Last night I had the privilege of sharing the platform at an event in Coeur D’Alene with Aaron and Melissa Klein. They were the owners of the bakery in Oregon that was shut down by the sexual totalitarians. They were then fined a chunk of cash by some despotic bureaucratic flunky, and when a GoFundMe campaign promised to raise the necessary funds in a matter of hours, the Liberal Forces of Enforced Tolerance did enough screaming to get that shut down. GoFundMe changed the terms of service, and said that Aaron was not a worthy recipient because he was guilty of a heinous crime. That heinous crime was that he told someone that he was very sorry, but that he could not bake a cake for their event.
If you want to help them now — and you should — go to continuetogive.com, and search for Aaron and Melissa Klein. Give now, while there is time, before Christians helping Christians becomes a heinous crime.
In my remarks, I basically made four points. First, these controversies are not because evangelical Christians want to avoid doing business with sinners. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 5:9-10 not to associate with sinners, but he hastens to add that he was talking about professing Christians who were living this way. If we had to avoid contact with sinners “of this world” we would have to leave the planet. There is no requirement that conservative Christians feel burdened by to avoid commerce with homosexuals. In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul tells us that meat offered to idols is still acceptable as meat, which means that there is no ethical contamination in doing business with people who are not Christians and who live as though they are not Christians.
Second, I showed how these issues of conscience are in fact a resurrection of the old Jim Crow methods, only not the way most people think. The old Jim Crow laws were laws, and they required private business owners to behave in racially bigoted ways. It was a sin to treat blacks in that way, and the laws mandated that it be done anyway. If your conscience required that you treat blacks and whites the same, then too bad for you. The same approach is being taken now — if your conscience requires you to define marriage the way God has defined it in both nature and Scripture, then too bad for you. The issues move around but the heart of the jitney tyrants never does.
My third point was one I have made in this space before, which is that the reasons certain professions have been singled out is because they are the glorifying professions — photographers florists, bakers. They are the professions that give approval, that render societal applause. This is why the Kleins would be happy to bake a cake for a homosexual’s birthday party, but not for a wedding. But this only explains why the battle has begun here. It will be by no means limited to such professions. The homo-jihadis think they are Jesus, and so they want every knee to bow and every tongue to confess. Let me think about it, no.
And last, even if we were mistaken, and true morality does not require us to refrain from baking such cakes — we are not wrong about it, but work with me here, just suppose — the kind of liberal society that liberals like to pretend they desire would allow us to be mistaken on such a point. They would leave us alone. They would not require a kosher deli to make them a ham sandwich. They would not require a Muslim owned advertising firm to take that Kentucky bourbon account. And they would not require evangelical business owners to approve of something we cannot approve.
But this is to be expected. Taken at large, liberals don’t really believe in their professions of liberalism. If they believed in it, we would be here. If they believed in it, we wouldn’t have to be worried about how Anthony Kennedy was going to vote this summer. But we are concerned about it because there is no hypocrisy like liberal hypocrisy.
Nonetheless, even though they really don’t believe what they say, we really do believe what we say. And so here we are.
Capitalism is completely on board.
http://orthosphere.org/2015/05/18/happiness-or-tradition-or-neither/
One of the things that bugs me about this situation is that it seems like Christians who are put in a place to be persecuted are then not wanting to deal with the repercussions of their persecution. They want to carry the cross, but they are going to resent everyone for making them carry it. I imagine this “fighting for your right” mentality is one of the things that the world doesn’t agree with (though they do it) and I wonder sometimes if we should (in the way that they do). After all, if Christ is to be our role… Read more »
So. Paul appealing to Caesar. He should have just carried his cross instead?
Are there legitimate appeals going on in this situation? That’s not a rhetorical question, I really don’t know, and would like to know. Perhaps Doug’s posts could be viewed as such. I don’t think He’s complaining. I think there is a difference between appeals and complaining.
Ben, I guess I’m confused as to what you’re actually trying to say. Do you want Christians to be forced to violate conscience and call evil good? Do you think that’s what God wants?
