Many Christians and non-Christians misunderstand the relationship between morality and religion. Many mistakenly believe that morality is the same thing as religion and, therefore, mistakenly believe that they should not advocate for policies that reflect their moral beliefs. But morals and religion are not the same, and basing our decisions on public policies, laws, or elections on beliefs that derive from religious convictions does not constitute an unconstitutional establishment of a state religion.

All laws reflect or embody someone’s morality. The moral beliefs of people who hold theistic worldviews are no less valid in the public square than the moral beliefs of those who hold atheistic worldviews—which, of course, are faith-based also. The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment was intended to prevent the establishment of a state religion, not to prevent religious beliefs from informing political decisions.

People from diverse faith traditions or no faith could all arrive at the same position on a particular public policy. For example, although Orthodox Jews, Muslims, Catholics, Baptists, and atheists may all oppose abortion because they value human life, the reasons for that valuation of life differ. If there is a secular purpose for the law (e.g., to protect incipient human life), then voting for it does not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

The sources of the various parties’ desires to protect incipient life are not the concern of the government. It would be not only absurd but also unethical for the government to try to ascertain the motives and beliefs behind anyone’s opposition to abortion and even more unethical for the government to assert that only those who have no religious faith may vote on abortion laws. Such an assertion would most assuredly violate the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.

The religion clauses of the First Amendment were intended to protect religion from the intrusive power of the state, not the reverse. The Establishment Clause states that “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion.” That does not mean religious convictions are prohibited from informing political values and decisions. To expect or demand that political decisions be divorced from personal religious beliefs is an untenable, unconscionable breach of the intent of the First Amendment which also includes the oft-neglected Free Exercise Clause which states that Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion.

Legal theorist Michael Perry explains:

“[F]orcing religious arguments to be restated in other terms asks a citizen to ‘bracket’ religious convictions from the rest of her personality, essentially demanding that she split off a part of her self … to bracket [religious convictions] would be to bracket—indeed, to annihilate—herself. And doing that would preclude her—the particular person she is—from engaging in moral discourse with other members of society.”

To paraphrase Richard Neuhaus, that which is political is moral and that which is moral, for religious people, is religious. It is no less legitimate to have political decisions shaped by religion than by psychology, philosophy, scientism, or self-serving personal desire.

If allowing religious beliefs to shape political decisions represents a violation of the Establishment Clause and an inappropriate commingling of religion and government, then American history is rife with egregiously unconstitutional actions, for religious convictions have impelled some of our most significant social, political, and legal changes including the abolition of slavery, antiwar movements, opposition to capital punishment, and the passage of civil rights legislation.

Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” is replete with references to his Christian faith which informed his belief about the inherent dignity, value, and rights of African Americans, a belief which he lost his life to see enshrined in law. He wrote what would now certainly generate howls of opposition:

How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law.  To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law.

“Progressives” have no objection to people of faith participating in the democratic process so long as their views comport with “progressive” positions. Liberals never cried foul when Quakers or Catholics opposed the Vietnam war because of their religious convictions, and liberals do not object that Catholic opposition to the death penalty represents a violation of the “separation of church and state”–a phrase not found in the Constitution.

I don’t recall any “progressives” objecting when Senator Rob Portman and former president Barack Obama cited their religious beliefs in defense of their radical shifts in position on homosexual faux-marriage. Portman said,

The overriding message of love and compassion that I take from the Bible, and certainly the Golden Rule, and the fact that I believe we are all created by our maker, that has all influenced me in terms of my change on this issue.

After his flip-flop—er, “evolution” on faux-marriage, Obama, like Portman, cited the Bible as his justification:

When we think about our faith, the thing at root that we think about is not only Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf, but it’s also the Golden Rule, you know? Treat others the way you’d want to be treated.

In contrast, when conservative people of faith participate in the political process, citing their religion as the source of their judgments, suddenly the Establishment Clause has been violated.

