By Paul Bremmer
Aaron and Melissa Klein of Gresham, Oregon, have learned how dangerous it can be to fail to support “gay marriage” in this day and age.
The now-infamous bakers refused to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian couple and were subsequently slapped with a $135,000 fine from the state of Oregon. Negative national publicity forced them to shut down their bakery, Sweet Cakes by Melissa.
Outrage from progressives has essentially ruined the Kleins’ lives, but journalist and author Jack Cashill, who wrote the forthcoming “Scarlet Letters: The Ever-Increasing Intolerance of the Cult of Liberalism,” believes this incident ultimately is not about “gay marriage.”
Rather, it is part of an attempt by hardcore progressives to destroy Christianity and the nuclear family. He noted Muslims are not tolerant of homosexuality either, but outrage among “gay” rights advocates has focused on the refusal of Christians, such as the Kleins, to promote homosexuality.
“If they were serious about gay rights, they would take this battle to not only the Islamic countries, but to the Islamic mosques in the United States,” Cashill told WND in an interview. “[Muslims] are not even questioned. They’re not in the picture. It’s really an attack on Judeo-Christian values.”
Brad Avakian, a commissioner with Oregon’s Bureau of Labor and Industries, ordered the Kleins to pay the $135,000 fine by July 13. They missed the deadline, so the state threatened to place a lien on the couple’s home until they paid. Avakian also placed something resembling a gag order on the Kleins that effectively prevents them from talking about the case.
Cashill, a WND columnist, likened the gag order to something out of a totalitarian state.
“That’s Stalinist at its core, and it’s so un-American,” he said.
Paul Kengor, author of “Takedown: From Communists to Progressives, How the Left Has Sabotaged Family and Marriage,” shares Cashill’s concerns about the aggressiveness of gay marriage supporters.
“Sadly, the case against the Klein family will only get more common in our fundamentally transformed New America,” Kengor told WND. “This is how the forces of ‘tolerance’ and ‘diversity’ treat religious people who disagree with them. They sue them and seek to destroy them.”
One of the “scarlet letters” Cashill discusses in his book “Scarlet Letters” is the letter H for “homophobe.”
“It’s a label progressives frequently use to brand their ideological opponents, and Cashill believes the scarlet H applied to the Kleins shares similarities to Hester Prynne’s scarlet A in the famous novel “The Scarlet Letter.” In both cases, he noted, morality chieftains united with the law to totally suppress an individual’s rights.
But one major difference, according to Cashill, is that Hester Prynne knew she had done wrong and willingly accepted her punishment. This made her a figure of some respect in her community. But the Kleins don’t believe they’ve done wrong, and Cashill thinks the progressives in their community will never respect them.
See the big list of “same-sex marriage” entrapment and Christian coercion
“In Portland, Oregon, they just want more blood,” he said. “I mean, they’re just like sharks. Unless they continue moving forward, they die, and when they smell blood, they’re going after it.”
Kengor noted progressives have been emboldened now that Anthony Kennedy and the four liberal Supreme Court justices have declared “gay marriage” legal in all 50 states. He claimed the justices have “unleashed a terrible, protracted period of persecution by militant liberals against religious people.”
“The Klein family will be among the first victims in the cultural left’s crusade against people who refuse to redefine their faith’s 2,000-year standard for natural, traditional, biblical marriage,” Kengor said. “Prepare yourself to watch a lot of hate and anger and intolerance from the forces ‘tolerance.’ I warned people: do not trust the left with same-sex marriage!”
Cashill lamented that hardly anyone among progressive is speaking out in favor of Christians’ religious freedom. He said he has perused the comments sections of many stories, even on center-left websites, and found the majority of commenters siding with “gay marriage,” even if it means destroying the lives of Christians. Cashill thinks ordinary progressives might change their minds if they see one of their heroes stand up for religious freedom.
“I think one thing that could make a difference is if some major political figure or public figure went out to Gresham, Oregon, and held a press conference with the Kleins by his side,” he said. “And ideally, that person would be on the Left. I don’t think that’s going to happen, but it could conceivably make a difference.”
The author said people should have realized Christians are now the victims when gunman Floyd Corkins stormed the headquarters of the Family Research Council three years ago with the intention to shoot as many people as possible. Corkins later said he targeted the FRC because the Southern Poverty Law Center tagged it as an “anti-gay” group.
“It’s altogether possible that another Floyd Corkins will emerge who is more successful,” Cashill warned. “It’s also possible that crazies on the Right will do a similar thing.”
Cashill said there is a difference between modern progressives and old-school liberals. The liberals of yesteryear, he said, stood for values like the rule of law, civility, and innocence until proven guilty. He pointed to Atticus Finch from the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” as a model of those older liberal values. But modern progressives, Cashill believes, are different.
“The progressives are the guys standing in front of the courthouse demanding the head of Tom Robinson,” Cashill said, referring to the wrongly accused slave from “To Kill a Mockingbird.” “They’ve become the mob.”
The author said he doesn’t know if there’s an Atticus Finch on the American left today who is able and willing to reverse the mob mentality. Noted lawyers and commentators Alan Dershowitz and Jonathan Turley might be two such figures, Cashill argued, but not enough people listen to them.
“I think the mob is in control now, and the mob won’t be satisfied until some counterforce silences it,” Cashill predicted.
The Kleins of Oregon are certainly not the only people who have crossed the “gay” rights “mob.”
The Washington state attorney general sued 70-year-old florist Barronelle Stutzman for declining to provide flowers for a “gay” wedding. This was in spite of the fact the would-be customer was a longtime friend who didn’t initially press charges against Stutzman (he later did).
A judge ruled the florist had violated the state’s anti-discrimination law and ordered her to pay a $1,000 fine, as well as provide full support to same-sex “weddings” in the future. She was also ordered to pay the “gay” couple’s legal fees, a move that has the potential to ruin her financially.
Another baker, Jack Phillips of Colorado, refused to make a rainbow-themed cake for a “gay wedding” in July 2012. The state’s Civil Rights Commission ruled Phillips must either bake cakes for same-sex weddings or face fines. The baker appealed the ruling earlier this month.
Cashill believes Christians will rebel at some point against this new culture hostile to their beliefs. Granted, Stutzman and Phillips have rebelled by fighting the court rulings against them, but Cashill is talking about a more direct rebellion.
“Christians will have some constraints by the nature of Christianity, but at some point, you can get into John Brown territory, where you have a Bible in one arm and a musket in the other,” Cashill cautioned.
He was referring to a painting that hangs in the Kansas state capitol, depicting the famously violent abolitionist John Brown. Cashill noted with alarm that people celebrate Brown, even today.
“This could get ugly, and it shouldn’t,” he author warned. “I mean, the rule of law should intervene, cooler heads should prevail, but I don’t think there’s any guarantee that will happen.”
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