Not at all, I just think we need to take Paul seriously when He says that we should delight in our sufferings. And I don’t see those who delight in something whining on the nightly news about it. I’m not saying the baker couple has been whining. I just think everyone else has been doing a fine job of that on their behalf.
it seems like [A VOCIFEROUS SUBSET OF] Christians [SOME IN SHEPHERDING ROLES] who are put in a place to be persecuted are then not wanting to deal with the repercussions of their persecution. Do my [EDITS] clarify your position? If so, my position is that I too am tired of their whining to the reprobate culture, especially using their the ‘victim ala-mode’ style of late. God is honoring us in these times. I contrast this with frank discussions among the brethren about difficulties, logistics, tactics and strategies where these are required to plan effectively. The man and wife of the… Read more »
I don’t think Doug is complaining. He’s combating. However, there are those who believe that Christianity would flourish best when it’s in the cultural/legislative drivers seat. However, we’ve never seen this to be true. Christianity does not need to return to it’s placed of assumed authority, we need to return to Christ. So yes, support the bakers as Christ commands, but also know that while those using coercion do not need our compliance, they do need our love as well. Thanks for the response.
The gay marriage cutting edge (though I’d now say that sex changes for kids is the cutting edge) is certainly disturbing but I think that it distracts from the cultural changes going on in the pews. Younger Christians, even in conservative congregations, are embracing radical egalitarianism, multiculturalism, and the whole progressive system. This makes the church position on homosexuality an unprincipled exception and I doubt it will hold for long.
You gotta admire the marxists; they use our dollars to transform our youth into their mold.
Lenin was wrong, though. He had the children and the Church still triumphed.
The Klein’s have an absolute civil right to refuse service to someone based on conscience, but it’s “screaming” and “enforced tolerence” for GoFundMe, a private company, to deny them service when they attempted to raise funds to pay a penalty for violating the law…
Is there a problem with that position? It can be the case both that GoFundMe has an absolute civil right to deny the Kleins service, and be “screaming” and “enforced tolerance” when they do it.
Can’t it?
It *could*, though I don’t agree; the issue is rather that Doug seems to be calling the legal penalty leveled against the Kleins for breaking the law an act of tyranny while simultaneously calling the GoFundMe outcome an act of tyranny. And I think that’s weird, if they’re both supposedly exercising a civil right. And I think it aptly demonstrates that this is the wrong framing.
Penalizing someone for refusing to honor an obscene act is rightly characterized as tyranny, whether it is done by a government or by a corporation, and whether the penalty is issued directly or via cowardly refusal to do business. There is a world of difference between the person who refuses to glorify evil (Kleins) and the person who refuses to do business with someone on the basis of their religion, no matter how they try to justify it (GoFundMe). Anyone who refuses to do business with someone because the victim refuses to call evil “good” is bringing economic force to… Read more »
Right — there are higher values than logical consistency. There is a real difference between intolerance of wickedness, and intolerance of faithfulness. It’s neither hypocritical nor self-serving to recognize that — it’s basic to any moral system.
Actually, Doug is being consistent. He recognizes the right of GoFundMe to refuse service to anyone, even though they may be evil for doing that. What they did, though, was change terms of service after the fact, to break a previous agreement. That’s wrong anywhere.
Right — but “recognizing the right of GoFundMe” is apparently not good enough for AA. If you honor the Kleins for their refusal, then apparently you also have to honor GoFundMe. It’s not good enough merely to recognize that the right to do so exists.
“They would not require a kosher deli to make them a ham sandwich. They would not require a Muslim owned advertising firm to take that Kentucky bourbon account.”
But they do not see the situation in those terms. They see it in relation to a situation in which a Ku Klux Klan member does not want to serve Jews or blacks. They do not know how to navigate the murky waters of intolerance. Almost all of us are intolerant of certain strains of intolerance, and tolerant of others–it’s a naturally paradoxical term.
I think you are right that these situations are not seen as parallel, and I am not always certain that they are. A kosher deli ought not to make anyone a ham sandwich. They don’t serve ham, period. If they made and sold ham sandwiches to everyone other than blue-eyed blondes, they would be guilty of breaking anti-discrimination laws. No Muslim can be required to sell bourbon in his coffee shop, but If he decides to sell it to any customer, he must be willing to sell it to all. If a bakery does not make wedding cakes, it cannot… Read more »
jillybean wrote:
It very much appears to be a question of “straight intolerance”, but not in the way jillybean meant.
