Tag Archives: Intolerance

News

Christian-owned bakery closes after threats and harassment by gay activists

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Todd Starnes reports on a troubling at Fox News.

Excerpt:

A family-owned Christian bakery, under investigation for refusing to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian couple, has been forced to close its doors after a vicious boycott by militant homosexual activists.

[…]Last January, Aaron and Melissa Klein made national headlines when they refused to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian couple.

Klein tells me he has nothing against homosexuals — but because of their religious faith, the family simply cannot take part in gay wedding events.

“I believe marriage is between a man and a woman,” he said. “I don’t want to help somebody celebrate a commitment to a lifetime of sin.”

The lesbian couple filed a discrimination with the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries and told their story to local newspapers and television statements.

Within days, militant homosexuals groups launched protests and boycotts. Klein told me he received messages threatening to kill his family. They hoped his children would die.

The LGBT protestors then turned on other wedding vendors around the community. They threatened to boycott any florists, wedding planners or other vendors that did business with Sweet Cakes By Melissa.

“That tipped the scales,” Klein said. “The LGBT activists inundated them with phone calls and threatened them. They would tell our vendors, ‘If you don’t stop doing business with Sweet Cakes By Melissa, we will shut you down.’”

The actions of the diversity activists were augmented with an inquisition by state government.

More:

To make matters worse, the Oregon’s Bureau of Labor and Industries announced last month they had launched a formal discrimination investigation against the Christian family.

Commissioner Brad Avakian told The Oregonian that he was committed to a fair and thorough investigation to determine whether the bakery discriminated against the lesbians.

“Everybody is entitled to their own beliefs, but that doesn’t mean that folks have the right to discriminate,” he told the newspaper. “The goal is to rehabilitate. For those who do violate the law, we want them to learn from that experience and have a good, successful business in Oregon.”

Let’s hope that those intolerant bigoted Christians learned their lesson not to offend anyone else by disagreeing with them and refusing to celebrate things that they disagree with. After all, Christians should be forced by the state to act like non-Christians in public.

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News

AF first sergeant faces reprisals from gay boss for refusing to affirm homosexuality

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Here’s the first one from Fox News.

Excerpt:

Monk has served as a first sergeant at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio since 2011. He recently returned from a deployment and discovered he had a new commander – an open lesbian.

“In one of our first meetings, she was talking about her promotion and she mentioned something about a benediction,” Monk told Fox News. “She said she wanted a chaplain but objected to one particular chaplain that she called a bigot because he preached that homosexuality is a sin.”

“She then said, ‘I don’t know what kind of people actually believe that kind of crap,’” Monk said, recalling the meeting. “I knew I was going to have a rough time in this unit and I would have to be very careful what I said.”

That moment came when Monk was called in to advise the commander on a disciplinary matter involving an Air Force instructor accused of making comments objecting to gay marriage.

And then Monk had to advise his lesbian officer about someone who disagreed with homosexuality:

Seven people filed complaints about the remarks. It then became Monk’s job to advise the commander on disciplinary action.

“Her very first reaction was to say, ‘we need to lop off the head of this guy,’” Monk said. “The commander took the position that his speech was discrimination.”

Monk suggested she use the incident as a learning experience – a way to teach everyone about tolerance and diversity.

“I don’t believe someone having an opinion for or against homosexuality is discriminatory,” Monk told Fox News.

From that point, Monk said he was told that he wasn’t on the same page as the commander and if I didn’t get on the page they were on, they would find another place for me to work.”

“I’m being chastised about what’s going on,” he said. “I’m told that members of the Air Force don’t have freedom of speech. They don’t have the right to say anything that goes against Air Force policy.”

Monk, who is a devout evangelical Christian, said he met with the young instructor and told him that he was fighting for him.

“He was really concerned,” he said. “He said he felt like he was on an island – that he couldn’t be who he is anymore. He didn’t understand why somebody would be offended.”

The instructor was eventually punished by having a letter of counseling placed in his official file.

Monk soon found himself in a very similar position after his commander ordered him to answer a question about whether people who object to gay marriage are guilty of discrimination.

“She said, ‘Sgt. Monk, I need to know if you can, as my first sergeant, if you can see discrimination if somebody says that they don’t agree with homosexual marriage,’” he said. “I refused to answer the question.”

Monk said to answer would have put him in a legal predicament.

“And as a matter of conscience I could not answer the question the way the commander wanted me to,” he said.

I actually wanted to joint the military when I was young. But I knew that if I ever disagreed with my superiors on issues like abortion or gay marriage, that I would have trouble transferring my skills to a new career. I chose to go into computer science so that I could get my skills without being censored or sanctioned by teachers who didn’t agree with me. I wanted to avoid having to change who I was because someone else disagreed with me and wanted to push their views on me by exercising power. I had read about what atheists did to Christians in communist countries, and I didn’t want to be exposed to that. I knew that I had to choose a field where I could always take my skills and leave if I sensed danger.

