John Hayward on
compulsion in re same sex marriage:
In a contest between super-sincere same-sex couples who totally love each other and want to get married at this chapel right here, and stubborn eccentrics who defend their kooky hobby by quoting from some dusty old Bible, there is no way to hold compulsive force at bay by muttering about the theoretical right of American citizens to practice kooky hobbies. Everyone who values liberty needs to get passionate about defending people like the Knapps, and that includes same-sex marriage proponents who believed a single word they said about valuing freedom and respecting conscience over the past decade. You don’t have to share their beliefs in order to respect them. And if you’re cool with the idea of using State power to break people whose beliefs you don’t agree with or respect – even when it’s not necessary to stamp out dissenters in order for your beliefs to flourish – the correct word for you is totalitarian. It doesn’t matter one little bit that you think your beliefs are righteous. Every other totalitarian feels the same way.
Emphasis in the original. And also this -- again, emphasis in the original:
Secular libertarians who seriously wish to help preserve religious liberty must learn to see it as more valuable than that, because I’m here to tell you, guys: our tightly fused government/media culture long ago abandoned the notion of absolute principles. Everything is a value judgment now. Nothing is truly off-limits to the power of the State; it awaits only an invitation from those who passionately desire its presence to enter any part of our lives.
The larger question is whether many people who claim to be secular libertarians give a damn about religious liberty. Put it this way -- there's ample reason to suspect they don't. Martin Niemöller, call your office.
3 comments:
And he said, “Go, and say to this people:
“‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand;
keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’
Make the heart of this people dull,
and their ears heavy,
and blind their eyes;
lest they see with their eyes,
and hear with their ears,
and understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed.”
Then I said, “How long, O Lord?”
And he said:
“Until cities lie waste
without inhabitant,
and houses without people,
and the land is a desolate waste,
and the LORD removes people far away,
and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.
And though a tenth remain in it,
it will be burned again,
like a terebinth or an oak,
whose stump remains
when it is felled.”
The holy seed is its stump.
(Isaiah 6:9-13 ESV)
This is, of course, referring to ancient Israel and to the coming of Christ. But there's a vibe to it that seems to fit: the seeming unwillingness to perceive our own wickedness absent total calamity.
once homosexuality began being considered more akin to an ethnic identity you are born into, instead of a propensity for behaviors... this battle was lost.
gay= black =asian... etc... you cant descriminate anymore.
gay= black =asian... etc... you cant descriminate anymore.
Oh, I think you can discriminate against Asians, especially in academe.
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