Our Cultural Whitewashing

Not too long ago Mr. Potato Head was in trouble. In a day when even a sitting U.S. Supreme Court justice claims not to know how to define a woman, the hubris of calling any toy “Mr.” is just too much for our present culture.

Even Piers Morgan was upset about this tempest-in-a-teapot because the “Mr.” part of Mr. Potato Head was “upsetting a few wokies.”

Giving in to wokeness is one thing. Sensitivity to others is another. LEGO announced some new additions to their lineup of toys. Dailymail.com wrote recently,

“LEGO, which recently unveiled a range of new characters, with a range of skin tones and nationalities, several of whom have disabilities, has revealed…the details of each of these characters. The new generation of Lego friends are a diverse bunch, representing a multitude of backgrounds and lived experiences.”

One can understand being sensitive to others, as in the LEGO example. But often the woke revolution goes too far.

Even children’s literature today is unsafe. Dr. Seuss has been banned by some, and even the late, beloved children’s writer, Roald Dahl, author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach, recently came under fire. He almost had hundreds of changes posthumously made to his books.

Thankfully, after the uproar against the attempted bowdlerizing Dahl’s works, Random House decided to continue to make available the books as Roald Dahl wrote them—while still offering the new, edited, sanitized versions.

About 25 years ago, I paid good money to the estate of Roald Dahl to use portions of his classic Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in a book of short stories I compiled.

My book, The Moral of the Story, published by Broadman & Holman (1996, now out of print), included selections from various stories that helped illustrate the nefarious nature of the Seven Deadly Sins. They are Pride, Greed, Envy, Anger, Lust, Gluttony, and Sloth. The Bible condemns each of these sins. But would today’s culture perhaps make each of them a virtue?

Portions of Dahl’s Willy Wonka story were perfect for the section of my book dealing with gluttony. Dahl cleverly exposed the pitfalls of eating “beyond one’s seams,” including one boy named Augustus Gloop, that “nincompoop.” Dahl called him “fat.” The modern censors tried to change that and other offensive details.

In the famous scene I was able to reproduce, some fortunate children win a special visit to Willy Wonka’s magical chocolate factory. While on the tour, Augustus Gloop is unable to resist the temptation to get down on the banks of a magic chocolate river and lap as much of it as he can, like a dog.

Wonka and Gloop’s parents warn Augustus against doing this. “But Augustus was deaf to everything except the call of his enormous stomach,” writes Dahl. And then Augustus Gloop experiences humiliating punishment for his gluttony.

Part of the impulse to “clean up” Dahl’s writings is to make sure that people wouldn’t be offended.

But who knows how many children might have been warned into avoiding a life of excessive overeating and the consequent deleterious effects on health that flow from it? God warns against gluttony and other sins because they are harmful for us.

With our cultural revolution, which can’t tell men from women, if you say that some behavior someone engages in is wrong, you might hurt their feelings. Well, there is a Constitutional freedom of speech. But there’s not a Constitutional right to not be offended. Besides, hurt feelings might actually lead to needed changes.

The Bible is frank about man being sinful. The founders of America acknowledged that reality and created the most durable governing document in history, the U.S. Constitution, because it conforms to the empirical reality that we are sinful.

John Adams, a key founding father, commented on man’s sinful nature by observing that those in power tend to become like “ravenous beasts of prey.” Thus, the founders separated power so that no one group could lord it over the others.

The Scriptures say that we have all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. They also explain how God forgives sin for those who repent and call on Jesus who died for sinners and rose again from the dead.

However, in our post-Christian society, there is a major push to make everything woke—even by whitewashing classic children’s literature. Where does it all stop? When can children be children again?

When can sin be viewed as sin again? Isn’t it better to admit wrongdoing than to try to redefine what is wrong in the first place? There are moral standards that come from beyond ourselves. As Cecil B. De Mille once noted, “We cannot break the Ten Commandments. We can only break ourselves against them.” Thus, endeth my Lenten meditation.

This article was originally published at JerryNewcome.com.

Speak Up and Speak Out in 2019

May I propose a New Year’s resolution for 2019? Let’s determine to speak up and to speak out, to raise our voices with clarity and compassion, to refuse to hold back regardless of cost or consequence. Will you join me?

To those of you who are already doing this, I encourage you to continue to stand strong.

To those who are not, now is most certainly the time. What are you waiting for?

One of the most important principles taught by Jesus was that if we try to save our lives, we lose them. But if we lose our lives for Him – for the gospel – we find them.