Apparently neither Portman nor Obama think much about what the Bible says about sex, marriage, or repentance. And apparently, neither Portman nor Obama understand the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule does not require Christians to affirm all the desires, beliefs, and actions of all humans. It requires Christians to treat others as they—disciples of Christ—want to be treated as disciples of Christ.

And what should disciples of Christ desire? They should desire to follow God’s teaching more closely every day. They should desire to be willing to die to self and to take up their crosses daily. They should want their brothers and sisters in Christ to hold them accountable for their embrace of sin.

What the government must not do is impose laws exclusively religious in nature like Sharia laws. There should be no laws requiring the observance of any particular religion. No laws governing baptismal practices or Communion. No laws requiring prayer or circumcision. But, for example, people whose faith points to the worth of all people may legitimately work toward enacting laws that oppose capital punishment, euthanasia, or abortion. People whose religious beliefs include pacifism may legitimately work toward preventing or stopping military engagements.

No one is legally, constitutionally, ethically, or morally obligated to divorce their faith from their political decisions.

Richard Neuhaus argues persuasively in his book The Naked Public Square that a polity denuded of religion will be clothed soon enough in some other system that functions as religion by providing “normative ethics.” A democratic republic cannot exist without objective normative ethics that render legitimate the delimitation or circumscription of individual rights.

Historically, the sources of the absolute, transcendent, objective, universal truths that render legitimate our legal system have been “the institutions of religion that make claims of ultimate or transcendent meaning.”

Neuhaus argues that when religion is utterly privatized and eliminated as a “source of transcendence that gives legitimate and juridical direction and form, something else will necessarily fill the void, and that force will be the state.”

If the body politic claims there are no absolutes or delegitimizes religion as an arbiter of right and wrong, or good and evil, then the state will fill the vacuum, relativizing all values, and rendering this relativization absolute.

Lawmaking absent an understanding that there exist moral truths that are objective and universal would represent an illegitimate and hubristic arrogation of power.

What sense does outrage at human rights violations make if we assert there are no universal, transcendent, eternal, objective truths? And if we agree that these truths exist, that they transcend the subjective opinions of any particular individual, then what is their source other than a supernatural, eternal, transcendent being?

There are numerous factors that have resulted in a diminished valuation or recognition of the essential place of a belief in God as the source of transcendent truth in American society and politics, one of which is our remarkable cultural diversity. A healthy respect for the pluralism in America, however, need not and should not degenerate into what retired Campbell University law professor Lynn R. Buzzard describes as a “religion of secularism, excluding religion from participation in the pluralism.”

Princeton University law professor Robert George explains that our cultural degradation has, at least in part, resulted from an “orthodox secularism [that] stands for the strict absolute separation of not only church and state, but also faith and public life.”

Allowing religious institutions and ideas to inform our understanding of right and wrong, which is a necessary precursor to making legislative and juridical decisions, does not represent a violation of the Establishment Clause. Indeed, as Samuel Silver explains, “The government, as defined by the First Amendment and explained by its author James Madison, must remain neutral between various sects of religion, but it is not required to remain neutral between religion and irreligion.”

Prohibiting religiously derived understandings of right and wrong to shape political decisions, would, however, represent a violation of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. Buzzard writes that “Free Exercise will not be construed as merely creating a zone of non-governmental interference or the creation of an exemption from conscience-opposed activity, but the opportunity to be full partners in the pluralism of our day.”

To leftists, the idea of a separation of church and state no longer points to the importance of protecting religious freedom from the intrusive power of the state but instead refers to coercively eradicating theologically orthodox religious expression from the public square. Only secular or theologically heterodox worldviews, which are as shaped by myopic, dogmatic, unproved assumptions as secularists claim theologically orthodox religious worldviews are, will be tolerated in our pretend-tolerant society.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Do-Christians-Regularly-Violate-the-Separation-of-Church-and-State.mp3

In this video, Brigitte Gabriel – author, commentator on politics, culture, terrorism, and national security, as well as the founder and chairman of ACT for America – gives one of the most energetic, impassioned, and motivating presentations you will watch all year.