Looks like comments are hanging up in moderation again.
AA, last night Aaron made an explicit point that GoFundMe should have the absolute right to only do business with the kind of people they want to do business with. What they didn’t have the right to do is change the terms of service after the fact.
Barnabas, I don’t have any comments in moderation . . .
I’ve tried commenting three or four times in the past week on different threads and had none of them go through. I get a message that the comment is being held in moderation and then it simply never appears. We’ll see if this one goes through.
I used to have that problem when I posted links with the html ‘a’ tag. I will reply to you with another comment with one of those to see if that is the case.
test with an ‘a’ tag
dougwils.com
hmmm
dougwils.com
My commenting ability seems to have returned. Pity.
Eric, I’ll look into this. Out of curiosity, were you posting any links or pictures in those posts or were they plain text posts like the one you made here?
I’m pretty sure they were all just text. Thanks for looking into it. It seems to come and go; I’ll have no trouble posting at all for a couple of days, and then all of a sudden everything I post gets hung up in moderation.
Actually, I just found a number of comments awaiting moderation and approved them all.
Is there any chance of getting the comment thread indentation level increased by 1 or 2?
At three deep, the indentations stops and at that level there is no benefit to the disqus over the old system.
cheers.
t
I second this request. The chronology of the replies appears to be scrambled by not enabling many levels of indentation. Even with deep indentation, it may still be more readable to always put the newest posts at the bottom, so that folks don’t have to scan a large thread trying to look for new replies sprinkled throughout.
Thanks for the work on the site, and for considering this feedback.
Heh, heh! “I don’t have any comments in moderation”
“Corporations may provide lots of useful goods
and services, but never count on them to take a stand for freedom.”
James Taranto BOTW 09/21/09
Thank you for continuing to be on the front lines on this, Douglas. Homo-jihadis. Bingo.
Question that someone here might have an answer to:
Has anyone heard any stories about homosexual couples approaching a Muslim owned bakery/photography service/etc. requesting a wedding cake/ photography services?
It would be interesting to see if/how things would be seen/approached differently. Any links that any of y’all might have come across would be appreciated!
Thanks!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgWIhYAtan4
Thanks JC.
I’d still be interested to see any news stories or the like on this topic. This guy was more or less noting the (in his words) big “burka wearing” elephant in the room that but he didn’t reference an actual news story…
Thanks again though.
I haven’t seen any such stories, but just out of curiosity, what would you expect the result to be?
Not 100% sure Eric.
On the one hand there seems to be a pretty clear agenda from most media outlets to pretend that there isn’t any such reality.
On the other hand the homo-jihad and Islam are two of the stronger entities opposed to Christ in the world today. Perhaps we will see them set against each other as the enemies of God often were throughout the Biblical story (ex. 2 Chron 20).
I’d be interested to hear Pastor Wilson’s remarks on this.
Supposing the facts were exactly as they are with the Oregon baker, with the only difference being it’s a Muslim bakery. The lesbian couples files a complaint with the local anti-discrimination agency. The possible options are these: 1. The anti-discrimination agency handles it exactly the same way it handled the Christian bakery case and heavily fines the Muslim bakery (which is what I would expect). 2. The anti-discrimination agency blatantly prefers one religion over another by saying Muslims get a conscience exemption but Christians don’t. That, however, would be slapped down by the courts; everyone agrees that the First Amendment… Read more »
In his usual uncommitted and guarded way, Eric the Red still missed an option.
Since we’re just putting options on the table, how about this one?
5. The homo-jihadist is kindred spirit with the Muslim and is only looking to target Christians in the first place.
Which may explain why Eric the Red also notices an absence of stories about Muslim bakers being sued for discrimination. Who knew that gay folks were such patrons of Christian bakeries?
Katecho, in case you missed it, in the Muslim world being gay will get you stoned, thrown off the roof of a high building. or burned alive. Islam has the same opinion of homosexuality you do, only more intense by orders of magnitude. The idea that gays and Muslims are kindred spirits would be hilarious if not for the real pain Islam causes.