To apply this concept to our contemporary situation, if we try to avoid controversy and conflict so as to preserve our presence on social media platforms, we lose our souls in the process. We become compromisers, fearers of man rather than fearers of God. We are no longer guided by conviction; we are guided by convenience. We survive but we do not thrive.

If we speak what is right and do what is right and live what is right, we might lose a lot in the process, but we will find our souls. We become alive!

We can learn a lesson here from Wang Yi, pastor of Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu, Sichuan, China. He was addressing the sinful policies of Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is fashioning himself to be the new Mao and is actively persecuting Christians and other minorities.

In a sermon dated September 9, 2018, Pastor Yi said, “President Xi Jinping does not repent he will perish!”

Yes, he said, “The government he is leading has sinned greatly against God, for it is persecution the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, and if he does not repent, he will perish!”

But won’t Pastor Yi suffer consequences for preaching such a message? No doubt. In fact, he was subsequently arrested and is currently imprisoned. Yet he still preached with boldness and conviction.

“When we are not being persecuted,” he said, “we spread the gospel. And when persecution comes, we continue spreading the gospel. If we are talking about a President, we declare he is a sinner. And if we are talking about a general secretary, we still declare that he is a sinner. We believe that we have the responsibility to tell Xi Jinping that he is a sinner.”

What a contrast with today’s “gospel of nice,” a PC-compliant, made-for-America message if ever there was one. Whatever you do, don’t offend! Better to skirt the truth. Better to mislead. Just be sure to smile and be nice!

Of course, we should speak the truth in love. With broken hearts. With compassion.

Being mean is no more Christian than being weak.

But if ever there was time to crucify our cowardice, it is now. If ever there was a time to speak up and to speak out, regardless of cost or consequence, it is now. If we don’t, day by day, our freedoms will be taken from us, one at a time, until we find ourselves confined to a tiny, silent corner. This is how those words of Jesus’ apply.

Back in March, 2018, despite not being a fan of Infowars myself, I wrote an article titled, “Why YouTube’s Conflict with Infowars Should Concern Us All.”

I closed the article with this poem, inspired, of course, by the famous World War II poem of Martin Niemoller:

First they came for Infowars, and I did not speak out—because I found them offensive.

Then they came for Geller and Spencer, and I did not speak out—because I found them obnoxious.

Then they came for Prager U, and I did not speak out—because I found them opinionated.

Then they came for a host of others, and I did not speak out—because I have my own life to live.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

I followed this up with an article on August 6, 2018, “Conservative Speech Be Banned!” This added further documentation and closed with the same poem.

Since then, many other conservative and Christian outlets have been affected (see this shocking list for 2018 compiled by Allum Bokhari). And most recently, Rev. Franklin Graham, arguably the best-known, most-prominent evangelical voice in America, was banned from posting on Facebook for 24 hours because of an innocuous post dating back to 2016.

Facebook quickly apologized and said he was banned in error, but the fact that this could happen at all is another sobering wake-up call.

In 2016, I drew attention to a ridiculous attempt at Princeton University to ban the “m” word (man!) from its campus. No more “man hours” or “manpower” or “layman.” Different, non-sexist terminology must be employed, such as “person hours” (for “man hours”) or “personnel” (for “manpower”) or “non-specialist” (for “layman”).

You might say, “But who cares about what happens on a university campus. That’s already an extreme PC-environment.”

Of course, we should care about what happens on our campuses, since that’s where the next generation is being educated.

But these things are not just happening on college campuses. The UK Telegraph reported on December 27, 2018, that “The European Parliament is attempting to stamp out the use of words such as ‘mankind’ and ‘manpower’ and have them replaced with more gender neutral terms such as ‘humanity’ and ‘staff”.”

Yes, the European Parliament is trying to enforce this hyper-PC speech control.

And, on a related note, let’s not forget that Canada passed a law in 2017 against “misgendering” people, while a similar law had already been passed (with stiff fines) in New York City.

So what will we do? Will we continue to retreat in order to avoid conflict, thereby muting our own voices? Or will we speak the truth in love – as compassionate as we are bold, as Christlike as we are firm, as wise as we are unwavering?

If not now, then when? If not you and me, then who?

Let’s make this our resolution in 2019: “I will not hold back for fear of consequences. I will speak up and speak out as the occasion demands. I will love my neighbor by speaking the truth.”

Are you in?

This article was originally published at AskDrBrown.org.

