Gay Marriage as an attack on Christianity

I can't read your long post and don't see any reason to make the effort. The last line is enough to tell me there's no point: there is no such thing as "ceremonial" fornication if you mean that by being ceremonial it is not a sin. That's ridiculous.

It is NOT "a subset of the public" not being served, it's a PARTICULAR SERVICE that is refused, like refusing to write "Same Sex Marriage is a Great Thing" on a cake.And it is discriminating against Christians to force us to provide a service that violates our religious conscience. Which is what the law legalizing gay marriage does to businesses that serve weddings. I think Tatchell got it right in his opinion piece.Totalitarianism is basically forcing people to conform to a particular belief system, political viewpoint, etc. Political Correctness is totalitarianism. Forcing a secular point of view on religious people is a form of totalitarianism. Defining business as secular in order to justify it is a political tool == or weapon. Totalitarianism isn't just an established social or governmental system, it's an attitude that justifies forcing conformity of thought on everybody whether that has yet been enforced at the point of a gun or not. The Left today follows Mother Communism in its tyrannical Political Correctness that viciously brands people as racist sexist homophobic xenophobic bigoted haters and all the rest of it without any justification whatever, to intimidate and control people and deprive them of free speech. Europe is in mental shackles thanks to PC. In America there are still a few of us left fighting it.ABE: Islam is totalitarian: nobody who disagrees with Islam is free from persecution in some form or other wherever Islam rules, and their ultimate aim is to conform the entire world to Islam.During the years when Roman Catholicism ruled Europe it was totalitarian, enforcing its doctrine on pain of torture and death. It is still totalitarian but doesn't at the moment have the power to enforce it. You can find statements on its books condemning all the freedoms America stands for.Communism is of course totalitarian, famous for murdering dissidents and anybody who might criticize the powers that be or just not conform to the party line.Totalitarianism is collectivist, anti-individualist, anti-freedom, conformist, tyrannical etc etc etc.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

It is NOT "because of who they are," it's because of what the service represents.And the Christians are ALSO hurt, punished for acting on their religious convictions.

Here's an example: the comedian Tim Allen has been in the news for saying that the atmosphere these days is like the 30s in Germany. When I first saw the headline it was worded ambiguously enough to make me wonder if he was an anti-Trumper, since Trump is accused all the time these days of being a "fascist" although there isn't the slightest justification for that accusation -- it's just PC propaganda to stir up the public against him. It goes on all the time these days and of course lots of people believe it. Trump is in fact a true proponent of individual freedoms, that's why so many of us voted for him and continue to support him. The propaganda against Trump is in the same category as the effort to destroy Sessions by calling him a racist although he happens to have a sterling record of civil rights work. It's all typical totalitarian character assassination propaganda.Anyway, the headline seemed to imply at least the possibility that Allen was a leftist criticizing the Nazi atmosphere created by the right. I did read the article and it became clear it was the Left he was criticizing for their violent objections to anyone who disagrees with them. THAT's what he meant about it being like the 30s these days. (And I would add the propaganda character assassination tactics to that observation myself. Very much Germany in the 30s, or the atmosphere in any totalitarian system.) I was thinking of doing a post on it as an example of fake news but Allen was making too much of a joke out of it, which took the steam out of such a project. The joking did at least make it possible for him to say it at all, however, so there's that plus to it. .SO TODAY there is another headline about Tim Allen, this time criticizing him for comparing today's atmosphere with the Nazi era as an offense to the Jews: Anne Frank Center Blasts Tim Allen for ‘Deeply Offensive’ Nazi Germany Comment: ‘Have You Lost Your Mind?’PC controls people by guilt. It's hard to object to Jews feeling offended by comparisons with anything to do with the Holocaust because of course that was horrific beyond any kind of comparison we can come up with.HOWEVER, it is nevertheless a species of PC tyranny to attack someone for making what is really a very apt comparison -- not on the scale of the Nazi era but very definitely the same species of phenomena. His point was that you can't say what you think in Hollywood, especially you can't even hint that you might think well of Donald Trump, just a teensy bit, without somebody being ferociously outraged at your offensive belief. And now a Jewish organization is also offended at him for daring to mention the atmosphere of intimidation that reminds him of Germany in the 30s.Jokingly complaining about the atmosphere of totalitarian PC makes him a victim of it from another angle.Again, PC makes it hard to complain about people being offended. I certainly would rather not be in the position of criticizing an organization dedicated to Anne Frank. And I'll probably get lambasted for it too. But if people don't point out the effect of PC in these things it's just going to roll over all of us in the end and we won't be able to say anything against any kind of tyranny that grows out of PC.So we'll have to deny that there is any intimidation going on at all. That's how Europe is getting killed. You can't talk about the violence of the Muslim immigrants at all because that would make you racist, so the violence can get worse with nothing restraining it.'So I'm hoping Allen will not apologize. He should agree that the Holocaust is on a different level and he meant no offense, but he has to be allowed to make such an apt comparison or we're all going under.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Admin, : Fix link.

