H]e had been given a license to perpetrate this act of violence by groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center[,] which has systematically and recklessly labeled every organization with which they disagree as a ‘hate group,'”

  • “Tolerance means different things to different people.”

    I do not agree. Words mean things. Just because these people haven’t the faintest idea what the word “tolerance” means does not give them the right to redefine it into something that is completely counter to its original meaning. This is what fascists do, redefine words to prevent their opponents from using them against them. (Think of the line from Orwell’s 1984: “War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.”)

    If you cannot abide other people having different belief systems or points of view from yourself, you are intolerant. Period. You might want to imagine yourself as benign and filled with good will (thus becoming very offended when you read my blog and see me call you a fascist) but that’s too bad. You are still being intolerant, and you better start recognizing it before the consequences of your intolerance results in great oppression and injustice.

  • Edward

    Robert wrote: “This is what fascists do”

    Coincidentally, “fascist” and “racist” were the two favorite words these Berkeley students used on those they deemed to be intolerant. Of course, they used these words to shut down the opposing viewpoint, a tactic which I, too, always considered to be fascist.
    http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fascism
    “… forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, …”

    By using such words, these students may have been projecting their own emotions onto their opponents.

    Also coincidentally, these students were misusing words just about the year 1984. The word intolerance meant disagreement. Fascist meant shut up. Racist also meant shut up. The main difference between the book and the reality was that in reality it was the students, not the government, who wrongly redirected the meaning of words. However, the students *were* behaving as though they were governing everyone’s speech. (Ironically, Berkeley is the home of the 1964 Free Speech Movement, but with these students in charge, despite their pride in the FSM, speech was not so free.)

    Berkeley likes to select the best of the best students for matriculation, but being smart is no guarantee of being right. Unfortunately, many smart people think that they are so smart that they would know it if they were wrong, so it is difficult to convince them otherwise.

    I must be right about this, because I am very smart (I must be smart, having graduated from the prestigious UC Berkeley — how could I not be?), so obviously I would know it if I were wrong. ;-)

    Robert wrote: “You might want to imagine yourself as benign and filled with good will…”

    That is exactly why these Berkeley students were bragging about being so tolerant. They were convincing each other (think: echo chamber) that it was *they* who were the good, benign judges of tolerance and intolerance. Thus, anyone who disagreed with them must necessarily be intolerant, malevolent, and bad. Naturally, such disagreeable views must be shut down.
    http://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/essays-and-commentaries/what-ever-you-do-dont-shut-up

    Of course, shutting down various businesses is yet another form of shut-uppery.

    Hmm. This reflection of the experience makes me wonder whether this is another example of mob rule. The mob drives away or shuts up those who disagree with it, thus they become the de facto rulers. This kind of mob rule would explain a lot of what I have seen on various campuses, these past few decades, and what we are seeing with the shutting down of various businesses that conform to the owners’ religions, not the mob’s demands.

  • LocalFluff

    Are islamic “churches” subjected to having to web homosexuals too?
    Or is this distinctly discriminating on a religious basis?

  • Cotour

    The states issue is not with the religion, in this example its in the commercial venue that has been created within the state that is the issue. Over and above the religion the state sees the exclusion of anyone from an open to the public business venue based on a person or persons religion, race or sexual orientation as discrimination.

    It is hard for the STATE to see this any other way. The solution? Create a private club with requirements for joining or turn it into a church as these individuals have decided to do and enjoy the protections commensurate with that kind of structure.

    There are strong arguments on both sides but in reality no one gets to have their cake and eat it too.

  • Cotour

    Localfluff:

    The states issue is not with the religion, in this example its in the commercial venue that has been created within the state that is the issue. Over and above the religion the state sees the exclusion of anyone from an open to the public business venue based on a person or persons religion, race or sexual orientation as discrimination.

    It is hard for the STATE to see this any other way. The solution? Create a private club with requirements for joining or turn it into a church as these individuals have decided to do and enjoy the protections commensurate with that kind of structure.

    There are strong arguments on both sides but in reality no one gets to have their cake and eat it too.

  • pzatchok

    I want backgounds on the people and legal teams bringing these law suits to court.

    Are these activist LGBT individuals hunting for targets or are these activist legal teams hunting for willing pawns in order to send them out to venues and make them victims?
    Not much difference with those two.

