Month: April 2015

Interesting, isn’t it?

It seems that while businesses run by Christians who stand by their faith are being run into the ground, those run by homosexuals are protected from the same laws. This story appears to be one where a Christian wanted a cake showing a Bible that had “God hates gays” on it. The customer claims that isn’t true, and points to two scriptures they requested. Nevermind that the verses were not what the baker said, the judge ruled that a bakery can discriminate against Christians. The verses?

Psalm 45:7 – You love righteousness, and hate wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you, more than your companions, with the oil of joy.

Leviticus 18:22 – You are not to sleep with a man as with a woman; it is detestable.

Now, what I find interesting is that the customer claims that they did not request “God hates gays” but say that the first scripture is “God hates sin.” Yes, you could interpret that verse to say that, but it’s a stretch. They go on to claim the second is “God loves sinners,” a stretch many wouldn’t go for.

This looks like a setup to me, either with a group trying to make one side or the other look good or bad, but it’s clear the customer has not read their Bible. I took less than 5 minutes to find, read, then type both verses here. My Bible is not an online version, but a printed copy I’ve had for many years.

I do not believe God truly “hates” anything, and I do believe he loves sinners, as we all are sinners. I believe God is saddened when anyone chooses a life of sin over a life of righteousness, or the attempt. We can never be truly righteous, but we can try to live as He wants us to.

Now, before anyone decides to point to anything in the Old Testament as my need to not eat pork or shelfish, or to bury adulterers up to their neck and stone them to death, remember that I follow Christ. He that stood in the temple and proclaimed that the prophecy and scriptures were fulfilled in Him. Christ that stood against a crowd trying to stone an accused prostitute and said “Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone.” Christ, a Jew, who was kind to Gentiles, while others were not. Who befriended tax collectors and healed lepers.

This is what I believe. I am to feed the hungry, help the sick, and I try every day to do this. Why then, when I uphold what Christ did, in this case that homosexuality is a sin and therefore something I must not promote, as in the case of a baker making a cake, am I to be forced by law to do this or go out of business, while a baker who is homosexual can tell me they won’t serve me because I’m Christian?

I don’t want a nation where people are forced to violate their beliefs, nor a country where the government can force much of anything, if anything at all. If you are a business owner and choose to turn away a segment of the population, and your business fails, obviously you are in an area where the majority disagree with you, and the market will decide your fate. But that isn’t the country we have today. Rather, we now live in a country where a single customer can force a business to close, when if the market decided they would flourish, simply because that one customer was “offended” or their “rights” were violated, ignoring the rights of others, or that their winning a court case offends many others.

So, do you want a country where a miniscule portion of the populous can force their views on the rest? Or do you want a country where people are free to decide for themselves? If that decision is such that they fail in their business, it’s only their fault, but if they flourish, it’s obvious the majority agree with them, and you leave it at that? The first sees the majority as needing to be FORCED TO CHANGE, the second, well, it’s the one where every individual is free to decide for themselves.

Smokey out

It’s Friday, time for a rant

I’ve posted about little more than society and the hypocrisy coming from so called “disenfranchised” groups, for a good while now. Each time I comment or post about this, I generally get little more than what I would expect from a toddler when you tell them candy isn’t good for lunch, or a tantrum to be more precise. Basically, the go to argument is “oh yeah, well you’re an intolerant bigot, so you don’t count” or something similar. If they don’t go to that, they instantly go to challenging everything you said in a way that can’t be done to prove yourself right, or comparing your points to other points so idiotic that they have “proven you to be crazy.” If you don’t believe me, look at my post where I link to a story about an athiest’s response to an article about someone simply suggesting Christ may have lived in a newly discovered home in Nazareth. Their main points are “well, there’s no proof that Mark Twain hired a hooker in the home I now own, but there’s no proof against it,” or “there’s no proof aliens live in my closet at night, but there’s no proof against it.” Basically, they counter anything that they don’t agree with using the most idiotic points, so as to “prove the Christians idiots for even believing in a higher power, when it’s obvious that we atheists are smarter and better.”

So, the point of the rant. If you want to debate, learn how to do it first. You don’t just challenge a point made, you bring logic, researched proof, and stay respectful. I recently commented on a thread about gay marriage. I first asserted that marriage is not a right for anyone, as well as believing that, even if only at a subconscious level, homosexuality is a choice. The only response? “Marriage is a right when the government gives you benefits, and try being gay if it’s a choice.” No logic, just a “you’re stupid so I’m going to reply in a way to make you look stupid” response.

