Posted on 04/27/2015 3:15:25 PM PDT by markomalley
The question mark’s in the headline because they haven’t commented yet on where the page went or why, but you can guess what happened if you read Jazz’s post yesterday. A GoFundMe page for a different Christian-owned business, Sweet Cakes by Melissa in Oregon, was yanked down by GFM because there are discrimination charges pending against the owner and it’s GFM’s policy not to raise money “in defense of formal charges of heinous crimes, including violent, hateful, or sexual acts.” Politely refusing to cater a gay wedding is, evidently, now a “heinous crime.” But that raised a question: If charity for Sweet Cakes was verboten, why wasn’t it also verboten for Barronelle Stutzman, the Christian florist from Washington who’s also facing discrimination charges for declining to provide the flowers for a longtime gay customer’s marriage ceremony? With help from Dana Loesch, the GoFundMe page for Stutzman had apparently already reached six figures. And now suddenly it’s gone, likely the next victim in GFM’s left-appeasing policy of treating discrimination allegations about a religious business owner’s objection to gay marriage as too heinous for a respectable business to tolerate.
I take it this is GFM’s way of atoning to liberals for sponsoring the fabulously successful donations drive for Memories Pizza, which reached nearly a cool million dollars before it ended. What happens, though, if the charges against Stutzman are dropped and she goes back to being merely a target of the left instead of a target of the state? Reinstating the page will irritate gay-rights activists; maintaining the suspension will alienate conservatives. Weird trap for a business to set for itself, especially since Samaritan’s Purse is already angling to fill this specialized niche in the market.
There’s a little bit of hope out there for some, but not all, Christian business owners, though:
Speech is speech! At least we have the settled for the moment, anyway, for this one case. The circuit court for Fayette County in Kentucky has ruled that the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Human Rights Commission erred when it determined that a Christian T-shirt company discriminated when it refused to print shirts for a gay pride event.
In 2012 a Lexington, Kentucky, gay organization filed a complaint against Hands On Originals, a shirt company who wears its Christianity right on its site, if not on its sleeves (sorry, couldn’t resist). The organization asked for Hands On Originals to make shirts for their 2012 gay pride festival. The shirt company declined, because they didn’t support the message the group wanted printed. The group then accused the company of violating the county’s public accommodation laws, which prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
The response from Hands On was that they weren’t discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation. They were refusing to print a message with which they disagreed.
That’s the winning ticket. Turn this into a free-speech issue rather than a free-exercise issue and you’re more likely to win. The Supreme Court’s said before that laws of general applicability typically override an individual’s demand for an exemption on religious grounds, but judges are always leery of cases where the state tries to compel an individual to endorse a specific message. The tricky part for businesses like Sweet Cakes and Stutzman’s flower shop is that baking cakes and arranging flowers arguably aren’t a form of expressive activity, notwithstanding the creative element involved. Placing a message on a t-shirt is. Likewise, a Christian photographer may be on firmer ground than Stutzman insofar as choosing what to photograph and composing the shot are more widely regarded as a form of artistry, which courts might treat as expressive for First Amendment purposes. If you want Christian businesses to have a right of refusal on gay weddings, start thinking less in terms of faith and more in terms of speech.
What longer road do you think will be available to you? Judging by past history, where does the trend line lead? I see no evidence that the Gaystapo is going to moderate or wane in their militancy. Do you?
By what possible conjunction of events will they or the courts back off from going even further? If you could present a plausible scenario for showing how they might be defanged, or how Christians might be permitted to operate in peace, then you would have a point. As I see no way that such a thing will come to pass, I don't see you as having a point, I only see what appears to be someone who wants to avoid confrontation with people bent on confrontation.
When the abortion fight began, and it flared into a blaze almost overnight with the SCOTUS ruling, there was a crowd of people who insisted on an ‘all or nothing’ approach for state mandated abortion bans. To my knowledge, none of them ever went anywhere. Instead it was small steps, getting the public involved and behind those smaller steps that has led us to where we are today.
I personally think the Supreme Court should have been rebuked in 1973. Roe v Wade was just one more bridge too far among many. You say we are better off for having accommodated their vile ruling, but you cannot know that the path of confrontation with them might not have been better.
The loss of fifty million potential citizens is certainly having a current financial cost for this nation, not to mention the moral hazard in legalizing the murder of humans and thereby pushing the envelope on ideas such as euthanasia.