Why Political Correctness Is Political Cowardice

Written by Alexander Zubatov

If you spend any time online, whether on mass media or social media, you might be forgiven for believing that an overwhelming majority of Americans believes in political correctness, affirmative action, and identity politics.

But the reality is that most Americans have a very different view of these issues, even though they do not voice that view. They stay silent.

Well, take this as my appeal to all of you: it’s high time for your voices to be heard.

I live in New York City—the place Ted Cruz famously denounced as having “New York values.” I don’t know exactly what that means, but I have a sneaking suspicion it means “liberal.” As is typical in this diverse melting pot of a city, I have friends who are white, black, Asian, and Hispanic … and most of them are, indeed, “liberal.”

But here’s the thing: among all my friends, acquaintances, family members, and extended family members living in this notorious bastion of liberalism, I can think of a grand total of one person who is a fan of so-called “political correctness” and identity politics. Again, in case you missed it, that number was one.

We Aren’t As Politically Correct As We Pretend To Be

I know that isn’t exactly a scientific survey. You want science? Here’s science. According to a Pew Survey on the topic of political correctness, 59 percent of Americans believe “too many people are easily offended these days over the language that others use,” while only 39 percent think “people need to be more careful about the language they use to avoid offending people with different backgrounds.”

Among whites, those numbers are 67 percent versus 32 percent respectively, while among blacks, the numbers are more or less reversed (30 percent versus 67 percent). Older people are actually more likely to support political correctness than their younger peers: Seventy percent of Democrats 65 and older “think people should take greater care to avoid offending others”—compared to 58 percent of 30 to 49-year-olds, and 56 percent of Democrats under 30. Meanwhile, “a majority of Republicans across age categories say people today are too easily offended by language.”

Now let’s consider race-based preferences. Surely, now that even the Supreme Court has come down squarely on the side of permitting race-based university admissions, it must reflect the beliefs of most Americans, right?

Not only is that dead wrong—it’s wrong for Americans of all races. According to a Gallup poll, 65 percent of Americans disapproved of that 2016 Supreme Court decision (Fisher v. University of Texas), with only 31 percent approving. According to the same poll, 70 percent of Americans believe college admissions should be based solely on merit (with 76 percent of whites, 50 percent of blacks, and 61 percent of Hispanics sharing that view). Sixty-seven percent of whites, 57 percent of blacks, and 47 percent of Hispanics said race or ethnicity should not factor into college admissions at all.

We Aren’t Huge Fans of ‘Multiculturalism,’ Either

What about multiculturalism? Haven’t most Americans embraced the party line that says we ought to accentuate our vibrant racial and ethnic identities, focusing on what makes us unique?

If you believe that, here’s another Pew Survey to disillusion you: “Among whites, more than twice as many say that in order to improve race relations, it’s more important to focus on what different racial and ethnic groups have in common (57 percent) as say the focus should be on what makes each group unique (26 percent).” Even among blacks, a slightly higher percentage (45 percent) believes the focus should be on “commonalities” rather than on “differences” (44 percent).

So what gives? If popular opinion leans so clearly in one direction on these issues, why does public dialogue lean so clearly the other way?

The dispiriting answer is that political correctness is succeeding in its objective: it’s shutting people up. Political correctness bullies, shames, and silences those who have dissenting views on various sensitive issues—even if those with dissenting views represent a majority.

Prominent moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt believes that in “liberal” environments—elite East- and West-Coast schools and universities, academic institutions and think-tanks, major coastal cities such as New York and San Francisco, left-leaning media organizations, etc.—whites, conservatives, men, straight people, and others who were way too historically oppressive feel like they are “walking on eggshells.” They don’t feel they can discuss topics such as race, gender, or homosexuality, and tend to stay silent.

Opposing Political Correctness Poses A Huge Risk

This should not be surprising. The consequences of not staying silent can be devastating. Making racially insensitive remarks in private conversation, using the N-word during a decade-old sex tape, admitting to using the N-word at some point in the past, using a word that sounds like the N-word but has nothing to do with it, writing an e-mail telling university students not to be so politically correct, or writing a single misinterpreted tweet with racial overtones: these things can get you fired and ostracized. In such an environment, why would it shock anyone if people choose not to speak out?

Once again, I can furnish some anecdotal support for this suggestion. A Pew Survey has revealed, for instance, that white people tend not to talk about race on social media: “Among black social media users, 28% say most or some of what they post is about race or race relations; 8% of whites say the same. On the other hand, roughly two-thirds (67%) of whites who use social media say that none of [the] things they post or share pertain to race.”