Ms. Gabriel speaks about the transformation that altered her childhood in Lebanon, the transformation that has turned Europe into “Eurabia,” and the transformation that is occurring in America as Muslim groups work to change the DNA of our country through various means, most especially through public school curriculum.

As the largest grassroots national security organization in the country, ACT for America strives to protect Americans from all threats, foreign and domestic, by pairing education with action. Ms. Gabriel wants to light a fire under Americans so we can take back our country! Visit ACT for America for more information and to sign up to be an activist – and please share this video with others.

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Despite the rendition of Islam portrayed by the mainstream media and education system as a “religion of peace,” experts on the Muslim culture argue that the West is in denial about the sheer brutality at the core of the religion based in Shariah. [Caution: This article contains some graphic descriptions that could be unsettling to some readers.]

Radio show host Barbara Simpson, whose 20-year radio career also spans television and dailies in Los Angeles and the Bay Area, is calling out Western blindness to seemingly endless horrific deaths and threats at the hands of Islamic terrorists – atrocities that she says the West refuses to acknowledge because it will not hold Muslims accountable for their behavior or takes step to counter it due to political correctness.

Defending Islam?

Simpson – known to her audience as “The Babe in the Bunker” – argues that the mainstream media is at least partly responsible for continuing to portray Islam as if violence has nothing to do with its key precepts and prescribed behavior.

“Western nations and their media have to pay attention to the atrocities and report them accurately, [because] too often, they report the ‘news’ incorrectly or with minimum detail, and then the ‘stories’ disappear,” Simpson argued in her piece on WND titled “What will it take to admit Muslim brutality?”  “Case in point: the murders of two young Scandinavian women in Morocco on Dec. 22. The story was covered briefly by European media and even less in the United States. I first saw the story on the Internet, and there was very brief coverage in my newspapers – but then it just disappeared.”

She indicated that the mainstream media acts as if it is a team of Muslim militants’ defense attorneys, ultimately telling audiences, “Move on, there’s nothing to see here,” every time violence is carried out in the name of Islam – whether it is on the city streets, on the battlefield, on a hiking trail, or in the home.

This is the approach taken after the slain bodies of the 28-year-old Norwegian, Maren Ueland, and the 24-year-old Louisa Vesterager Jespersen from Denmark were discovered near their tent after backpacking high in the Atlas Mountains near Rabat, Morocco.

The head of Morocco’s Central Office for Judicial Investigating, Abdelhak Khiam, issued one of the first reports on the murders.

“The two victims were stabbed, had their throats cut and then were beheaded,” Khiam announced, according to WND.

Simpson then pointed out how this overgeneralized report only touched the tip of the iceberg regarding the brutality of the murders – and who was responsible for them.

“Short, sweet and to the point – but it wasn’t quite that simple,” Simpson contended. “The killers photographed the mayhem they perpetuated – moving pictures in living color with natural sound. Not only did they make the tape available online – where I saw and heard it – but they also sent it to the families and friends of the young women.”

Exposing the true viciousness

When Simpson came across the video of the murders online to see for herself what happened, she was amazed at the degree of the brutality used to maliciously slaughter the young women.

“I thought I had seen beheadings before in the news – the result of Islamic terrorism – those had been somewhat simple: kneeling person, long swing of a sword and off with the head,” Simpson explained. “Despite the hideousness of what was done, those videos were relatively antiseptic – [but] this was different.”

She was shocked at the carnage the Muslim attackers inflicted upon their innocent victims.

