Comes now the NFL, on the cusp of bringing in their first openly gay player, and they are also contemplating banning the n-word and the other eff-word at the same time.
The Left is currently attempting quite a hat trick — they are unleashing, simultaneously, their inner wowser, their inner totalitarian, and their inner lust monkey. The results are not pretty — it is a kind of warp spasm of irrational overreach.
This is classic overreach. It was just a matter of weeks ago that we were being told that an abandonment of the Defense of Marriage Act would leave states free to make their own decisions on the matter, yay federalism, and so what happened? Since lo, these many weeks ago, federal judges have now been striking down state laws, one after the other.
Some people might have thought — not me, incidentally — that homosexual activists were going to pursue their agenda with a modicum of judicial restraint, ascending the bench of public opinion in a black robe in order to issue carefully reasoned arguments that would cause thoughtful people everywhere to consider what they had to say. But ten minutes after their initial victories, all the restraint evaporated, by which I mean to say that it all went away. They are now pursuing their agenda by means of a metaphorical parade through the Castro District, wearing nothing but a thong and a sombrero with mangoes and grapes all over it.
They want this all to be part of the great March of Progress — Seneca Falls, Selma, Stonewall, and any other Sibilants they come up with — and they never tire of comparing what they are doing to the Civil Rights Movement, looking around for the Jackie Robinson of sodomy. Now other writers have done a good job pointing out the false comparison — God created black skin and God prohibited this particular vice. So I do not need to develop that thought further. It has been done well already. What I actually want to point out is the similarity in what is going on.
In the pre-civil rights era, segregation was imposed and enforced by the government making laws that prohibited private citizens from undertaking any free market integration on their own. When that folly came crashing down, as it should have, some thought it would be a good corrective to prohibit a private citizen running a public business from making such sinful choices on his own. But this was just the coercive hand of the state from the other direction, a heavy hand that is now being used on evangelical photographers and bakers.
Laws should be used to combat crime, not sin, and certainly not faux-sin. What the legislation in the civil rights era ought to have done was strike down every form of the government’s own discrimination against blacks, and its mandating of discrimination elsewhere, and left it there. If Bubba still wanted to exclude blacks from his ribs joint, then that was Bubba’s problem, and Bubba’s loss. Everybody’s money is the same color.
Bigotry is a real sin, but because the state pretended that it had the expertise to deal with real sin through law, we have now come to the pretty pass of them thinking that they can deal with faux-sin through a law. But all they can do is impose mischief with a law.
Businesses have a clear and obvious right to discriminate based on behavior. No shoes, no shirt, no service works because no shoes and no shirt is a behavior. So is ordering a cake with two grooms on it. So is requiring a black baker to bake a Confederate battle flag cake. So is requiring a graphic designer married to a compulsive gambler to design a billboard for the local casino. So when you, for arbitrary and capricious reasons, define someone’s personal vice as an essential part of their personal identity, and link it with iron bands to their constitutional rights, you are making a royal hash of everything.
It has gotten to risible levels. So now people who strap on pads and who run into each other at full speed for a living are going to be told that if they use particular prohibited words, words that will bruise the petals of the taunted linebacker in question, they will be fined. Got it. Today the linebackers of the NFL, tomorrow . . . the linebackers of the Internet, which I hope would include Mablog.
They will come to me and demand circumlocutions. They will want me to pretend that free speech is still operative, and yet they will insist on the passive voice, and oblique indirection. And so I will do my best and will say that if circumlocutions are required of me, at the end of the day, when all things are considered, in the course of any proffered argument that I might want to advance concerning certain persons who are individual practitioners of that class of actions historically understood as faggotré . . .
“That’s it, bub.” I find myself in court, looking at a $250 fine, and ten counseling sessions.
“How do you plead?”
“Your honor, I will be the first to admit that my French is not the best . . .”
“How do you plead?”
“Not guilty, your honor.”
“And yet you acknowledge that you used the word . . . the word spelled f-a-g-g-o-t-r-é?”
“Yes, your honor. I did use that word . . .”
“How was that not a violation of the ban on the eff-word? The Constitutional Amendment concerning this passed a entire year ago.”
“Your honor, I didn’t know that was the word. I thought the eff-word law was referring to fudgepacker.”
There was a loud clatter as the court reporter fell out of her chair, and some moments before things were all recombobulated.
“You can’t use that word either!”
“Well, which word is the law referring to?”
“You can’t use any eff-words.”
“I see that I can’t be too careful. Can I use fruit?”
The judge said no, but not without a hesitating and possibly illegal glance at the plaintiff.
“Flamboyant?”
