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The Sore Winners of the Left
The Left started the culture war, won it, and now roams the countryside shooting the wounded.
Getting same-sex marriage legalized now appears to have been just a beginning for progressives, not the goal that many libertarians and conservatives had assumed. With SSM accepted in more states every year and the Supreme Court considering if it should be a right in all 50, the Left is angrier than ever.
While most Americans would have celebrated such rapid victories, a large number of so-called liberals are out for vengeance. In Indiana, a local news reporter cold-called businesses to see if they would cater a theoretical same-sex wedding. The first one to say “no” would be made an example of.
When the journalist asked owners of a small, rural pizzeria the equivalent of ”are you now or have you ever been a member of a traditional church?” they answered honestly. So the reporter juiced up the headline by claiming the business refused to serve gays. National outlets ran with the useful lie. The rest is mob violence history.
Progressives threatened to rob Memories Pizza, kill the owners, and burn it to the ground. The terrified couple locked up the store and were too afraid to leave their home due to the threats. This pizza place had never been asked to cater a same-sex wedding — or any wedding ever. It had never refused service to anyone. The owners had never threatened physical harm against a soul.
Tumbrels rolled down Main Street anyway. Jealous at the online buzz, now CNN is calling random businesses to out the traditionally religious. The crowd must be sated. Dissent must be crushed.
All this time, I naively viewed the legalization of same-sex marriage as the goal of its proponents. Well-meaning people who wanted the same legal rights as their heterosexual brothers and sisters. How could my marriage be damaged by simply allowing another couple the same options I enjoy?
But for many activists, same-sex marriage was just a convenient tactic to achieve a much broader goal. Their real desire was to silence dissent. To drive the traditional, the conservative, and the religious underground. To destroy their businesses and threaten their lives. To ensure the minority understood there was no place for them in this nation.
I hope that one day, progressives will learn how to accept people different from themselves. But now that SSM is nearly a fait accompli, I’m wondering which wedge issue will be used next to hammer the stubborn square pegs into the round holes of post-Obama America.
Published in Culture, Law
Churches are next. Not all, but those that fail to perform traditional marriage ceremonies for gays. So much for the “civil union” compromise . . .
But it’s not about having the same benefits as married couples. That could be done legally through civil unions. It’s all about trying to destroy traditional Christian values. How many denominations have had their national organization leadership declare “gay okay”, then see their local chapters start to splinter off? Our local Episcopal church kinda-sorta broke away from the nation leadership after that gay bishop thing up “nawth”.
The homosexual lobby couldn’t do it passing laws, so they do it through the courts, and militant intimidation.
What issue? Religion of course. Anyone who declares themselves to be religious will get pounded for details unless they are Democrats and then you will hear crickets.
Women’s issues, gay issues, gender issues, evolution issues, prayer issues, thought crimes, racial issues, and intolerance in general will be bloody red flag of the SSM. All a person has to say is they believe in Jesus and it’s game on.
Religion as a national political force is dying in this country.
You know nothing, Jon Gabriel.
Now watch the death of religion at the hands of the progressive state. The Christians have been persecuted for thousands of years over the entire planet. They knew what was gonna happen to them and will in the future. They even told you but you would not listen. This has never been about the LGBTTQQIAAP community, they are just a tool, a pretense. There are too few LGBTTQQIAAP to have this sort of influence. No this has been about the destruction of morality, ethics, religion and the only force that has ever challenged the states authority. Winter is coming, it will be long. The last one was called the Dark Ages.
It is always the same with “progressives”. Their stated goals are never actually what they want. That’s why it is nearly impossible to debate them on the merits of their argument. Obamacare is the perfect example. Stated goal = provide access to uninsured millions. Actual goal = Increase dependency on government and change the relationship between the state and the individual. That is why they are indifferent to any arguments that demonstrate their stated goals won’t be achieved….it doesn’t matter. It’s either a stepping stone towards a bigger goal like SSM acceptance is, or a cover story to achieve a more insidious endgame, like Obamacare is.