“I stared at the video and listened with total disbelief – I still almost cannot believe what I saw and heard,” Simpson continued. “It was a nighttime scene and you could see one woman lying on her stomach [partially nude]. There were two men there, speaking Arabic. Then one of them started hacking and sawing at the back of her neck. I heard screams and suddenly realized it was the victim, crying out for help. Those who heard the audio more clearly, report she cried out ‘Ow, ow’ and then ‘MOOOOR!’ – which is Danish for mother.”

But the vicious attack did not stop there.

“She tried to get away from the knife blade, but it only caused the murderer to start sawing at the front of her neck – and at that moment, the screaming stopped, but the murderer didn’t,” Simpson recounted from the Internet video. “He kept hacking and sawing her neck and there was so much blood, I couldn’t believe it. And then it was over – he cut off her head even as she tried to repel the knife with her hand. With the head off, it was thrown on the ground and one tape viewer said it was spit on.”

Simpson could not handle the brutal nature of the video.

“I didn’t see that – the rivers of blood and the cries of anguish were enough for me,” she added. “I shall never, ever get those images out of my mind, but I’m glad they’re there – for now I know for certain how evil the killers are.”

Not an Islamic attack?

Even with the publicity given to the two murders and the tape available to the public, Islam is still not being blamed for the massacre – not even in Sweden, the native country of one of the slaughtered victims.

“We’re told 22 people have been arrested in connection with the crime, yet whether they are connected with ISIS is not consistent in the news coverage,” Simpson noted. “It is reported that some of the suspects subscribe to ‘extremist ideology.’ In fact, Swedish television reported the deaths had nothing to do with Islam, and that if anyone shared the beheading video, they could face up to four years in prison. One of the reports didn’t even mention the beheading – calling the injuries ‘knife damage.’”

The liberal media in the United Kingdom made the injuries sound as if a Band-Aid might help heal the inflicted wounds.

“The BBC and the Independent in the UK reported the women died from ‘cuts to the neck,’” Simpson recalled.

With some time passing after this horrific event took place, the media has apparently decided that it will have no part in holding the brutality of Islam accountable for the attack.

“Unfortunately, the authorities report no more information on the killers – nor are the media any more forthcoming on the deaths,” Simpson divulged. “American media have virtually forgotten the story – I suspect because they don’t want to get involved in laying the blame on the steps of militant Islam, as seen in ISIS.”

More cover-ups?

Covering over Islamic violence appeared to be the trend not long after the slaying of the two young backpackers, as Simpson insists that even though fear is rampant regarding Islamic militants, the media will “never admit it.”

“Further, just last week, it was announced by Libyan authorities that they’ve discovered a mass grave with the remains of 34 Ethiopian Christians who were killed in 2015 by armed jihadists,” she relayed. “I remember the video they released back then of the prisoners kneeling in front of men with swords. We didn’t see the actual killing then – nor what happened to the bodies.”

She said that there is no longer any excuse for Americans and Europeans to turn a blind eye to the viciousness of Islamic militants.

“What is it going to take for Western nations to show proper outrage at such savagery against innocents and do something about it?” Simpson asked. “Are we so intimidated by this violence perpetrated by members of a certain religion that we just pretend these things don’t happen? Tell that to the parents of Maren and Louisa. Tell that to me after I saw and heard a horrific death, or do we just kow-tow to Morocco, where tourism is the second-largest source of income and news reports of terrorism is bad news?”

Muslims defending violence down under

Australian politicians have challenged the violence imported by Muslim refugees in the Land Down Under.

In April 2017, Australian Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce addressed the proliferating problem of domestic violence at the hands of Muslim men, insisting that refraining from beating up women is now a core Australian value – even though adherents of Islam might not agree.

“There’s no polite way to beat up your wife,” Joyce declared at the time, according to Australia’s ABC.net. “If you want to beat up your wife, you can’t become a citizen of this nation. It’s as simple as that.”

Backlash from the Muslim community in Australia was quickly waged, as Islamic adherents insisted that their religion is not sexist or brutal in nature.