“I . . . I don’t think so. Look, that will all be covered in the counseling sessions, where you will almost certainly be going to for the next ten weekends.”
“What about free speech? Can I say free speech?”
“That’s the worst eff-word of all. No, you can’t that. Not any more. All done with that.”
Sorry, judge, but I was not quite done.
I have had to explain this before, but let me conclude by saying it again. It is our duty to be transgressive. Prior to the rise of homosexual activism, I had never once in my life taunted a homosexual because of his vice, whether with word, gesture, or epithet. I was not brought up that way, and I simply wouldn’t do it. But the pretense — and that is what it is, pretense — that these speech codes are being designed to address that particular problem is simply bogus.
And since the rise of “gay pride,” I haven’t taunted victims of vice under these new circumstances either. Why would a preacher of grace taunt victims of sin? What kind of ministry goes around kicking sad people?
So what am I doing then? Consider the difference here:
“When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more” (John 8:10-11).
“Such is the way of an adulterous woman; She eateth, and wipeth her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness” (Prov. 30:20).
There is no difference in the one sin (adultery), but a huge difference in the other — which is contrition v. the sin of high-handed arrogance in the second example. The grace of God teaches us to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Those who are enslaved by the chains of vice should receive nothing but sympathy and grace from Christians. Nothing but.
But there is a category of sin that is scripturally outside this “no fly zone.” This would be the cluster of sins that can be grouped as pride, arrogance, malice, spite, insolence, blasphemy, haughtiness, and hearts that are fat like grease. Those who rattle their chains, declaring them to be wings, with which they will soar far above our tired old ethical categories, need to be treated like the wizened old Pharisees they are. This is something I am happy to do, and as a preacher of grace, I am required to do by Scripture. Rough treatment for Pharisees is something prescribed by Scripture, not proscribed by it.
So would I ever taunt a slave of a particular sexual sin with a word like faggot? Of course not. But when these Pharisees of Phootball are falling all over themselves to ban the ph-word — and all driven by an insolent spiritual pride that represents our current apostate elites very well — I am more than willing to have some phun over their phailures of imagination when it comes to fallic placement. It’s their pride that makes it so funny.
Some people might think I am just being bad, but I hope to assure them that I am just getting started. Comstockian sodomites are the worst, and when I am finally convicted of renegade free speechery, and ascend the scaffold to be hanged, and I survey the assembled crowd eager to see the First Amendment defended, I will try to make a point of saying so again.
“Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth” (John 9:41).
Wooo, boy. Strap in, folks — it’s about to get interesting…
Perhaps an interesting seque –
Evolutionary traits that have over time and with with purpose become innate can be seen in the following manner –
Disgust.
No man need be told to avoid fecal matter, bile, vomit, spoilt food, seeping wounds and the prudency of this is obvious – singularly.
Socially the same innate disgust applies to incest, and if this is accepted under prudency of group survival – perhaps homosexuality.
Here’s a note I sent to a friend of mine who thought Jan Brewer’s decision was the right one… Jane Gunn of Gunn’s Online Gun, Knives, and Other Barely Legal Lethal Items, LLC wants to hire John Peace-Love of Peace-Love Photography to produce photographs for her company’s new websitegunns.com. The requirements are to produce appealing photographs of their products in an effort to encourage more sales of their lethal items. They would additionally like images throughout the site that glorify the ownership and use of said items. Specific requested photographs include a regal gal kissing her AR-15 firearm and a cool dad teaching… Read more »
A tour de force (pardon my phrench). After I got up from rolling on the floor laughing, I ended up back on the floor crying.
Joseph, everyone else, I used a similar example with someone yesterday. They said that being homosexual isn’t a choice, people are born that way. So, in your example, it is Gunn’s choice to sell firearms, they weren’t born in a fashion where they had to sell firearms. So, denying service to someone for a choice is different than how they were born. Now, if you think homosexuality is a choice, then the response is clear. However, I think homosexuality isn’t a “choice” all of the time due to original sin and depravity, acting on the desires is sinful though… in… Read more »
My response is that a business owner should have a right to refuse services irregardless of whether or not his objection is within the customer’s control. Should a restaurant owner be able to send a loudly gaseous patron on their way because they’re eruptions are so loud and smelly that all his dining customers are complaining and/or leaving? What if the gas is due to a medical condition beyond their control? Should a business that displays and sells vases from the Ming Dynasty insist that the poor lady with advanced stage Multiple Sclerosis stay outside because she is tripping and… Read more »
Andy’s question is the operative one here, and it’s the one I’ve now run into several times in similar debates. Because the gay lobby has so completely marginalized the language of choice (even though there are those within the gay community who use it and prefer it) regarding sexuality and sexual identity, and because our culture has so embraced the message of “born this way”, any analogy that rests on something perceived to be a “choice” is going to be treated differently. I went so far to quip (in borrowed fashion) that “gay isn’t the new black”, and you can… Read more »
Is it overreach if they get away with it?