Perhaps I should have said “homo-fatwa-ist” so that Eric the Red would have understood the spiritual brotherhood behind the two agendas? Apparently the word jihadist didn’t do it.
In any case, if Eric the Red is going to catalog “possible options” for us, then let’s get them all on the table, right? Seems like Eric the Red is trying to control the narrative again.
Katecho, the idea that gays and Muslims are spiritual brothers (aside from those individuals who are both Muslim and gay) is ridiculous. Muslims want to kill gays. Not just keep them from getting married or making cakes for them, but to kill them. Plus homosexuality isn’t even an ideology; it’s a sexual orientation that includes people of ideologies all over the spectrum (including some who are Christians). Your attempt at taxonomy completely fails. If you’re trying to argue that there are authoritarians in both camps who want to deprive everyone else of free choice, you’re right, there are. As there… Read more »
Muslims want to kill homosexuals? How is Eric the Red allowed to get away with such sweeping generalizations? Isn’t that culturally insensitive? Anyway, let’s see what we have… 1) muslim jihadists who want to kill homosexuals, 2) homo-jihadists who want to sue the livelihood out from under Christian businesses, and 3) Christians who want to decline to bake a cake. Which two are of the same spirit? (Note, contrary to Eric, that I’m not asking which two are mutual buddies.) When there is no Gospel, and worldviews collide, the only tool available to that spirit is the tool of power-grab… Read more »
Eric isn’t exactly culturally sensitive; I think the British owe no one any apologies for abolishing settee in India and foot binding in China. Nor will anyone be owed any apologies if the West ever succeeds in abolishing the worst excesses of radical Islam. That aside, Katecho’s three categories are disingenuous, because it omits the fact that there are Christians who would be happy to use government to persecute homosexuals and Muslims if they had the political power to do so. Under Christian dominionism, America would be a fairly miserable place for either gays or Muslims to live. So it’s… Read more »
Eric, only because you seem to value accuracy and not to be snarky:
settee is a large wooden bench with a back. Suttee is the word you’re looking for.
Thanks. That’s what happens when I type too fast.
1.a) muslim jihadists who behead Christians
Perhaps Eric the Red is alluding to yet another “possible option” to explain why we don’t see a homo-jihad against Muslim bakeries:
6. The homo-jihadist is prejudiced against Muslims and won’t shop at their bakeries (or anyone else’s bakery except Christian bakeries).
Hurray for possible options.
Doug,
What do you say to the role of Christian financial planners/advisors? If an advisor were to receive a referral to a same sex couple how should he respond? Traditionally you are dealing with investing, tax management, college planning, estate planning, etc. These are things that deal with the “family”. I would love your thoughts.
I couldn’t find them at continuetogive.
I posted a link directly to them for you, but it must be hung up in moderation because of the link. I found them the way the post said to, by going to the site and searching for Aaron and Melissa Klein.
I searched them too but they didn’t come up. I’ll try again. Thanks for trying to post the link.
We have exactly this scenario here in UK (In Northern Ireland, the nearest we have to a Bible Belt). Verdict was today, guilty. The news report is here https://uk.news.yahoo.com/gay-cake-bakery-guilty-discrimination-091927896.html?vp=1#SPXcfrV It’s worth scrolling & looking at some of the comments. Clearly most if any are Christians, often pro-gay marriage, but are livid with the verdict. What is sickening, is that just a few months ago all the main political leaders here (& across Europe) defended Charlie Hebdo after the shootings. So, it’s OK to deliberately go out of your way to offend someone, but if you make it your ambition to… Read more »
Wise as serpents, harmless as doves. Cake? Sure, here’s yer cake. Loogie hocked, cake delivered, money in pocket. Problem solved.
Oh, and just to cut off any numbskull protestations, no microorganisms could possibly survive the baking process, thus harmless. Ugh, and let the pseudo-intellects/religionists begin their dreary rebuttal attempts…
So this event was on a Sunday night? I thought Sunday night was for church attendance, not other events. Why not do this on a Saturday or Friday night or any other night?