    And why did this couple insist on this venue above all others?
    And if it was important enough to bring a law suit was it important enough to hold off the event until after the court decision?
    If not then it obviously didn’t matter that much.

    Almost makes me want to find a gay venue and hire it out for a KKK meet up. Or a nice Muslim picnic.

  • “The state”s issue is not with the religion.”

    I think you are being very naive here. Hostility to Christianity in particular is definitely a factor, especially since no one has charged any Muslim businesses for discrimination, even though they also refuse to serve same-sex marriages, something very clearly documented here.

    Obviously, these fascist homosexual bullies who attack Christian businesses are probably too cowardly to do the same to Muslim businesses out of fear of attack, but without doubt they also have a specific hatred of Judeo-Christian beliefs. To think this is simply a case of the state trying to prevent businesses from ill-treating some customers because of prejudice is to place blinders on so that you don’t have to see the evil being committed in the name of good intentions.

  • Cotour

    Yes, I remember, I think I posted that “gay” man in a Muslim bakery video here. The question remains, what would happen if it was taken to the extent with the Muslims that it was taken to by those activists exclusively against the Christian’s in the bakery example, the flower shop example, the photographer example and this wedding hall venue example?

    You are probably right, they (the activists or the government) do not have the stones to do so. I also tend to agree with you about the general attack by these gay activist operators against Christians and Christianity, they are natural enemies.

    What has to be remembered is that in these examples the state is being used as the enforcer and the state being the state can only see things in narrow legal ways. To answer the pure core question: Does the state have the right to tell an individual what they can and can not believe or who can they freely associate with? The answer to that is a solid and non negotiable NO!

    Where the pure core question becomes complex and is able to be used as an effective weapon is when the individual who has absolute rights enters into public business and attempts to blend the two. That is the legal toe hold that may not be able to be shaken, the state owns that arena and we have established that the state can only think in very narrow legal ways.

    While we get bogged down in thoughts of fascism and argue about the meaning of the Constitution those who would selectively and strategically use the court system to their advantage progress. Those who desire to operate their business and exclude some for what ever reason will have to think of ways around the existing and possibly growing establishment norm.

  • Edward

    Cotour wrote: “Where the pure core question becomes complex and is able to be used as an effective weapon is when the individual who has absolute rights enters into public business and attempts to blend the two.”

    I do not see it as complex. The constitutional rights that an individual has before he chooses to go into business are not lessened when he makes that choice.

    The Constitution does not allow for a relaxation of any rights or responsibilities, stated or implied, in relation to the behavior of founding a business. This is not complex at all. We do not give up rights when we enter business, drive a car, or buy a house, but we *do* gain additional responsibilities.

    You may be confusing rights with responsibilities.

    If laws have been written to reduce such rights for those who run businesses, then they are unconstitutional laws. Laws that define additional responsibilities (e.g. conduct business fairly, drive safely, pay property taxes) are constitutional. A businessman may still practice his religion freely, may not have his freedom of speech abridged, and may still be secure in his person, house(s), papers, and effects. Etc.

    The courts are not being *used* to some people’s advantage, they are being *abused.* The courts are not designed or intended to damage some people and advantage others. That is another form of crony capitalism. As many have found out throughout history, it is very difficult to find a way around a crony government — a government of men, not of laws. Making it difficult to find a way around is the entire purpose of the crony government. Such a government rewards its friends and makes sure to punish its enemies. The government is now being misused to bully the enemies of its friends.

    Before the courts began rewriting the laws, they applied equally to all people. Now, however, the courts have not only rewritten the laws but the rights of people who are currently in favor are treated as superior to those who are in disfavor. This is why a disfavored group is punished for the same behavior that a different (also favored) group is allowed to practice, as shown in Robert’s link, in the comment above, and as shown in the following post:
    http://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/colorado-discrimination-by-gays-good-discrimination-by-christians-bad/

    We do not want our country to remain as such a crony government. We want to regain the freedoms and the government of laws (not men) that we had only a decade ago.

  • Cotour

    In answering the pure core question the individual can not be forced to do anything or believe anything by the state / government. When the individual chooses to move outside of their personal rights safety zone and into the public realm doing business with that public then they are outside and vulnerable to other influences that may be objectionable to them.

    Their right is to their own absolute personal religious freedom and beliefs, their responsibility when they choose to modify it, from the states narrow legal point of view may be to accommodate those that they sometimes find objectionable in their public venue.

    Personal and public, does the personal perfectly translate into the public when answering the pure core question?