Will, nope. If they get away with it, it is just simple grabbing.
Born that way? Do you think that the government should be spending money on research to find a cure for this illness? Should a genetic test be developed so parents have a choice as to whether they should abort this defective child? Doesn’t evolutionary biology demonstrate that this is a genetically inferior abnormality?
To Andy: It is a choice. A proclivity for something is not a destiny. I spent 15 years living as a homosexual. I chose to get out but not without the parting gift of an HIV infection. Ten years later I have a wife and two adopted children. That was a choice too. Anyone caught up in that life or their fellow travelers are liars.
Andy: I do hope you read all of Pastor Wilson’s post before jumping straight to the comments, but allow me to quote a bit of the above (and forgive me if the formatting doesn’t look just right): So what am I doing then? Consider the difference here: “When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more” (John 8:10-11). “Such is the way… Read more »
Jacob S. and Moor : Well said, Sirs!
JC writes: “Evolutionary traits that have over time and with with purpose become innate can be seen in the following manner – Disgust.” Mm hmm. And the reaction of most children upon hearing what THEIR parents had to do to conceive them is what? That “natural” and “Godly” thing? GROSSSSS! The thought of obese or unattractive or elderly heterosexuals (even if married) having sex is what? Go to a theater where one of these couplings is even hinted at and you’re going to get laughter. You’ve proved nothing. To be honest, it wouldn’t bother me in the slightest if… Read more »
“Laws should be used to combat crime, not sin, and certainly not faux-sin. … If Bubba still wanted to exclude blacks from his ribs joint, then that was Bubba’s problem, and Bubba’s loss.”
Maybe I’m just obscenely cynical, but I can’t imagine even the most hardcore, gov’t-so-small-it’s-almost-anarchy libertarian reaching this conclusion BEFORE laws started being passed that classified homosexuals as a demographic needing legal protection.
But even if I’m wrong, this still seems to run counter to the “Gay Is NOT the New Black” meme that you briefly affirm.
Help, help! You’re being repressed!
Thought of parents (disgust to avoid incestious thoughts) – obese or elderly (bad for genetic coupling)
Although I am not trying to prove anything, just ask good questions to further my understanding.
James I am not a theist by the way – or a homophobe.
‘Natural’ is a pendulum:
We cannot say morality is innate without allowing the misgivings of man to be too.
it may be more accurate to also say homophobia is just as natural as homosexuality.
But then again I would hope we have the reason to push past base urges.
Or propensities.
My phone filed my name as theismanti
JC
Very good responses Jacob and BPG, and to be clear, I completely agree with Doug here… my real thought in posting above was that I keep hitting a wall, so to speak, when using that example, and I’m looking for ways to try to proceed and still have a productive discussion… I agree with you guys, especially the choice point that BPG mentioned but I’m struggling with getting any further in conversation without the person resorting to, “well, that’s your religion and we have freedom of religion here, your religious conviction can’t get in the way of someone else’s rights” … Read more »
I can’t stand when people act like Pharisaism is a peculiarly “conservative” sin that only us religious conservatives need worry about. The very definition of Pharisaism is modern Western Liberalism with its Human Rights Commissions and faux moral indignation. Almost better examples than the originals, if that were possible.
Let’s say it’s an orientation. One advocate says the best thing if for them to “marry” like kind, to form responsible family bonds of loving expression and satisfy therein the sexual urges. Why is God against this? We need to be prepared and more clear!!! It’s because homosexual behavior poisons. It injects a cancer on the good relationship between guys or between girls. Instead of promoting simple and rich brotherly love, it complicates thigs and adds sexual layers that warp the good guy or gal culture. Guydom good. Galdom good. Gaydom sad.