Some people did try to warn us.
Stad, remember waaaaay back (like 10 years ago) when civil unions were opposed by some because they would lead to same sex marriage? “Oh no, we have no interest in that archaic ceremony based on the church, just give us the same legal benefits.”
You are far too sanguine.
The way to kill churches is to remove their tax exempt status, many progressives have been dreaming of this for quite some time. The gay marriage debate merely opens the door to a tactic which will be far more effective.
Watch and see how many places of faith fail to tow the line once the IRS is watching them for unapproved behaviour, an audit can be very effective at silencing one’s opponents.
Only the left could create a wedge issue where there isn’t really an issue. Are we experiencing endemic denial of service to our gay friends and neighbors? In light of news media outlets calling local businesses to troll for non conformists, I’d wager that discrimination of the type hyped is nearly nil.
I for one need a vacation from a culture war fought on a battlefield of false premises with combatants armed exclusively with emotion.
Any coincidence that this seems to be happening at the same time there appears to be a resurgence of what I would call “evangelical atheists” blathering on about SCIENCE DENIERS?
I’m in no way criticizing any atheists in general or anyones personal choices about a belief in God. There is a huge movement right now (in my opinion) to hold up any belief in God to ridicule. To me, that is the height of arrogance.
You were naive, Jon. Some of us were perfectly certain these effects were coming. After 2008 here in CA, I knew this crowd would stop at nothing and destroy everything if allowed.
You mean that the disciples of Saul Alinsky had an ulterior motive? Who would have thought?
Perhaps this Leftist overreach will finally start the pendulum swinging back in the opposite direction. In my view, far too many libertarian, conservatarian and conservative opinion leaders signed on to the SSM agenda with little forethought. I can’t tell you how many discussions I’ve heard in which the conservative or libertarian discussing SCOTUS SSM case law started out the discussion with: “Well, I’m personally in favor of SSM, but . . .”
They should have asked themselves: “Why should we experiment with the bedrock social institution of our civilization?” They should have asked themselves: “Shouldn’t the burden of proof be placed on those advocating revolutionary social change?” This is particularly true as social science has made it abundantly clear (see Charles Murray’s recent work) that our society has suffered catastrophic consequences from the breakdown of traditional families and traditional morality.
Is it too much to hope that the Indiana firestorm might prompt a reconsideration of the issue?
I believe this is the plan as well. However, I suspect that this will brings results the Progressives do not expect. The Politicians have purchased silence from the church on many things through tax-exempt status. Once they take that away, the Church will have no reason whatsoever to remain silent. There will be a floodgate that opens, and I doubt Progressives even realize this. They are pretty bad at figuring out unintended consequences after all.
Jon, I have a serious question. Are you now willing to join those of us who have been standing athwart history, yelling Stop, regarding the homosexual agenda?
Those progs and media must be tired.
Before dropping their outrage-bomb on an Indiana small business, they were busy pointing pitchforks and torches at Hillary for taking
bribesdonations from governments that jail, maim and kill homosexuals.Um… oh wait. Sorry. My bad. Those were conservatives who raised the issue.
Yes, wasn’t that right before they started camping outside Hillary’s house to ask about Bill going to pedophile island?? No???
No soup from Rob for you!
These are precisely the questions I raised a year or two ago with a friend who is all progressive all the time. She was all over the SSM bandwagon, but had no response to why we should redefine marriage when the traditional version has been the basis of virtually all social organization, in all cultures, everywhere, for millennia.
The troubling thing about this kind of progressive assault is how it divides people. She has faded away and become a former friend. Ah well.
Call me crazy, but is it a coincidence that all this is happening at the same time HBO is rolling out a two hour documentary on the organization that calls itself a church and deals with dissent like those reporters hunting down young women to shun who are just trying to run a pizza place in a small Indiana town. Yep, those Scientologists.