It could be that this racial gap reflects the fact that race matters more to blacks than it does to whites—and surely this is part of the picture. But with our media’s 24-7 focus on racial issues in America, I do not believe only eight percent of white people have thoughts on the subject. Clearly, something else is going on—and political correctness is the number one candidate for that “something else.” These white people are afraid to say what they really think.

Why You Shouldn’t Stay Silent

Consistent with this conclusion, among all my family, friends, and acquaintances — among whom, again, only one is generally supportive of identity politics — no one, other than that one (and he is black), speaks publicly on this topic. Many of those same people have advised me to stop sharing my views about these issues, for fear something I say will come back to bite me.

This is my response to them, and to all of you who stay silent: if political correctness is a toxin to the health of our body politic, then political cowardice is the auto-immune disorder through which it spreads. By refusing to be bullied, by defying intolerance, by standing up to this new illiberal McCarthyism, by opposing those who want to divide and judge us based on the color of our skin, by choosing a real diversity of ideas over a superficial diversity of pigments, by rejecting the principle that there is anyone here entitled to stifle the speech of those with whom they disagree, we join the proud tradition of Americans and others worldwide and throughout history who have had the courage to oppose injustice.

Let this be a rallying cry. Don’t toe the line. Don’t hide on your silent island. Feel the wind at your back. Come sail on the rising tide that will carry us all forward into the more open waters that lie ahead.

Alexander Zubatov is a practicing attorney specializing in general commercial litigation. He is also a practicing writer specializing in general non-commercial poetry, fiction, drama and polemics that have appeared in The Hedgehog Review, PopMatters, Acculurated, MercatorNet, The Montreal Review, The Fortnightly Review, New English Review, and Culture Wars, among others. He makes occasional, unscheduled appearances on Twitter.

This article was originally posted at TheFederalist.com

Are Liberals Finally Ready to Tame the Political Correctness Monster?

Political correctness, which has gone after Christians for years, has finally turned on its progressive creators.

For decades, PC culture has dominated many of America’s college campuses, a fact highlighted in Allan Bloom‘s ground-breaking 1987 book “The Closing of the American Mind.” PC culture tries to shame and silence those of us with traditional beliefs as though we’re bigots or rubes.

I know about PC culture first hand, having graduated from Yale University in the 1980s. Recent events at my alma mater and on other campuses reveal that this PC monster is starting to eat its own, and the progressives, I’m happy to say, are finally getting concerned.

We’ve talked about the whole idea of “The Coddling of the American Mind,” of universities dealing with emotionally fragile young people as if they were children. As part of PC culture, a surprising number of schools, including Yale, now annually give advice to students on what kind of Halloween attire is appropriate, to avoid offending anyone.

Well, a couple of professors had the temerity to question whether such coddling is appropriate in a university setting.

One wrote in an e-mail to students, “Is there no room anymore for a child or young person to be a little bit obnoxious … a little bit inappropriate or provocative or, yes, offensive?”

The professor continued: “if you don’t like a costume someone is wearing, look away, or tell them you are offended. Talk to each other.”

This advice was too much for one Yalie, who launched a profanity-laced tirade at a professor and demanded more coddling: “It is not about creating an intellectual space,” she screamed. “It is not! Do you understand that? It is about creating a home here!”

Then, of course, there are the goings-on at the University of Missouri, where anti-racism protesters blocked and shoved a student photographer who tried to cover their demonstration.

The students chanted, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, journalists have got to go.”

Even a Missouri communications professor supporting the rally joined the mob and was caught on film saying, “Help me get this reporter out of here. I need some muscle.”

Writing in the New Yorker magazine, Jonathan Chait, who is no conservative, notes, “The upsurge of political correctness is not just greasy-kid stuff, and it’s not just a bunch of weird, unfortunate events that somehow keep happening over and over. It’s the expression of a political culture with consistent norms, and philosophical premises that happen to be incompatible with liberalism.”

It’s a culture that brooks no opposition and will use force when it can. Chait says it’s time for progressives to get serious about the PC monster and stand up for pluralism — before it’s too late.

So while we can celebrate the fact that the secular media are finally becoming indignant over the political correctness monster that they themselves in many cases have fed and pampered for lo these many years, maybe we should pause and ask this question: What is our role? How should followers of Christ respond?

It’s easy to laugh at the contradictions and confusions of political correctness, to fold our arms and watch the chickens come home to roost. But perhaps we ought rather to engage. Yes, we’ll take our lumps when we do. But this is no time for “I told you so’s”. It’s time to set an example of civility — by more consistently speaking the truth in love, whether the issue is race, gender, human sexuality, religion, or poverty.