“In a video posted to Facebook by the Women of Hizb ut-Tahrir Australia – a radical Islamic group – two hijab-clad women laugh off the idea that Islam is ‘gender biased,’ but claim the Koran permits men to hit disobedient women – gently, using small sticks or pieces of fabric,” ABC.net/au’s Hayley Gleeson and Julia Baird informed.

One of the Muslim women justified the violence that husbands inflict upon their wives.

“He [the husband] is permitted – not obliged, not encouraged – but permitted, to hit her [his wife],” the Islamic woman explained in the video, according to the Australian ABC network. “That is what everyone is talking about. It should not cause pain. Not harsh.”

Violence ingrained deep within Islam?

It is argued that one must look to Islam’s holy book, the Quran, to decide whether or not violence is an inherent part of Islam that Muslims are called to carry out.

“To understand whether violence is inherent in the doctrine of Islam, it is important to look at the example of the founding father of Islam, Mohammed, and the passages in the Quran and Islamic jurisprudence used to justify the violence we currently see in so many parts of the Muslim world,” ForeignPolicy.com explained in November 2015. “In Mecca, Mohammed preached to his fellow tribesmen to abandon their gods and accept his, [as] he preached about charity and the conditions of widows and orphans.”

But the call for peace was soon overridden by a call for violence, according to Islamic scriptures.

“However, during his time in Mecca, Mohammed and his small band of believers had little success in converting others to this new religion,” ForeignPolicy.com’s Ayaan Hirsi Ali explained. “So, a decade after Mohammed first began preaching, he fled to Medina. Over time, he cobbled together a militia and began to wage wars.”

Members of ISIS, al-Qaida, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Taliban need look no further than the Quran to “justify” the carnage they inflict upon “infidels” – those who do not submit to the god of Islam, Allah.

“Anyone seeking support for armed jihad in the name of Allah will find ample support in the passages in the Quran and Hadith that relate to Mohammed’s Medina period,” Ali informed. “For example, Q4:95 states, ‘Allah hath granted a grade higher to those who strive and fight with their goods and persons than to those who sit [at home].’ Q8:60 advises Muslims ‘to strike terror into (the hearts of) the enemies, of Allah and your enemies, and others besides, whom ye may not know, but whom Allah doth know.’ Finally, Q9:29 instructs Muslims: ‘Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, [even if they are] of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.’”

Shariah law is an integral part of Muslims lives – both in Islamic nations and elsewhere … including in many Muslim communities in the United States.

“Mainstream Islamic jurisprudence continues to maintain that the so-called ‘sword verses’ (9:5 and 9:29) have ‘abrogated, canceled, and replaced’ those verses in the Quran that call for ‘tolerance, compassion, and peace,’” Ali continued. “As for the example of Mohammed, Sahih Muslim – one of the six major authoritative Hadith collections – claims the Prophet Mohammed undertook no fewer than 19 military expeditions, personally fighting in eight of them.”

Even Ivy League schools acknowledge the violence lying at the heart of Islam.

“In the aftermath of the 627 Battle of the Trench, ‘Mohammed felt free to deal harshly with the Banu Qurayza, executing their men and selling their women and children into slavery,’ according to Yale Professor of Religious Studies Gerhard Bowering in his book, Islamic Political Thought,” Ali pointed out. “As the Princeton scholar Michael Cook observed in his book Ancient Religions, Modern Politics, ‘the historical salience of warfare against unbelievers … was thus written into the foundational texts’ of Islam.”

Many Muslims and left-leaning Democrats only pay heed to Mohammed’s account from Mecca to dub Islam as a “religion of peace,” but they purposely ignore his call from Medina – for Muslims to wage jihad, or holy war, against non-Muslims.

