Tag Archives: Same-Sex Marriage

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Oregon begins seizure of $135,000 from Christians who refused to celebrate gay marriage

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Young people seem to like gay marriage more than they like individual liberties
Young people seem to like gay marriage more than they like individual liberties

How would gay marriage affect your marriage? Well, not at all, as long as you have $135,000 kicking around to pay the government when gay couples are offended by your disagreement with their view of marriage.

The Daily Signal explains:

The agency that ordered Aaron and Melissa Klein to pay $135,000 in damages for refusing to bake a cake for a same-sex couple began the legal process last week to seize the money the Oregon bakers are refusing to pay.

“Our agency has docketed the judgment and is exploring collection options,” Charlie Burr, communications director for the agency, told The Daily Signal. “They are entitled to a full and fair review of the case, but do not have the right to disregard a legally binding order.”

Docketing the judgment is a preliminary step the agency must take in order to seize the Kleins’ house, property, or other assets in lieu of payment.

On July 2, Brad Avakian, commissioner of the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, ordered the Kleins to pay $135,000 for the emotional, physical, and psychological damages they caused Rachel and Laurel Bowman-Cryer for refusing to make a wedding cake.

Meanwhile, up north from Oregon in Washington state, the ACLU and the Democrat-run state government are looking for another 6-figure payout.

Life Site News explains:

A florist in Washington has appealed to the state’s Supreme Court in a fight for her religious liberty.

Barronelle Stutzman, who is represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), has been fighting prosecution under a state law that denies religious liberty to businesses when it comes to participating in same-sex “marriages.”

Stutzman turned down a longtime customer when he asked her to produce a flower arrangement for his “wedding” to another man. She instead recommended several other area florists.

That customer eventually sued Stutzman, as has the ACLU, but it has been the state’s prosecution that has caused her the most difficulty.

Stutzman is being sued both professionally and personally – meaning that her retirement savings and other personal assets are at risk.

In March, Stutzman was fined $1,001 for not providing flowers for the ceremony. However, that may not be all of the financial penalties she faces. ADF Senior Legal Counsel Jeremy Tedesco told LifeSiteNews that “if she loses, the ACLU (and maybe the state) will ask for attorneys fees. Those fees will be in the six figures, at least.”

Now, there was a time when the ACLU tried to pass themselves off as an organization that protected individuals from the state, but that time is long gone. Now they want to use the government as a tool to crush Constitutional liberties of individuals and groups that disagree with their values.
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Remember when the progressive gunman attacked the Family Research Council?

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Goodness Without God: is it possible?
Goodness Without God: is it possible?

Let’s walk down memory lane and remember what happens when “non-religious” people who don’t like “organized religion” get hold of guns and decide to act on their non-religious convictions. In this case, the shooter was a gay activist who was a great admirer of Friedrich Nietzche, the atheist philosopher who proclaimed the death of God.

The Daily Caller reports.

Excerpt:

The man accused of opening fire and shooting a security guard at the conservative Family Research Council headquarters last August plead guilty to three charges in a D.C. federal court Wednesday.

Floyd Lee Corkins, II of Herndon, Virginia entered guilty pleas to a federal weapons charge as well as a local terrorism charge and a charge of assault with intent to kill, according to news reports.

The Washington Post reports that, according to the plea agreement Corkins signed, he told FBI agents on the day of the shooting that he “intended to kill as many people as possible” and planned to “smother Chick-fil-A sandwiches in their faces.”

Investigators found additional magazines and 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches in his backpack on the day of the shooting.

Following the guilty plea the FRC issued a statement placing a large portion of the blame for the shooting at the feet of the liberal Southern Poverty Law Center, which had listed FRC as a hate group. FRC noted that prosecutors discovered Corkins identified his targets on the SPLC’s website.

“The day after Floyd Corkins came into the FRC headquarter and opened fire wounding one of our team members, I stated that while Corkins was responsible for the shooting, he had been given a license to perpetrate this act of violence by groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center which has systematically and recklessly labeled every organization with which they disagree as a ‘hate group,’” FRC president Tony Perkins said in a statement, which went on to demand that SPLC stop attacking organizations that have a different opinion on gay rights.

The shooting happened shortly after Chick-fil-A made headlines over the company president’s disagreement with gay marriage.

Why does anyone think that people on the secular left are tolerant?

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Rick Santorum takes on liberal celebrities on The View

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Unborn Baby - 10 weeks old
Unborn Baby – 10 weeks old

GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum decided to go on a very liberal show called The View to talk about social issues. The View is a very popular show, and the hosts are very used to discussing all sorts of controversial issues. Would Rick Santorum be able to defend his views against the liberal hosts?

Here’s the 7.5-minute clip:

And Life News has a transcript of the most interesting part of the discussion:

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: So, Rick, you’re one much the most conservative candidates in the race. You want to ban all abortions, defund Planned Parenthood, ban gay marriage. Oppose same-sex unions. And yet, you want to govern all of the folks in the United States? Or are you just governing from — [ laughter ]

RICK SANTORUM: Well, my response is that people that have a different point of view, would you ask them the same question?

GOLDBERG:  Yes. I ask everybody —

SANTORUM:  But, I mean — but the point is, if someone has a different point of view, does that mean that they are only going to govern for people who support all those things?

GOLDBERG: That’s why I ask.

SANTORUM: The answer is to, of course not.

GOLDBERG: So, how will you say to your constituents who may be gay or may find themselves in a position with something like Planned Parenthood, what will you replace it with if you take it away?

SANTORUM: Well, first off, I’m for reallocating every dollar that goes to Planned Parenthood and put them in women’s health centers that actually provide more comprehensive services than Planned Parenthood does. Planned parenthood, for example, doesn’t provide mammograms. Now, I know people say they do, but they don’t. In fact —

GOLDBERG: Yeah, they do.

SANTORUM: In fact, Cecile Richards said yesterday in the hearing that, in fact, they do not. In fact, there are no Planned Parenthoods that provide any mammogram services. They basically provide abortion, contraceptive, STDs, things — and pregnancy tests. That’s it. There are much more comprehensive women’s health care centers. I spend a lot of time in Iowa. And in Iowa, there are 213 women health’s centers. Thirteen Planned Parenthood centers. So, If you said we were going to take the Planned Parenthood money, reallocate it to, actually, clinics that do provide a whole host of other women’s health services, women are probably going to get a more holistic health screening at those places than they would at Planned Parenthood.

What’s neat about this is how Hollywood celebrities and journalists basically form their worldview by listening to the words of the people they agree with, and never checking anything out for themselves by listening to the other side. So, Goldberg walks into a debate talking about Planned Parenthood doing mammograms on camera, and is corrected by Rick Santorum quoting Cecile Richards, the CEO of Planned Parenthood. That’s going to leave a mark.

To her credit, she is at least talking to people on the right. That’s not something I that happens often in academia, where the professors went out of their way to not engage with scholars who disagreed with them. They seem to not be able to handle the strain of having to listen to views they don’t hold. There seems to be a real dearth of critical thinking on the left, in general. But at least The View hosts had courage to listen to someone they didn’t agree with, and to be civil.