But the NFL isn’t the government; it’s a private organization. So under Doug’s free market approach, what’s the problem? If the government were banning use of certain words, there’s a whole boatload of Supreme Court caselaw that would put a stop to it lickety split. It isn’t the government, though; it’s a private organization. And private organizations have always had the right to tell their employees how to behave when they’re on the company’s dime. Come to think of it, a lot of companies regulate a lot of off-the-clock behavior too, as many an ex-employee discovered the morning after his… Read more »
Mr Bradshaw: Is anti-God a tool for nastier atheists to get attention? We Christians fall short of the love of Jesus, but it can be recognized in some of us. Would Mr Dawkins, etc, blow a gasket if forced to recite I Corinthians 13? / / / / / / / Mr Waters: libertarians (generally non-Christian ones?) have indeed affirmed that letting Bubba’s racism lose him business, rather than trying to force him by law not to practice racism, is the thing to do. / / / / / / / If I’m supposed to celebrate ‘gay’ activity, aren’t they… Read more »
Andy: Thank you for your kind words. (I realize now that my opening words could be read with a tone less friendly than I meant. Please accept my apologies.) I have not yet read or heard all of Greg Bahnsen’s works, but what I have been working through lately has been helpful to me in thinking through why our government’s laws ought to be shaped by the Law of God found in the scriptures. He also deals very well with the relativist escape routes you describe and we all encounter. I think if I tried to explain it as eloquently… Read more »
Brendt Wayne Waters: ” Maybe I’m just obscenely cynical, but I can’t imagine even the most hardcore, gov’t-so-small-it’s-almost-anarchy libertarian reaching this conclusion BEFORE laws started being passed that classified homosexuals as a demographic needing legal protection.” // You haven’t apparently been following Doug’s blog lo these many years. That was his posish long before the frequency of these types of posts ramped up (somewhat correlated in my mind to the number of real and, often, gratuitous mentions in the media–I find myself muttering when NPR’s All Things Considered and the like are on: All Gay. All the Time.). I think… Read more »
Eric the Red wrote: “But the NFL isn’t the government; it’s a private organization. So under Doug’s free market approach, what’s the problem?” Indeed, what is the problem? Great caution is warranted, or Eric might accidentally find himself overcome with zeal and hurling a prescription against Doug’s behavior. Eric seems to have missed the transition from NFL to courtroom setting in Doug’s hypothetical prosecution. Still, the boundaries between the market and the government are rapidly eroding in both directions. The free market is all but dead with the government now picking the winners and losers, and too-big-to-fail corporations flexing… Read more »
But Katecho, to the extent that corporations have become too big to fail, and big enough to threaten the economy of a state, isn’t that simply the free market at work? I’m no socialist, but I know from past conversations that I’m agreeable to far more regulation than you are, partly because without it, we end up with corporations that are too big to fail and corporations that are big enough to force their will on entire states.
Doug Wilson, you are a foul, disgusting human being and a disgrace to the Christian faith and its pastorate. “Fudge-packer”? “Faggotre”? You are a preeningly belligerent ass, and the love of God is not in you. I beg you to repent. Laugh at me, laugh at my message — but fear the God in whose eyes you are an unloving viper. Keely Emerine-Mix
Eric the Red, your point about the NFL being private is a reasonable one, and I had almost included a section on taxpayer funded stadiums, etc. in order to address the quasi-public nature of certain mega-businesses. Threatening to remove the Super Bowl from Arizona would be another example. But to take the point, if the NFL were genuinely private, all the way, I do believe they should have the legal right to ban whatever words they want to.
Hi, Keely. Thanks for providing us a sample of what my loving discourse would look like if I weren’t such a foul, disgusting human being.
Keely gets to call people names like ass and viper in a fit of righteous zeal, but others aren’t allowed to address wolves in a similar way? Righteous anger is a tool reserved for her use only? Perhaps Keely feels she has spiritual authority and that Doug doesn’t, even though Doug is a pastor. Perhaps Keely feels that homosexual acts are not a sin, even though Scripture refers to them as such. I appreciate Doug’s distinction between the broken and repentant homosexual and the homosexual wolf that is a true danger to the sheep, and the different approaches to be… Read more »
What truly saddens me is that not one successful professional Christian athlete has shown a willingness to put their career on the line for the Gospel and challenge this stuff.
For those of you who like a proper history lesson should read up on the history of Chinese Americans in the South during segregation. They made segregation work for them by opening businesses that catered exclusively to Blacks.
Hey Doug, skip the NFL and talk oil companies. That is more important. They are allowed to control the economy. Why shouldn’t the government eminent domain the oil reserves for commercial use?