It also further encouraged promiscuity and the breakdown of the family. People realized "I can always get an abortion", and so they didn't take the precautions necessary to insure that they weren't confronted with an unwanted pregnancy. The Color of Law always implies legitimacy for the behavior, and in this case it encouraged bad self-destructive behavior.
Wars are won by using hundreds of strategies, and thousands of tactics.
World War II was won by numerous battles and millions of casualties. It could have been prevented in the first place by hammering Hitler when he invaded the Sudetenland, at far less cost in lives and misery.
You can say that the "Battle of the Bulge" was a great victory, and it was the culmination of efforts to defeat the Nazis, but how much better off would the world have been if we just said "NO!" right from the beginning?
And while I am at it, I will point out once more that the force which drove the Nazis was the force of Homosexuality. They were founded in a Homosexual club, and they had Homosexuals through and through their ranks, especially among the most horrific offenders.
This is an old force we are fighting. An old evil with newly possessed bodies.
Woulda, coulda, shoulda
Your answer to my message is pathetically inadequate. In that regard it is similar to your answer to the whole Gaystapo attack.
The German Jews didn't want to lose their businesses either, but by the time Kristallnacht occurred, they had figured out that this was a foregone conclusion.
I don't think you take the issue with the degree of seriousness it deserves.
I notice you don’t address the issue of those who don’t want to be martyrs, and that’s the large majority of people.
Your martyr ideas appeal to the few businessmen, and to those who want to stand on the sidelines and cheer them on, as you are doing.
Nobody wants to be a Martyr. Nobody wants to be the first to rush the camp guards. What happens when nobody wants to be a Martyr?
We get many more Martyrs in the long run.
You hold out some hope that this cup can be made to pass from us. I hope you are right, but I doubt that you are.
Again, when do you think they are going to stop?
This has been with us since the end of the Garden of Eden, and will continue. Evil has taken many forms, this is but the latest big one.
Martyrs will not end it, as with all evil we need to deal with it as bet we can.
You yourself are confronted with evil every day, do you martyr yourself daily? The fact you are posting here says you duck out.
You are obviously unaware of what I have done in the past. I don't want to go into too much detail because I value my anonymity. (such that it is)
I have been threatened, and I have been attacked with both legal action and with fire. (I won't get into the legal action, suffice it to say, I won.)
Had the winds been blowing hard, or the fire department arrived later, I might have lost my home and possibly my life and the lives of my family. What happened to me was a homosexual motivated hate crime. I had placed a sign along a busy road saying "Clinton Supports Homosexuals", and the first night they burned the sign. The next night they tried to burn us.
I became even more politically active, and before I was done, I was getting hate calls on my answering machine at all hours of the day and night.
I won't go into more details, but suffice it to say I've confronted evil more than most, and I've fought harder to damage it more than most. Was nearly arrested several times. I did some damage, and i'm proud of it.
Homosexuals are often very unhinged people. If you think they will leave you alone because you mollify them with a cake, you are only putting off the time when they return with fire, either legal or the real thing.
Ah, so you’ve confronted evil, but have you martyred yourself?
What is your counties position on homosexuals?
The way things are going, I think we'll all get a chance at that down the road a bit.
What is your counties position on homosexuals?
"County's Position on homosexuals"? What do you mean? Do you mean what is the Officials of my County's position on Homosexuals? I'm pretty sure they don't have an official position. Probably their private position is that they don't like them and think they are sick, but I wouldn't know for sure one way or the other.
Might be time to start a conservative ‘go fund me’ site...
Check it out. Unless your county is different than most, you are funding homosexuals wages, insurance, retirement.
I’d dare say your contribution to homosexual causes is much larger than any of these bakers who have martyred themselves already..
How about your voluntary contributions to your mortgage company, insurance company, grocery store?
For me, those are just evils we have to contribute to so that we can live a normal live.
But then, I’m not insisting others become public martyrs, while I ‘value my anonymity’.
Funny how easy it is to confound you.
Just as a few drops of bleach in a gallon of water can suddenly stop the bacteria cold, a few words of truth can stop the endless prater.
Just as a few drops of bleach in a gallon of water can suddenly stop the bacteria cold, a few words of truth can stop the endless prater.
You are the rooster taking credit for the sunrise. I have not responded till now because I have been very busy doing real world work. (From time to time, I build electronic control systems for people.) Now that I have a break, I can get back to these largely pointless discussions.
Perhaps we should start a campaign on one or more of these sites:
http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/2853-13-Crowdfunding-Websites-to-Fund-Your-Business
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/228534
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.