    There are now people who answer that question differently now and they are testing the boundaries. Are they obnoxious, calculating and manipulative? Some appear to be.

    And I can not wait to see when they decide to go to work on the Muslim baker who refuses to bake the cake for the gay wedding, now that will show that they are equal opportunity activists.

  • Edward

    Cotour wrote: “When the individual chooses to move outside of their personal rights safety zone and into the public realm doing business with that public then they are outside and vulnerable to other influences that may be objectionable to them.”

    Your reply seems to stem from what you see happening in the country today. It is not what we learned in civics classes, lo those many decades ago.

    There is no provision for someone to go outside of their constitutional-rights “safety zone.” They apply whether someone is in the privacy of his own home, goes outdoors (retaining the right to religion, speech, security of effects — no one is allowed to raid your home just because you are not in it), starts a business, or ends up in jail (several rights are more immediately applicable to those under arrest than to those walking free).

    If you are doing business within the United States, all of your rights continue to apply.

    Just because these rights are violated (even if by the government) does not make it right to do so. If someone — including the government — robs your house of your effects or papers, that action does not make robbery right.

    The problem is not that these rights do not apply to those doing business but that the government is a willing co-conspirator in the denial of these rights to those it considers enemies.

    Cotour wrote: “the individual can not be forced to do anything or believe anything by the state / government.”

    This statement once was true, but no longer. The Supreme Court has already ruled that the government may force us to purchase health insurance and to do anything else it wishes that we do, so long as tax is associated with the coerced action. Who would have ever guessed that the Sixteenth Amendment would be the instrument of the most invasive part of the tyranny against We the People?

    This is not the country in which we grew up. The name is the same, but it has been fundamentally transformed from a nation of laws — applied equally to all — into a nation of men; some men being favored by government, and the laws applied or retroactively rewritten or misinterpreted according to who is favored and who is not.

    The IRS has already applied the law differently to some groups that they identified as being against the sitting president. The courts are now applying and redefining laws according to the wishes of favored groups and the sitting president. I have many other examples.

    Instead of, as we learned in civics class, the courts protecting the rights of We the People, they are now facilitating the violation of our rights. That is what you see going on around us.

    The courts have become corrupted.

  • Cotour

    Supreme Court rules that private property can be taken from one individual and given to another individual, Supreme Court rules that the government can mandate that all individuals must purchase a product, Republicans further empower a radical race baiting socialist president, IRS executives are political operatives that use their position as a political weapon to destroy their political rivals and suffer no consequences, Republicans willing to pass a law that trades American sovereignty away to an international tribunal, president actively importing illegal immigrants into America, Democrat leadership actively importing illegal immigrants into America, Republican leadership actively importing illegal immigrants into America, You have to pass the bill before you can know whats in the bill, Only two dynastic family’s are qualified to run America, Justice department delivers thousands of high powered fire arms into the hands of dangerous drug gangs in order to create a public outrage on the road to attempt to ban fire arms, etc, etc, etc, etc. (I am getting depressed making this list)

    Your right Edward, when we start adding it all up We The People are behind the eight ball related to our rights and left with the obligation to pay for everything to boot. These gay rights arguments are almost just an academic distraction among many other distractions.

    This is a deep hole and I am of the opinion that this hole has been fashioned to limit the peoples rights in order that our bought and paid for leadership can continue abusing their power. It is a perverted loop of on going lies piled upon more and more lies.

    And now to add insult to injury, I find out that Brian Williams is too big to fire! A dopey talking head who reads the news and tends to lie about how important he is can not be fired. We will begin to repair ourselves when consequences are suffered for actions taken. I think that is the simplest standard that must be met, then we will know we are on the correct road back. Until then expect anything.

  • Cotour

    Who would have thunk it?

    https://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2015/06/communism-in-jarretts-family/

    Too little too late, 8 years too late. The establishment / media is just mocking the people now.

  • Edward

    Cotour wrote: “I am getting depressed making this list”

    That is why I only included two examples. We could always go back as far as 2008, when (then) government-controlled and owned Chrysler and GM closed down all the auto dealers who were owned by registered Republicans. (Now *I* am getting depressed — again.)

    Cotour wrote: “Brian Williams is too big to fire!”

    There was a time, not so long ago, that the even bigger Dan Rather was not too big to fire. This sure *is* a different country than it used to be. Quite the fundamental transformation.

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