“There lies the duality within Islam – it’s possible to claim, following Mohammed’s example in Mecca, that Islam is a religion of peace – but it’s also possible to claim, as the Islamic State does, that a revelation was sent to Mohammed commanding Muslims to wage jihad until every human being on the planet accepts Islam or a state of subservience, on the basis of his legacy in Medina,” Ali asserted. “The key question is not whether Islam is a religion of peace, but rather, whether Muslims follow the Mohammed of Medina – regardless of whether they are Sunni or Shiite.”

This article was initially published in americanthinker.com

Islam, Muhammad, life in Iran, Sharia – how knowledgeable are you on these topics? Anni Cyrus is well-acquainted with all of them. She was born in Iran to a father who was a sheikh and a mother who taught the Quran. At age seven she began to wear the hijab to school; at age nine she first wore the full burqa and was officially certified as an “adult woman.” When she was barely into her teens, her father married her off to a man who gave him $50 (USD) and a month’s supply of opium. Ms. Cyrus knows all too well the horrific oppression of women under the dictates of Sharia in Iran.

Anni Cyrus also knows that Muslim girls and women in the United States are not immune from the abusive and controlling tactics that Sharia inflicts on females. Forced marriage, honor-based domestic violence, honor killing, and female genital mutilation are routinely practiced not only in the Middle East and other foreign regions, but also in our own country. Ms. Cyrus’ personal story and the facts and truths she shares can be uncomfortable to hear and view, but our discomfort is infinitesimal compared to the “legally” sanctioned pain these women experience through physical and mental abuse, mutilation, and even murder. We cannot afford to remain ignorant or silent on the evil of Sharia.

Please watch and share this video of Anni’s testimony with your friends to help them become better informed about Sharia:

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Maybe you once thought that the left wanted tolerance and diversity, but in reality, tolerance and diversity have never been the goals of the left, especially the radical left. Instead, it wants to suppress and silence opposing views, and the further left you go, the more extreme the intolerance.

For those who have still not come to grips with this, let these recent examples jar you.

It is bad enough that states have been passing legislation banning counseling for minors struggling with same-sex attraction, even if they have their parents’ backing. But now, there are reports that some states are considering banning such counseling for people of any age. (I was informed of this last week by a Christian counselor in California.)

In other words, it could be illegal for a 30-year-old man with unwanted same-sex attractions to go for professional counseling that focuses on helping him deal with and even overcome these attractions. This is a monstrous violation of individual freedom, not to mention a serious misrepresentation of scientific data, as if all “conversion therapy” was harmful.

Taking things one step farther, “A church in Michigan has come under intense attack this month [meaning, February] after posting on Facebook that it was holding a workshop at the church for girls who are struggling with essentially LGBT thoughts.”

So, not even a church is allowed to help its young people who struggle with unwanted same-sex thoughts. I guess freedom of religion and, even more fundamentally, freedom of self-determination only goes so far. How dare a church do such a thing!

The pastor Jeremy Schossau, stated that, “‘It is hard to believe how much vile filth has been sent our way,’ adding that many of the emails contained gay pornography. ‘We’re talking 10,000 emails and posts and messages and phone calls. It’s just been virtually nonstop.’”

Ah, the sweet, gentle voice of tolerance and diversity!

On a very different front, Pamela Geller explained to Milo Yiannopoulos that, “Google has scrubbed all internet searches . . . of anything critical of jihad and Sharia. So, if you Google jihad and you Google Sharia and you Google Islam, you’re going to get Islamic apologetics, you’re going to get ‘religion of peace.’ Whereas my site used to come up top, page one for jihad and Sharia or Islam, or JihadWatch did, you can’t find it now. They scrubbed 40,000 Geller posts of Google.”

She continued, “You know what? It’s Stalinesque.”

Geller wasn’t exaggerating, and her example is just one of many.

But all you have to do is label something as “hate speech” these days, and you can get it removed from social media in a hurry.

A friend of mine had his Facebook page shut down for sharing Bible verses about homosexual practice – I mean verses without commentary.

Another friend had his Facebook page shut down for posting medical data about the health risks associated with homosexual practice.