Yes.

No, both are denial of service and that is what this is all about, denial of service on the ground of religious conscience. Supplying a particular message on a cake is the same thing as supplying a wedding cake.The issue of writing has not been part of this discussion on this thread, only the wedding cake itself. The writing came up when tangle posted the Guardian opinion piece because that is what the case in the UK was about. The case here is only about supplying the wedding cake. I see the two situations as equivalent. The law may say so, but if God says otherwise the Christians are going to obey God, which is the whole issue on this thread. I'm sure that if the customer wanted a message on the cake celebrating Hitler Week or simply announced that's what it was for, it could indeed be refused. And although it seems to have been agreed here that this mini cake should not be refused for a gay wedding anniversary, again that depends on the conscience of the people providing it, as all these situations do. No, for the umpteenth time, there is no problem about selling anything to GAY PEOPLE, it's about supplying anything that to the baker's conscience legitimizes GAY MARRIAGE. In the main cases under discussion that happens to be a custom-made wedding cake, but it may not be the only case that is problematic because of legitimizing gay marriage in the baker's mind. I uinderstand it is difficult to keep the context in mind in which something is said, but you are absolutely missing the point. This is not about any kind of sin, homosexual sin or heterosexual sin or anything else. It's about the ordinance of marriage and absolutely nothing else. The point of homosexual acts being sin is that it is one of the things that disqualify homosexuals from MARRIAGE. Again this is all about GAY MARRIAGE, nothing else. Adulterers, fornicators, active gays, and any other kind of sinners are not the problem, GAY MARRIAGE is the problem because it is now legalized and Christians cannot treat it as legitimate. PERIOD.In an earlier post I'll have to track down I tried to spell out what I think are the main elements in the baker's dilemma. I arrived at two: the knowledge that the cake -- or anything else for that matter -- is for a gay wedding; and his/her sense of personal involvement in it or responsibility for it. So far I haven't had a reason to modify this attempt to define it.So, again, it isn't about writing, and it isn't about gay people and it isn't about sinners as such etc etc etc; it's about providing anything at all known to be for a gay wedding because that would be treating gay marriage as legitimate in the mind of the baker. It's the conscience or mind of the baker that this all comes back to. It happens to be centered on the provision of a wedding cake in this case.The baier's conscience is first of all something he/she experiences as being witnessed by God. It is also important not to give the impression of supporting gay marriage to people, but it is first and foremost obedience to God experienced as witnessed by God Himsefl.Also, although the artistic involvement of the baker is sometimes an element, which HBD brought up, it's only because it emphasizes the sense of personal involvement that is part of the dilemma, but there are many ways that sense of involvement can occur without artistic expression being part of it. As I thought it through I could see how even supplying a cake off the shelf could be a problem if it is known to be for a gay wedding and the baker gets it off the shelf for the customer and boxes it up etc. If the customer takes it off the shelf and pays for it at the checkstand without saying anything about what it's to be used for, nobody's conscience is involved. The baker's conscience determines these things, which is why it is hard to pin down objective circumstances that would apply. It's personally determined, but trying to establish some kind of objective condition is what the two principles I came up with are intended to do: knowledge plus sense of personal involvement. Political Correctness is understood by everybody who has had to suffer it to be character assassination tyrannically imposed by the Left on anybody who doesn't share in its identity politics, which creates classes of people and pits them against each other. It's a form of Marxism which promotes class warfare. It invents the categories of Oppressor and Oppressed and provokes the designated Oppressed to hate the designated Oppressor. It's sheer totalitarian evil. The accusations of racist, bigot, homophobe and so on are pasted on people who DO NOT DESERVE ANY OF IT. I was happy to see Tangle agreeing that the UK bakers who were punished for "discrimination against gays" did not deserve it. They are not bigots. The term "bigot" is character assassination designed to shut people up, marginalize them, and in a totalitarian state even kill them. PC is evil totalitarian tyranny. If my religion prescribed subjugating people to my religion, blowing people up, taking over governments and ultimately ruling the world as Islam aims to do, I'd agree with the principle and argue that it has nothing to do with religious freedom in that case. But since all it does is prohibit the Christian from advocating something God forbids us to advocate, we're going to act on it because we are required to obey God when there is a conflict with human laws. So if the state will not grant us freedom of religion in these cases we'll take the punishment. Which is what I've said from the beginning of this thread. That's perniciously false. For the zillionth time this is not about SINFUL PEOPLE -- gays are sinners, adulterers are sinners, fornicators are sinners, liars are sinners, you are a sinner, and this HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ANY PARTICULAR CLASS OF "BAD" PEOPLE, as I keep trying to say. (After this discussion I might much prefer having a hundred gay couples to deal with than you. I won't give them a wedding cake but they can have Danish and coffee and argue about gay rights all they want. You can go fly a kite.) Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

True, and you are one big fat bigot.

