The religious persecution of conservative Christians is only beginning
Gov of Arizona Jan Brewer at reopening of Grand Canyon National Park, 2013
Photo by Grand Canyon National Park service, used under CCA license
Your “news” media is lying to you. If you are shocked by that, you haven’t been paying attention.
CNN Politics runs with the headline “Fate of Arizona anti-gay measure rests with Jan Brewer“. The always unbiased (</sarcasm>) NBC News headlines with “Brewer Likely to Veto Anti-Gay Measure“. There is only one problem: Those headlines are lies that show a decidedly biased and depraved point of view.
28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.
While people often quote this portion of Scripture in regards to practicing and tolerating homosexuality (S. also v 32), notice how many of these things are related to deceit, lying and not reporting the truth.
I’ve had people get on this blog before and try to ignorantly argue that political correctness is just being polite. No, it is the intentional redefining and co-opting of words to manipulate the course of conversation and taint political enemies with derogatory labels. And, it is only getting worse.
Political correctness is a form of depravity!
There is nothing “anti-gay” in the bill! It only asserts the rights of business owners to refuse to do things that are against their conscience. IOW, it thwarts the efforts of activist homosexual groups to force government to break the First Amendment rights of business owners.
Anyone who argues it is not going against the First Amendment is either a liar or an idiot. The courts have already in some instances ruled in ways that are “prohibiting the free exercise” of religion, not to mention punishing people for speaking their mind (“abridging the freedom of speech”) when they speak out against such things. This bill is an effort by a few to re-balance the scales and not allowing the forcing of one to act against his or her religious principles.
Being an active gay is not a right in the Constitution, but freedom of religion is. However, now such “conservative” lawmakers as John McCain and Jeff Flake (apparently a Mormon, no less, who graduated BYU and was a missionary in the 1980s) have asked Brewer to veto the bill.
Let’s just burn the Constitution. No one pays attention to it, anyhow. The political environment in this country has become a circus, voting for the people who promise the most goodies, don’t care about the national debt or the nation’s future, wield a pen and a phone like their mighty scepter and cower before the lobbyists with the most money.
The Republicans once hailed themselves as the “Party of family values”. Looks like that theme is not in this year. It rolled of the fashion runway already.
Since 1980, the Republican Party has used the issue of family values to attract socially conservative voters. While “family values” remains an amorphous concept, social conservatives usually understand the term to include some combination of the following principles (also referenced in the 2004 Republican Party platform):
- Promotion of traditional marriage and opposition to sex outside of marriage
- Support for a traditional role for women in the family.
- Opposition to same-sex marriage
- Support for complementarianism [the theological view that men and women have different but complementary roles in marriage]
- Opposition to legalized induced abortion
- Support for abstinence education
- Support for policies said to protect children from obscenity and exploitation
~ Wikipedia, “Family values“
So, how many of these do Republicans espouse today? A couple — maybe? It certainly isn’t the third one, is it?
Of course, not to be outdone, the Democrats co-opted the term “family values” no later than 2004, and in their version included right of adoption by gay couples and acceptance of non-traditional families (ibid).
Does everyone still not see the danger of political correctness? Seriously?
The Cycle of Barbarism
The Roman Empire rose from barbarism. They were the ultimate army. Each soldier was trained in being a cold fighting machine. They were brutal and usually unforgiving. The Roman Empire wasn’t called the “Iron Empire” by some for nothing. According to “Roman metallurgy“, Rome was even founded in the Iron Age. However, its character was that as being as tough as iron, hence the metal that it gets its nickname from is described in the Book of Daniel as part of the statue King Nebuchadnezzar dreamt of.
After that was a time of stability, as the empire spread out. It is often called Pax Romana, as the empire flourished and grew. However, it eventually descended into chaos.
On its way down, the barbarism never really left, but it rather morphed and became institutionalized as “entertainment”. Lions and gladiators became the sport of the day. Of course, anyone considered an enemy of the state, such as Christians often were, was subject to being thrown into the Colosseum for entertainment purposes.
At the same time, Roman marriages became a joke. Women or men could simply leave and declare themselves divorced (cf. 1Co 7:13-15). Not only did they do this, but sometimes they would come back and remarry, over and over again.
Does our entertainment thrive on violence and gore? Speaking of entertainment, does Hollywood’s family values sound anything like ancient Rome?
So, then, why do we wonder when disaffected youth kill somebody for “fun”? Why are we amazed that disadvantaged kids seek out others for a “knockout game”?
“Garbage in, garbage out”, goes the old IT maxim. Same with our bodies. Same with our minds. Same with our hearts.
Oh, and while the ancient Greeks are often characterized by their tolerance of sexual relationships between males, it is evident that “Homosexuality in ancient Rome” was also quite prevalent. However, it wasn’t until the imperial phase that an increase in comparative decadence and sexual license became obvious.
So, why do we seem so determined to repeat the stories of empires that have come before us? Why do we, much like the risk taking teenager who speeds on a bike without a helmet, not learn from the mistakes of others who have come before us and think we are invincible?
Last question: How long before conservative Christians are fed to the lions?