Marriage is not a “right” even if it automatically “grants” anything. Yes, a spouse is assumed to be next of kin, given power of attorney if not otherwise assigned, and so on. Guess what, you can grant those to anyone you choose, and no, it’s not “different because marriage does it.” When you get married, you still have to assign those things to your spouse, you still have to put them on your insurance, and so on. Civil Unions were created not too long ago, but they weren’t accepted because “it wasn’t marriage.” So, to me, this suggests that it’s not the power of attorney or other benefits that the gay marriage lobby wants, they want the WORD marriage.

Consider this, until roughly 500 to 600 years ago, marriage was largely (if not purely) a religious affair. It was only when the government saw they could use it either to control the population or make money, that they got involved. We know that during the Scottish fight for independence which killed William Wallace, the English would use Prima Nocte, in an effort to breed English blood into Scot lines. Others used it as a way to control families or clans. Eventually, it just became a cash machine, in that you had to pay for a license, then you had to get a blood test to “make sure your fiance knew if you had any disease, and to ensure you’re not already related” which you had to pay for. So, it’s not just being able to say that they have a spouse, or life partner, in the sense of insurance and such, it’s the actual word marriage that they want.

I’ve been ridiculed before, and likely will again, for suggesting this is only the first step, and before long a Church will be sued for refusing to marry a gay couple. We’ve already seen a bakery forced to close because the owner, acting on his faith, refused a customer, yet when a bakery owned by a gay man or lesbian turns down a straight customer, or worse, becomes verbally abusive, nothing happens. So, how long will it be before a Church is sued, or worse, a Pastor arrested for “denying the right to marry” to a gay couple? It will happen, it’s just a matter of when.

Finally, my point about choice. Notice my comment had “even at a subconscious level” but that was ignored. So answer me this. You grow up in a small town, surrounded by family who never eat pork, root for only one pro and one college team, and everyone drives only Chevy vehicles. You go to that college, driving a Chevy, have never eaten pork in 18 years, and still watch that pro team every game. Did you “choose” to do any of that? Or, did you grow up having those teams, the dislike of pork, and the preference for Chevy just be all you saw. Well, that’s my point. Kids are growing up today being shown homosexuality in a very different way than even 10 or 20 years ago (where it just wasn’t there on TV or in Movies). Schools are teaching that it’s “natural” for two men or two women to be lovers (and it’s not, as two members of the same sex cannot reproduce, and thus, it’s not natural) and parents who complain are ridiculed and threatened with having CPS called on them. My point is this, we all “choose” things every day that we aren’t even aware of. The natural order of any living being is to stay alive and reproduce. Reproduction requires something from a male and something from a female, so that is “natural.”

So, I’ve ranted, what do you think?

Smokey Out

Thursday thoughts

Those who have read my blog for any amount of time will know that, while I am personally rather conservative, when it comes to government involvement in the lives of Americans, I want as little as possible. The Constitution lists not only the rights protected (not given) and also the process to change that, yet people call for new “rights” almost daily. The very first amendment to the Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, speech, the press and assembly, yet we see calls to silence this group or that, to restrict this church or that one, or to deny someone or some group a permit to hold a rally, because they are “hateful” or “bigots,” while others that actually advocate hatred or worse, violence, are allowed to do anything they want.

Phil Robertson (Duck Dynasty) was asked his personal opinion on homosexuality, and gave it, only to have people who likely never watched the show all but sue A&E to remove him. Only finding that the show wouldn’t go on without him, that it would be A&E who breached contract, and thus, they’d lose a lot of money, caused A&E to change their minds. When Dan Cathy was asked the same thing, there were calls for all but the firebombing of Chic Fil A restaurants. Yet, let a homosexual group demand a pastor be jailed, someone be fired, simply because they donated money to the GOP or another group that they don’t like, even 20+ years ago, and it’s “free expression” or “just voicing an opinion.” Why the difference? Why the hypocrisy?