Wait for the push to parse the law to crush all tax exemptions for churches, using the example of the Sea Org as a wedge to get the legal effort started. They’re not real hep on same sex anything themselves, I hear. If there was a plan to construct a religion expressly for the purpose of discrediting all public respect for religion and the state’s deference to it as an institution, it would look a great deal like Scientology. After you watch the HBO piece, it sure does make you want to go out and tax the snot out of them at the very least.
It sounds crazy, but you just can’t be cynical enough to keep up. Probably just a coincidence, right?
I wish I had any success getting Ricochet posts on my facebook page.
This post is so exactly right.
Exactly as I claimed in the piece. Not everyone was as naive as I was.
I’ve never known what exactly the homosexual agenda was, so I’m not interested in stopping it. I want everyone to be as free as possible — gay, straight, Christian, Zoroastrian, gluten-free marijuana enthusiasts of color… you name it.
I want the freedom to live my life as I see fit, and others to as well.
That’s the problem with the harm principle though. No one agrees what harm is. Those pushing to curtail religious freedom and marriage don’t think they are curtailing anyone’s freedom, not really, only freedoms that were never legitimate anyway, so they are doing everyone a favor and doing no harm…. You see where this is going. It’s a useless principle.
Really, though, there are no winners here. We are all defined by our fences and parameters. Perfect “freedom” is a mirage because humans need structures to keep us moored. The definition of marriage was one of those. As I wrote in a recent post, it kept a lot of understandings about family and the sexes in place and served as both an important check on government and a stabilizing influence on society, and was even something that those so inclined could define themselves against. Without it, we have nothing and things fall apart. Can we regain some moorings, especially with the left attacking that great giver of stability and meaning, the church? Well, I don’t think the church will die. Believers have fought worse and survived, but buckle up. Things are going to get worse before they get better.
Actually this one ends with the second coming of Christ but it will get uglier before that happens.
Yep, I do. The thing is, legal benefits could have been granted to gay couples even without civil unions. For example, powers of attorney could remedy every “ill” except the tax code, and if we had a tax code where one’s status in life didn’t matter, things would probably be much better.
The fact that the opposition is pushing the “gay marriage” thing (an oxymoron to me) means that their goal is not equality, but payback.
“We just want to be left alone to marry whomever we want”
Offda! What a head fake that was!
Unfortunately this will not end well or soon. It started with Gay men. Vermont gave them civil unions. Nice. But this did not produce the acceptance that they wanted. Parents weren’t happy for them. Siblings still seemed (what’s the word?) overly protective of preadolescent nephews. And then there’s the hidden aversion, the “ick” factor; they can feel it, like hetro-superman eyes burning the skin (never to face to face.) And that’s with the nice people. Lesbians were reluctant recruits, at first. then the trans and the other fifty-seven varieties of queer. Marriage became a mantra, but it’s not enough either. These people will be celebrated or they will crash and destroy everyone’s party. They are spoiled children demanding attention. Tolerance, acceptance are not enough. We must all celebrate our perversities.
But they are perversities. Eventually they will figure it out, but not before we all get sick of it and pay a steep price in incivility and chaos.
I’m sick of it already.
I’ve put this up before but it’s now time again (Please ignore the picture on the youtube – I don’t know why this is selected). This whole subject is building to a crescendo and it’s really something to watch. Hear Camille Paglia (a lesbian atheist) talk about the hatred of the gay activists and their huge number of straight supporters in the media. She says:
Listen to this at 12:56:
Yeah, sorry, you aint gettin that.
OK, let me be more clear.
Do you oppose or support same-sex marriage? My impression is that you supported SSM previously, but perhaps I’m reading too much into your column. If you were previously pro-SSM, does your discovery of the true agenda of the pro-SSM movement change your mind?
Do you oppose or support laws that would outlaw discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation? It should now be clear that such laws will be used as a bludgeon to silence any dissent and persecute the traditionally religious.
It seems to me that you can oppose SSM and oppose adding sexual orientation as a protected classification under the anti-discrimination laws, and still be in favor of freedom for all. It does not seem to me that you can take the opposite policy positions, and yet be in favor of freedom for all.