You are a bigot, you are intolerant of decent people obeying God, you put yourself above perfectly decent people, like so many other leftists, call people names who do not deserve it. You're soaked in PC and would happily condemn anybody for the slightest seeming misstep according to Marxist definitions. You have no ability to judge people fairly. Like others here I could name.The UK bakers are not bigots, neither am I, neither are any of those who have been punished for obeying God instead of human law.but you are. PC slingers are the real bigots. If anybody should be punished you should be, for slander and bigotry.

No matter how clear I try to make it many still say the issue is discrimination against people, gay people in this case, some unthinkingly, others concertedly, when it is not, it is strictly about refusing to treat gay marriage as legitimate. It's also wrong to treat all products and services as equal as some do, implying a whimsical refusal of some but not the others, when it's not about the product or service as such, but its meaning to the seller's conscience.I just read through a dozen posts and find the same problems over and over and over. I'm not up to answering the individual posts right now, but I believe they have been amply answered already anyway.I'm surprised to be in agreement with Tangle at all about anything at all, but he's doing a very good job of making the case that good and decent people who are not discriminating against anybody are being persecuted for obeying their religion about the meaning of marriage and nothing else.The gay activist who wrote the piece in The Guardian brought out the important point, that it is not discrimination against people. I think that ought to become the understanding of these cases.Just for reference here's that article again.

Oh yes I know your opinion of Christian belief, but at least you had the grace to recognize the innocence of the people's motivations.So I'll say it yet again to those who think they know better what Jesus would do than Christians know: It is not Christian to justify sin which is what so many keep trying to do. You can't treat sin as not sin. Paul listed all the sins that will take people to Hell if they don't repent. It is not Christian to be nice about sin, it kills people. Jesus affirmed God's marriage ordinance, He did not disobey it nor counsel disobeying it, if anything He showed that it is stricter than Moses taught, more binding. He made it clear that what God said in Genesis 2:24 still stands.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

What I said to you was that this thread from the beginning has been about a wedding cake, that the writing on the cake was the issue in the UK that got the bakery there fined, which entered the thread recently and to my mind is not the topic here. You kept talking about it so I tried to explain that and of course you muddled it all up.However, I don't make a distinction, I believe they are the same kind of situation but you seemed to be making a distinction so I pointed out that the writing isn't what this thread has been about from the begtinning.But again, I think the two situations are equivalent myself. Jesus would kindly tell the gays to repent and be saved, He died for their sins, He would most certainly not join in anything that violates God's marriage ordinance which He himself confirmed in Matthew 19. He might treat them to coffee and a doughnut.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

That sounds like a reasonable solution to the writing problem. Unfortunately I don't know what the comparable solution to the wedding cake problem might be: bag up all the ingredients to make such a cake and provide written instructions?Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This is just to report that I don't read his posts, because I really can't get through them. They are voluminous and what I pick up of his message here and there is so bizarre I don't know where to begin to respond anyway. I don't know what he thinks he is doing. He's apparently accusing me of this, that or the other, but his statements about me are all false as far as I've seen. He quotes me quite a bit apparently but doesn't seem to have a clue what I meant. I can't wade through all that word mush to find out if there's anything to any of it.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Sorry, I continue to insist that objecting to a gay wedding is not the same as discriminating against gay people, who, as has been affirmed over and over and over, are quite welcome to anything else in the bakery. Objecting to a gay wedding is refusing a particular service which is the same thing as refusing the service of writing a message on a cake.You keep saying you are sure Tatchell would not agree about the wedding cake and perhaps you are right but you don't know and haven't shown it to be so.ABE: The message on the cake that was refused was Support Same Sex Marriage. It was a refusal to affirm gay marriage the same as a wedding caker for a gay wedding here is.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You seemed to making the whole thing to be about writing on a cake and completely ignoring the subject of this thread. And you were saying they aren't the same thing in your imperious know-it-all style. if you want to consider it in its proper position go ahead, but I've already answered it.Their MEANING TO THE BAKER IS EQUIVALENT. I could not care less what their meaning to YOU is.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.