There is no “tolerance” in the militant gay movement – there can only be acceptance (even if forced). President Obama’s Obamacare Mandate is forcing Christian companies to provide abortifaciants in their healthcare policies against their religious beliefs and conscious – this is Tyranny in which Government decides what thought is allowed – and what is not. Christian small business owners are forced to participate in “religious” ceremonies that they consider sinful – with fines and threats of literal “re-education”. This is the Land of the Free under the force of Diversity?
In Houston, lesbian Mayor Anise Parker is suing Pastors for their sermons (et al) for simply fighting against her ordinance – there can be no defiance allowed. Just like Obama simply rewording his soul crushing mandate thinking it more palatable, she is rewording her subpoenas from sermons to speeches as all Progressives (now nearing Fascism where Govt controls all things and thoughts) believe us to so stupid as to go “oh, that’s different – all good now”. Now we see another part of The State putting its thumb down on religion – this is what happens when the Levers Of Power are seized (reformatted, emphasis mine):
Govt tells Christian ministers: Perform same-sex weddings or face jail, fines
COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho – Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys filed a federal lawsuit and a motion for a temporary restraining order Friday to stop officials in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, from forcing two ordained Christian ministers to perform wedding ceremonies for same-sex couples. City officials told Donald Knapp that he and his wife Evelyn, both ordained ministers who run Hitching Post Wedding Chapel, are required to perform such ceremonies or face months in jail and/or thousands of dollars in fines. The city claims its “non-discrimination” ordinance requires the Knapps to perform same-sex wedding ceremonies now that the courts have overridden Idaho’s voter-approved constitutional amendment that affirmed marriage as the union of a man and a woman.
Give an inch – they want your soul:
“The government should not force ordained ministers to act contrary to their faith under threat of jail time and criminal fines,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Jeremy Tedesco. “Many have denied that pastors would ever be forced to perform ceremonies that are completely at odds with their faith, but that’s what is happening here – and it’s happened this quickly. The city is on seriously flawed legal ground, and our lawsuit intends to ensure that this couple’s freedom to adhere to their own faith as pastors is protected just as the First Amendment intended.”
Freedom – when does a mere local ordinance trump the Constitution? Or have we reverted backwards to the Right of Kings (under aliases)?
“The government exists to protect and respect our freedoms, not attack them,” Tedesco added. “The city cannot erase these fundamental freedoms and replace them with government coercion and intolerance.”
Sadly, it seems only when our Citizenry, when they become our elected Officials, still hold true to our pre-existing freedoms that are simply enumerated (but not granted). When they don’t hold to the same values (e.g., Progressive / Socialist / Communist ones – simply that the few will control the many once again), they use that Government to take away those freedoms under such nice sounding words like equality, diversity, multiculturalism, and (….wait for it….): “Fairness”.
The Hitching Post Wedding Chapel is across the street from the Kootenai County Clerk’s office, which issues marriage licenses. The Knapps, both in their 60s and who themselves have been married for 47 years, began operating the wedding chapel in 1989 as a ministry. They perform religious wedding ceremonies, which include references to God, the invocation of God’s blessing on the union, brief remarks drawn from the Bible designed to encourage the couple and help them to have a successful marriage, and more. They also provide each couple they marry with a CD that includes two sermons about marriage, and they recommend numerous Christian books on the subject. The Knapps charge a small fee for their services.
It seems that Coeur d’Alene is acting under the same outlook as Obama and others that see Christianity as an obstacle – only Houses of Worship and that actual worship within those 4 walls is protected. Under the insidious Obama spawned “Freedom of Worship”, we see “Freedom of Expression” being exterminated. As Erick Erickson has coined: “You WILL be made to care”. And now we see the next logical expression in “you WILL be made to think correctly – you WILL be jailed for your faith”. China, Russia, North Korea, Iran – certainly here.
Coeur d’Alene officials told the Knapps privately and also publicly stated that the couple would violate the city’s public accommodations statute once same-sex marriage became legal in Idaho if they declined to perform a same-sex ceremony at their chapel. On Friday, the Knapps respectfully declined such a ceremony and now face up to 180 days in jail and up to $1,000 in fines for each day they decline to perform that ceremony.
“The city somehow expects ordained pastors to flip a switch and turn off all faithfulness to their God and their vows,” explained ADF Legal Counsel Jonathan Scruggs. “The U.S. Constitution as well as federal and state law clearly stand against that. The city cannot mandate across-the-board conformity to its interpretation of a city ordinance in utter disregard for the guaranteed freedoms Americans treasure in our society.”
Virginia McNulty Robinson, one of nearly 2,500 private attorneys allied with ADF, is serving as local counsel on behalf of the Knapps in Knapp v. City of Coeur d’Alene, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho.
What are we to make of Government (“The State”) that forsakes it’s first mandate?
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,
What does one do when that Government no longer “secures these rights” but think it is their Right (like Kings of old) to trample them instead? Or are we drifting towards that Hobbesian view of Government where ALL rights are to be ceded to The State which turns us into mere vassals – and slaves?
In part, this country was founded for Religious Freedom – enshrined in our First Amendment. Yet, little by little, as the Militant Gay movement (under that misnamed banner called “Equality”) and Progressives (who think us to be only cogs in their social machine) continue their march through the culture we have seen that the Free Exercise of Expression (e.g., the right of conscious – the right to think unforced by others) being trampled upon. Are we now seeing the end of the beginning of that Pillar, unraveling by sacrificed on the Altar of Sexual License with its attending Secular Humanist Priests? Remember, while most of us hold true to the notion that we “are endowed by their Creator“, they acknowledge no Creator – for that would force them to stop. Instead, they see themselves as Final Arbiters of good and evil – and anything that prevents THEIR exercise of Will is, by definition, evil.
Good is now deemed bad, what used to be Holy is now considered to be Heresy. Topsey Turvey as we are being fundatmentally transformed.
A final thought for the night – by the way – what the is Republican Party doing in standing up for this specifically enumerated Constitutional Right? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. So once again I ask – why should we fight (and vote) for them when they have all but surrendered?
When will Christians wake from their somnambulance? Or is their faith too weak and too shallow?