Can genuine begging for repentance happen in the comments-section of a blog? Maybe so, but probably not when it looks like the above example…
Eric the Red wrote: “But Katecho, to the extent that corporations have become too big to fail, and big enough to threaten the economy of a state, isn’t that simply the free market at work?” Keynes (coincidentally a homosexual) argued that the government is the great social protector. He advocated government intervention in the form of bailouts of private institutions that were deemed too big to fail. He was aware of the moral hazard in doing this, but advocated the intervention anyway, for the sake of the society. However, in a free market there is no corporate bailout by the… Read more »
Article I.8 grants Congress the power to tax, borrow, and spend without limitation for the general welfare as it sees fit, to set the value of money, to regulate commerce between the States (which includes the cannabis growing in your kitchen window, according to our high oracles of original intent), and to make all reasonable and proper laws to put these powers into effect. This regime is 224 years old which gives ample notice to would-be emigrants, and depends on continuing authorizations by elected representatives, which gives people the power to shut it all down at will. I don’t find any… Read more »
Scroop Moth is incorrect. Article 1 Section 8 does not grant Congress the power to spend without limitation. Such words are not present in the article, and it isn’t a privilege that a government can rightfully bestow on itself anyway. “Without limit” is the effect of recent debt-ceiling political compromise, but the founders had no desire for the behemoth federal government we have today. I don’t dispute the State’s legitimate authority to tax, in principle, but we can’t conclude from this that it is impossible for the State to steal through its practice of taxation. It certainly is possible. … Read more »
The rulers of nations are not autonomous. They will be judged for how they exercised their God given authority. Christ is King of kings, and rules the nations by His Law, with a rod of iron there. And for Eric or Stoop or DeLurking when you wonder about my “disobedience” , my hope and my insistence that you are losing. Katecho gives the Scriptural basis for it. ///Your mistake is assuming that America or “The Utilitariat” or “pick your idol of choice and insert it here” is my boss./// You are incorrect. ///America used to have legitimate authority over… Read more »
Doug, I find Keely’s response helpful in pointing out that the “new morality” is not as wide open to diversity as a surface-level analysis of their rhetoric might indicate. It’s not that one side wants to be critical, and the other could never say a strong word, nor is it a matter of having the laws let people live and let live under the new morality. Its a matter of both groups defining another group as being dead wrong, and then to greater or lesser degrees, using the force of government to stifle them (or put them into the closet,… Read more »
Beautifully said, David.
Blow that trumpet. Call to spiritual arms!
James Bradshaw writes:
Which confirms what was actually obvious about James’ comments – that his responses have seldom been against what Pastor Wilson actually said, but who James Bradshaw imagined him to be. In our age, why bother interact with the individual when we can win arguments against figments of our imaginations.
Comment sections often illustrate this point made by Chesterton (as quoted in Defiant Joy) back in 1903: “Chesterton lamented that it was ‘too much the custom in politics to describe a political opponent as utterly inhuman.’ He recoiled from this, saying ‘this kind of invective may often have a great superficial success: it may hit the mood of the moment; it may raise excitement and applause; it may impress millions’ – but ultimately, he said, it failed utterly to engage ‘the real ironies’ of an opponent’s soul – ‘the mean compromises, the craven silences, the sullen vanities, the secret brutalities,… Read more »
Eric Stampher, I wholeheartedly agree that, in your words, “we need to be prepared and more clear” in our dealings with the unregenerate and, incidentally, with believers caught in wrong thinking and reasoning. In that spirit, I would point out that the wrongness of homosexuality has absolutely nothing to do with the potential negative effects it has on society. Homosexual behaviour is wrong for the single reason that every sin is wrong: it violates the character and nature of the holy God who created and governs the universe. Collateral damage caused by sin is unfortunate, and is also displeasing to… Read more »
Article I.8 states no limit on the amounts of taxation, borrowing, spending, and money printing that it grants Congress the power to impose, because the founders chose not to put such words in the text, though they certainly had the vocabulary to do so. Many right wingers want an amendment to fix this. Stealing is taking by fraud or violence. In this case you are just whining. Takings are not theft if they follow due process. However burdensome, federal taxes are constitutional, statutory, and subject to continuing authorization by our elected representatives. You can’t actually rob yourself except in an act… Read more »
One example of the NFL flexing muscle is they forced AZ to sign on to MLKDay
“I had never once in my life taunted a homosexual because of his vice, whether with word, gesture, or epithet. I was not brought up that way, and I simply wouldn’t do it.” But you have. Here. With this post. I know you don’t think you have. I get that. But using the words that you are using, whether in “fun” or not, does inflict harm. It does taunt.
The things happening in our culture today remind me of a story I once read — a true story about a police officer who noticed a car being driven erratically through traffic. The officer pulled the vehicle over only to discover that a blind man was driving it. There was a passenger capable of sight, but when asked why he wasn’t driving, the passenger responded, “Officer, I’m too drunk to drive, and I didn’t want to get a DUI!” (The drunk man was giving verbal instructions to the blind man as they made their way home. It seems a perfect… Read more »