As our old friend Chuck Colson once said, “… in a democracy, civility is not an option, it’s a precondition that makes our system possible … Without civility, political discourse becomes hostile and polarized. In the resulting chaos we become vulnerable to tyranny.”

It’s good that political correctness on campus is being exposed for what it is: tyranny. To begin putting the PC monster back in its cage, a renewed commitment to civil discourse is in order. Let’s lead the way.

This article was originally posted at BreakPoint.org

Portlandia Sharia: No Way To Live

Written by Rod Dreher

A reader alerts me to an ongoing saga from Portland. It seems that a woman named Chauncy Childs is planning to open a premium food store, a place where she can sell locally-raised and grown fresh meat and vegetables, including the non-GMO food she grows on her farm. But the people in the progressive neighborhood where she’s planning to open read her Facebook page, and found that she does not support same-sex marriage, and was kind of ugly about it. Ruh-roh! Excerpt from the Oregonian report:

Childs said she is religious and has a libertarian view that government should not be allowed to dictate whom a business does or doesn’t serve.

“We’re not going to refuse to serve anybody,” she said. “But we believe a private business should have the right to live their conscience.”

She said she believes that gay marriage is wrong because it is the start of a slippery slope that could eventually lead to pedophilia and bigamy. But she said those are her private religious beliefs and don’t reflect how the store will operate.

Childs, who owns a farm in Oregon City, said her idea was to open a place where she could sell her own GMO-free produce and dairy along with other GMO-free products made by local vendors.

Well, naturally there’s talk of boycotting her store when it opens, even though she’s spent a lot of money renovating the empty storefront. The Oregonian said that the locals had been excited about having a new store from which to buy the kinds of food they like. No more. From the story:

“They’re choosing to open a business in a very open-minded neighborhood,” said Tom Brown, owner of Brown Properties and president of the Sellwood Moreland Business Alliance. “I think their personal views are going to hurt.”

Think about the paradox of a neighborhood so open-minded that it will not tolerate the presence of a businesswoman who privately holds negative views about same-sex marriage.

But now boycott talk is swinging towards a local ~~thought criminal~~ restaurant owner who said on Facebook that it’s wrong to boycott a business for the private opinions of its owner.

This comments thread started when a stay-at-home dad in that neighborhood posted a seven-minute video (now taken down) expressing angst and hostility toward the as-yet-unopened food store. One thing he said: What about the children who have to walk past that store every day, knowing that it is owned by a woman who doesn’t support gay marriage?

Yes, he said that. Portlandia!

Nick Zukin makes sense; from that comments thread:

I’m wondering, Robert, if you’ve researched any of the other businesses nearby. Who are their owners? What are their religious beliefs? Do they give money to a political party? Etc? What about your dentist, your doctor, your wine vendors? It’s a bad way to live.

Yes it is. But it looks like we’re going to be living that way, at least those of us who live among the Progressive Puritans, who keep vigil day and night to prevent witches from living among them, poisoning their wells and worse. How are we to know that Chauncy Childs won’t kidnap liberal children and bake gluten-free cakes from non-GMO flour in the back room of that foodie boutique of hers?

When we lived in Brooklyn, we routinely shopped at a local food store owned by Yemeni Muslim immigrants. If I had to bet, I would guess they held strongly anti-gay views, strongly anti-feminist views, and probably strongly anti-Christian views. But you know what? They were always polite to us — friendly, even — and their products were good. They were good neighbors. Who cares what they think privately, as long as they treat customers with respect?

When we lived in Philly, we shopped all the time at a local organic food co-op that was fairly Portlandish in its progressivism. But the food was good and the people were really nice to us. If they had known that they were dealing with a right-wing Christian troglodyte every time they saw me at the register buying food, it probably would have appalled them. And I’m sure that at least some of those workers held offensive prejudices about Christians and conservatives. But you know what? They were nice and we were nice and we enjoyed sharing the same neighborhood with them. Who cares what they think privately, as long as they treat customers with respect?

