A few years ago I hosted gay activist attorney Andrea Ritchie on my radio program and asked her whether she believed the homosexual lobby could peacefully coexist with traditional Christian morality. After a very pregnant pause, she responded pointedly: “Sure, if Christians will give up their resistance to our cause.”
(H/T: IndyStar) Yes, we expect you to just totally abandon closely and strongly held Biblical beliefs – just give up. The innuendo from Ritchie, with that line, was “Or it will go poorly for you” – and we have seen just that. We have seen it (“go poorly”) in the aftermath of Prop 8 in California and recently in the news as gay militants have used Government in forcing small biz Christians to either choose between their livelihoods and their beliefs. And must I have to remind you of Mozilla’s Brendan Eich who was forced out of his CEO position simply because he donated to Prop 8 supporters?
This in a country that was founded on religious liberty and made explicit in our First Amendment. We have also heard similar things from NH’s Tyler Deaton, who has been vehement about Republicans like Rick Santorum not being allowed to speak at Republican events because HATE SPEECH as they support traditional families! And NH GOP Committeewoman Juliana Bergeron, along with several other NH GOPpers have signed onto an amicus brief at the Supreme Court stating their opposition to the gay marriage bans in Ohio, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee.
From the NH GOP Platform:
We believe that traditional families are the foundation of strong communities, and that family life best nurtures love of country, faith in God, morality and concern for others.
We believe that the Founding Fathers gave the 1st Amendment its pre-eminent position with intent that religious freedom deserves to be protected.
Traditional Families – one man, one woman. The definition that has been the norm for thousands of years. It has been adopted by the NH GOP by lawful votes of its delegates. From NH Journal (reformatted, emphasis mine):
Former Rep. Bass among prominent NH Republicans asking US Supreme Court to end same-sex marriage bans
Former Rep. Charlie Bass is among a half-dozen prominent New Hampshire Republicans who have signed an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court urging the justices to validate same-sex marriage nationally…Also signing on from New Hampshire were Republican National Committeewoman Juliana Bergeron, state Sen. John Reagan, state Reps. Adam Schroadter and Tammy Simmons, and Tyler Deaton, who was recently named to the senior leadership role of the American Unity Fund.
The court is expected to hear arguments next month in a consolidated challenge to gay marriage bans in Ohio, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee. Lawyers for gay couples in those states filed briefs on Friday. The amicus brief argues that remaining state laws outlawing same-sex marriage “are inconsistent with the United States Constitution’s dual promises of equal protection and due process.”
The brief argues that same-sex marriage bans “discourage responsibility, fidelity, and commitment. And they harm children, denying them and their loving parents the basic legal protections that provide stability and security so critical to child-rearing.”
Two years ago, Bass, Reagan, Deaton and Schroadter signed on to an amicus brief seeking to overturn a California same-sex marriage ban, Proposition 8.
“I don’t think that civil marriage, which is what this case is about, poses any threat to religious freedom,” Bass said at the time.
And yet, that is what we ARE seeing. Indiana just enacted a law that said that Religious Liberty was to be protected because of how the militant gays have been selectively targeting small Christian businesses and either bankrupting them or intimidating their suppliers or customers to abandon them as well as using personal tactics seen during and after Prop 8.
On that Bill that Indiana Gov. Pence just signed:
Gov. Mike Pence signed a controversial “religious freedom” bill on Thursday morning during a private ceremony in his Statehouse office. Pence almost immediately began defending the law, saying at a news conference that the law was not a consolation prize for conservative groups who failed to pass a bill last year to add an amendment to the Indiana constitution banning same-sex marriage. “”I think there’s a lot of misunderstanding,” Pence said about the religious freedom law. “This has never undermined anti-discrimination laws.”
Yet, it has been the use of anti-discrimination laws that have been used as clubs against those whose faith are being used against them.
When asked by one reporter whether sexual orientation should be a protected class, the governor answered that the matter was not on his agenda. The governor spoke for about 30 minutes about the religious freedom bill during the news conference, which also addressed his temporary needle exchange program to stop an HIV epidemic in Scott County, before it came to an end. “Today I signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, because I support the freedom of religion for every Hoosier of every faith,” he said in a statement. “The Constitution of the United States and the Indiana Constitution both provide strong recognition of the freedom of religion but today, many people of faith feel their religious liberty is under attack by government action.” He cited as an example the University of Notre Dame’s objection to a provision of the Affordable Care Act requiring insurance coverage for contraceptives.
The measure, Senate Bill 101, could allow business owners to refuse services to same-sex couples and has set off a firestorm of controversy. Supporters say it’s needed to protect those with strong religious beliefs from government overreach, but opponents say it would allow discrimination, particularly against gays and lesbians.
Yet, we ARE seeing that overreach – and it is not Politically Correct to now say that Christian are now the ones being discriminated against. Nope, just like “oppressed” Democrat identity groups can’t be racists because they are not the “Oppressor class” – a DOJ unofficial policy. And we have seen it in the courts with the Hobby Lobby et al cases where the Government ALSO tried to get Christian business owners, explicitly running their businesses along Christian beliefs (like the Sisters of Charity, a Catholic order) to void their beliefs concerning abortifaciants.
Utah has also just passed a similar bill and 18 others have similar laws.
But here’s the deal – the Establishment GOP just doesn’t want to deal with social issues as they think it loses elections for them. They believe that if they “take the issues off the table”, then they will only have fiscal issues going forward. In this, they neglect Andrew Breitbart’s important observation of “Politics is downstream of culture” and it is social issues, like this, that drives the culture. So, in effect, the GOP believes it can win the political war even as it gives up on the battlespace. Nuts, I’d say. Or in this case, abject surrender.
And they’d be wrong. As we saw here in NH in November, when the NH GOP showed disdain for its base with its refusal to update its Platform because, I believe, the Right To Life strengthening ran counter to the two Top of Ticket candidates platforms. They also insulted the conservative base – the results speak for themselves (they lost).
So with this action by a high NH GOP elected official, we see just one more smack against its base. More and more I hear “IF they won’t fight for my beliefs that are in the Platform, WHY should I fight or vote for them”? In its legislation, we see Republican Leadership sponsoring legislation and whipping votes that run counter to what the voters put them there to do.
They simply believe we have no other place to go – captive voters. My mantra is this: treasure and value your vote more highly than they do. Just as you only spend your precious dollars in the marketplace when the item or service you want is of higher value than your dollars, so too we should value our votes similarly. I don’t care if it is Republican or not – if you do not provide value, I am not voting for you. The Party does NOT own, nor should it believe it is entitled to, my vote.
Don’t fight for me, don’t do what you say you will, forget about having me mark my vote for you. And when you work against a Republican Platform, then, as Mr. Wonderful says on Shark Tank, you are dead to me.