News

Gay activists pressure D.C. mayor to remove ex-gay singer from MLK memorial concert

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From Life Site News, a story about one of the most Democrat cities in America, and its Democrat mayor. (H/T Mysterious WG)

Excerpt:

D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray admitted Monday that he made the final decision to remove gospel singer Donnie McClurkin from the lineup of performers at a city-sponsored concert held Saturday at the Martin Luther King memorial in respond to complaints by gay activists.

McClurkin was to have been a headline performer at the event , called “Reflections on Peace: Ghandi to King,” which marked the beginning of a planned series of events to commemorate King’s life during the run-up to the 50th anniversary of the civil rights leader’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

But on Friday, several homosexual activists contacted the mayor’s office to complain about McClurkin’s inclusion in the show because the gospel singer is a vocal ex-gay who believes homosexuality is a “curse” which can be overcome through prayer and determination.  They threatened to protest the event if he was allowed to perform.  Soon after, it was announced that McClurkin would no longer be part of the program.

Initially, the mayor’s office claimed McClurkin had volunteered to step aside.  “The Arts and Humanities Commission and Donnie McClurkin’s management decided that it would be best for him to withdraw because the purpose of the event is to bring people together,” said Gray’s spokeswoman, Doxie McCoy. “Mayor Gray said the purpose of the event is to promote peace and harmony. That is what King was all about.”

But on Saturday, McClurkin posted a video to social media claiming there was nothing mutual about the decision, and that the mayor’s office told him not to come.

On Monday, Gray confirmed McClurkin’s account, telling the Washington Post, “This was an issue involving a potential controversy at an event that was going to focus on harmony and peace, and we just didn’t think that was appropriate for this event.”

McClurkin said the decision was made to placate a group of 15-20 homosexual activists.  “Fifteen or twenty people,” the gospel singer said, shaking his head, “compared to thousands upon thousands who were coming out to worship Jesus.”

Well, to be fair, gay activists and their allies in the Democrat Party aren’t really keen on worshipping Jesus, either. And not shy about preventing others from doing so.

This is not the first time former homosexuals have been subjected to campaigns of intimidation by gay activists in the nation’s capital.

The kickoff event for the first-ever “Ex-Gay Pride Month,” scheduled to be held at Family Research Council headquarters in D.C., was postponed last month after threats of protests and violence by gay activists.

And in 2007, at a county fair in the nearby suburb of Arlington, angry homosexual activists harassed and assaulted a group of ex-gays and members of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX) at their fair booth.

Last year, a metro Washington school district was sued by PFOX after the superintendent publicly told students that the group’s flyers offering information on unwanted same-sex attraction and urging tolerance for those who leave the homosexual lifestyle were “reprehensible and deplorable” and labeled their contention that sexual orientation can be changed “a really, really disgusting message.”

In 2008, an American Psychological Association symposium on the role of religion in homosexual therapy to be held at the Washington Convention Center was canceled under pressure from gay activists who worried the panel might lend credibility the notion that individuals can overcome their homosexual inclinations, either through reparative therapy or other means.

“Conservatives … were going to use this event to draw credibility to the so-called reparative therapy movement,” Gene Robinson, the openly homosexual then-bishop of the Episcopal Church told the Washington Blade gay news outlet at the time, taking partial credit for the symposium’s cancellation. “It became clear to me in the last couple of weeks that just my showing up and letting this event happen…lends credibility to that so-called therapy.”

On Capitol Hill, some Democratic legislators have called for an outright ban on such therapies.  One California congresswoman introduced a resolution in the last session of Congress called “Stop Harming Our Kids” that condemns therapies aimed at changing sexual orientation, and urges states to introduce laws banning their use with minors.

So who is right about reparative therapy and ex-gay people? Let’s look at the peer-reviewed science.

This study was done by Otago University in New Zealand.

Excerpt:

Otago University researcher associate professor Elisabeth Wells has looked at the connection between adverse childhood events and sexuality and found those who experienced trauma were significantly more likely to be non-heterosexual.

The study used results from the New Zealand Mental Health Survey, which surveyed almost 13,000 people aged over 16 between 2003 and 2004.

Participants were asked whether they thought of themselves as bisexual, heterosexual or homosexual and if they had same-sex sexual experiences or relationships.

Less than one per cent of people identified themselves as homosexual, but three per cent had a same-sex encounter.

Wells said the more “adverse events” experienced in childhood – including sexual assault, rape and domestic violence – the more likely the person identified with one of the non-exclusively heterosexual groups.

She said most people from disturbed backgrounds were heterosexual.

However, the study showed a clear relationship between negative events in childhood and homosexual or bisexual relationships later in life.

I actually studied the issue of what causes homosexuality and whether it can be repaired using therapy a while back using books by medical doctors like Jeffrey Satinover and Joseph Nicolosi. (Nicolosi’s new book is here) It turns out that there are some genetic factors that make homosexuality more likely, but the real causes are environmental, e.g. – sexual abuse during childhood or failure to bond emotionally with the same-sex parent.

I wonder how many people actually go after the research when forming their opinions on issues like abortion and same-sex marriage? I always head straight for the research and debates. I think that my opponents prefer personal attacks and speech codes!

Comments to this post will be strictly filtered to stay clear of Obama’s laws restricting free speech on controversial issues.

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