Simply put? The government and the media want the country divided, as it allows them to play groups against each other, hoping that group a won’t watch speeches given to group b, so they can promise both groups everything, then blame each group for failing to deliver. The media wants higher ratings, so they jump on racism, sexism, or other issues that whip people into a frenzy, and damn the consequences. Had the media not gone gaga over the Ferguson, MO situation, it’s possible that the white police officers who have been targeted and murdered would still be alive. But, rather than be responsible, we were given constant coverage of weeping relatives, crowds “disgusted” by the “miscarriage of justice,” and the fact that a grand jury, which was called and assembled LONG before Brown robbed that store and attacked a cop, found the evidence said the officer was justified in his actions. Now, however, a man’s life has been ruined, his family has been threatened, and he has had to leave the state he lived and worked in, all because the media portrayed a thug who was shot while trying to take an officer’s side-arm as a “misunderstood teen gunned down by a racist cop.”

So, how do we fix this? The answer is the same as it’s been every time I’ve asked it. Stand up, demand accountability in the media, demand those who sensationalize things to the point of what we saw in Ferguson be fired, demand our elected officials actually represent us, and when they don’t, vote them out! But, that requires that people stay informed and actually accept that they can’t just demand something and get it, or call someone a bigot because that person wouldn’t bow to them, so I’m not holding out much hope.

Smokey out

Freedom for those who do what we like

Indiana and Arkansas have been in the spotlight recently, having passed laws stating a private business owner can deny service to anyone they choose to. This is, in the simplest terms, saying they have a right to TURN AWAY MONEY. Nowhere is sexual orientation, race, gender or religion mentioned. What it does is protect a baker who, due to religious conviction, decides he won’t bake a cake for a gay wedding, or a restaurant owner who refuses service to vegetarians because he uses all kinds of meat in his cooking, or a lawn care professional when they tell someone who happens to be gay, or a different race, or a different religion, they can’t mow their yard because their booked.

We used to be a society where, if you were denied service and felt it was wrong, you told your friends, they told theirs, and so on. If enough people believed your version, the business just began to lose money, and either changed their practices, or went out of business. You affected them simply by convincing others, without whining on TV or suing, to avoid that business. It’s the same as a restaurant that serves bad food, people find out and just don’t go there. Today, however, we live in a society where, despite the First Amendment, and now two states passing additional laws, people who feel “discriminated against” sue to “punish the bigot.” I’m sorry, if I went to a bakery owned by a gay or lesbian couple, and asked for a cake honoring traditional marriage, and they said they won’t do it, I WOULDN’T WANT THEM TO at that point, for fear they’d not do as good a job as they do on other items. Second, I wouldn’t sue them for turning away customers, I’d simply let it be known that they turned me away due to my faith and my request, and let people decide if they want to do business there, leaving it to the market who succeeded and who didn’t.

To show how this is not the case any more, and how one group has decided to force another to not only tolerate, but to accept them, I give you two cases. First, a court ruled that a baker had “illegally discriminated” against a gay couple. Keep in mind that this is a private citizen who decided to turn away a paying customer. Rather than simply letting their friends and family know, and instead of simply encouraging anyone they could to do business elsewhere (free market economics) they sued, and a judge ruled that a private citizen could not act on their beliefs. This case however, is the opposite, and not about only one baker. No, in this case, thirteen bakeries turned away a request to make a cake with a message that stated gay marriage is wrong. Nothing was vulgar or profane about the message, it was simply a message that a majority of people, based on their religious affiliation, agree with. None of these bakeries were sued, some of them were very insulting, one even saying they’d made the large cookie, but they would “put a phallus on it.” How is it that the first instance of a private business turning away a customer is “illegal” or “wrong,” but not the other thirteen cases?

Simply put, the media and too many in government have decided that only one group is protected. This isn’t the only situation either. We have seen instances where people state only whites can be racist, only men can be sexist, and believe it. This is the problem today. If you claim to want equality, then you cannot do anything the other guy can’t, and then expect him not to react as you would. If you can call someone evil, ignorant, a bigot, or worse, then they can call your “lifestyle choice” wrong, or immoral. If you can turn away a customer wanting a cake supporting traditional marriage, then he can turn your request for a cake for a gay wedding away. Simply put, no one can have a “right” that others do not have. That is called privilege, rights are for everyone, and too many today have either forgotten that, or chosen to remain ignorant in their demand for “rights” that only they enjoy.

Smokey out