In the Philadelphia area, you run into Amish folks at farmer’s markets, selling their produce. I was told by a local foodie that long before farmer’s markets became popular, the Amish were holding the line on locally-grown fresh food. According to this person, the reason the farmer’s market movement started so early and became so strong in Philly was because of the presence of the Amish from Lancaster County and elsewhere. People love them. You think the Amish are for gay marriage? You think the Amish hold properly progressive views on sex, gender roles, or anything else? Who the freak cares?! At the Baton Rouge farmer’s market, the best local milk comes from Mormon dairy farmers, and the best chicken comes from Muslim chicken farmers. You think they are pure enough for Portlandia? In my town, which is fairly conservative, some of the most beloved businesses are run by liberals, and employ gay people. Nobody cares. Nobody should care. You are a bad neighbor if you care, and not just a bad neighbor, but an asshole.

From what I’ve read about Chauncy Childs, it sounds like she was, and is, obnoxious on the subject of same-sex marriage. She doesn’t sound like the kind of person I would want to socialize with. But if I lived in Portland, I would make a point to go shop at her store, just to take a stand against this rotten movement to investigate the personal lives and beliefs of people and ruin their livelihoods if they don’t measure up. Besides, I believe that we can’t have enough places to buy organic farm-raised meat, vegetable, and dairy. Chauncy Childs, whatever her sins and failings, has apparently invested a lot of money in opening that kind of place, a food store that the neighbors were looking forward to until somebody went online and discovered her thoughtcrime. Do you think Chauncy Childs’s mind is going to be opened to gay rights after this? Do you think this kind of thing builds community, or makes it more possible for we who live in a pluralistic community to get along better with each other, despite our differences?

Portlandia’s version of sharia is no way to live.

UPDATE: A reader posts this, which explains why the Portlandia guy took down his video:

“My name is Sean O’Riordan and on April 2nd I released a video on YouTube regarding the Facebook postings of an owner of a business that was moving into our neighborhood. I, and much of the greater community at large, found these postings to be objectionable. Since we were unable to get a reply from Moreland Farmer’s Pantry after several requests for clarification, the video containing the information was made and uploaded.

On the morning of April 3rd, John Childs, one of the owners of the Moreland Farmer’s Pantry came to my home, introduced himself and asked if we could have a conversation. I found Mr. Childs to be a man who is sincere in his beliefs and passionate in discussion.

Although he and I fundamentally disagree on several issues, we were not disagreeable in our discussions. Mr. Childs asserted that he understood our family’s position and assured us that neither he nor his wife nor their business would ever discriminate toward their customers.

Mr. Childs realized that words had been spoken and it was time for action. He proposed to donate to a local LGBT program in Portland as a show of good faith. This was before any press was involved. I agreed that was a great start and once that was achieved I would take the YouTube video down.

We shook hands and gave our word.

Soon after he and I found ourselves in front of the camera broadening the conversation. In Portland, the conversation exploded and I implore all of us to act with the dignity that we expect to receive. John and I can do that face to face. Don’t allow the anonymity of the keyboard reduce you to your worst self.

After the interviews, John reached out again via email. I have included his note below with his permission.

‘Sean,
Thank you for taking the time today to speak with me about the Facebook posts. As I mentioned in our conversation, neither Chauncy nor I have a discriminatory bone in our bodies. We abhor discrimination in any form. But what we abhor more than that is anyone imposing their will on someone else even when they are in the right.
I believe our post said that “of course a business can discriminate against gay people”. I apologize, we probably could have chosen a better subject to express the view that we should not restrict anyone’s right to free speech and expression, even when we disagree with them. Other businesses and people can discriminate as much as they want, but to their detriment. Our business does not and will not discriminate.

We understand how this post could have been interpreted as anti-gay but I assure you that was not our intention in the least.
Thank you again for your understanding ear.

John Childs
Moreland Farmers

At 4:56 pm 04/04/14 I received a confirmation of a sizable donation from Mr. Childs to Equity Foundation,http://www.equityfoundation.org/, a Portland based LGBTQ foundation.

The purpose and mission of the Equity Foundation is to “leverage resources to create social, economic, and political equity for the LGBTQ community”.

Mr. Childs kept his word as I have mine; The video has been removed and perhaps light has been shed on a subject that runs pretty deeply in our community. We have agreed to disagree. In a healthy, open society people are free to not want to patronize any business that does not fit their value system, and they are free to try to persuade other people to do the same. While I wish John well, I will continue to shop with businesses that align with my values.

My hope is that the day will come when equal rights for all is no longer an issue. Sadly, we are not there yet, but perhaps we are just a little closer.

Sean O’Riordan
04/04/14
Sellwood, Oregon

So Sean O’Riordan is still going to boycott this guy’s store. Sounds to me like John Childs wasted his money donating to the LGBT organization as a show of good faith. This is about purity.

This article was originally posted on TheAmericanConservative.com website.