These are just two examples out of many more, where colleagues have been warned, if not censured and then censored.

Even Joe Rogan, hardly a conservative activist, noted how “squirrely” things have become with “hate speech” labelling on social media. (The context of his comment was his interview with Douglas Murray, himself anything but a conservative activist, noting how Murray’s discussion with atheist Sam Harris was somehow labelled hate speech, thereby in violation of Twitter’s community guidelines.”)

Over at Harvard University, a Christian club has been penalized for daring to live by its biblically-based code for leaders. As reported by Todd Starnes, “A well-respected Christian student organization at Harvard University has been placed on probation after they allegedly forced a bisexual woman to resign from a leadership position for dating a woman.

“The Crimson reports that Harvard College Faith and Action was put on ‘administrative probation’ for a year. The group is largest Christian fellowship on campus.”

So, a Christian club cannot require its leaders (not its members) to live by Christian standards, which begs the question, Could the leader of a campus Islamic club be a professing Christian? Or could the leader of a campus PETA club be a meat-eater? Or could the leader of the campus atheist club be an Orthodox Jew?

By why ask logical questions? The left wants to enforce its intolerant groupthink on everyone else. Leftist tolerance is a myth.

Just consider the recent debate on gun control in the aftermath of the tragic shooting in Parkland, Florida. Regardless of which side of the debate you’re on, was any tolerance shown to Dana Loesch (representing the NRA) at a CNN-sponsored town hall? Not only was she called a murderer and bad mother, but Jake Tapper actually asked her if she and her husband had security to escort them out of the building.

Is it stretching things to imagine that there could have been physical violence against Loesch? We’ve already seen how violent the left can get at places like Berkeley, where “punch a Nazi” becomes the rallying cry.

This doesn’t mean that we respond with violence and anger. God forbid.

But it does mean that we start speaking up more loudly, clearly, fearlessly, and persistently. And in the appropriate ways, as with the new “Internet Freedom Watch” initiative announced by the NRB (National Religious Broadcasters), we fight back.

This article was originally published at AskDrBrown.org

Philip Haney is a former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) whistle blower and counter-terrorism expert. Haney studied Arabic culture and language while working as a scientist in the Middle East before becoming a founding member of the DHS in 2002. He has specialized in Islamic theology and the strategy and tactics of the global Islamic movement. He retired in July 2015 and is the author of See Something, Say Nothing.

Haney was the last to make a presentation, and he opened his remarks by telling the audience that “this is how it feels to be on the receiving end of a missionary — are you going to receive what they say? “The question, I’m sure, in all of our minds will be, “well, what are we supposed to do about it?”

Haney noted that Christians must be clear about Sharia law. “What is the threat? What are we fighting against? What are we fighting for?” He said that “we are obligated by duty to be participants in the government that the Lord himself instituted in order to protect the liberties that he gave us. Jihad is the tactic, Haney said, and the goal is “world domination.”

You can watch his presentation here below, or click HERE to see it on our YouTube channel.

Haney’s Twitter account is @TheDHSExposed.

You can learn more about Anni Cyrus’ presentation HERE, and/or the presentation given by Pastor Usama Dakdok HERE.

The Left is working overtime to silence and/or marginalize conservative voices in America
The time to support IFI is now!

Iranian born Anni Cyrus came to the United States for freedom, she says. Back in Iran, she had been declared an adult at age 9, and a few years later was sold for fifty American dollars by her father to a man to be his wife. That, she said, is permitted by Sharia Law, since the prophet Mohammad married girls as young as 6 and consummated the marriages when they were 9. Every day, an average of 5-7 little girls are sold in Iran.

Cyrus was abused and imprisoned as a teen, and then escaped to America. She now advocates for women and girls suffering under Sharia. Her mission is to bring hope and healing to women and girls who have been unfortunate enough to be exposed to the plague of Islamic ideology. She experienced, first hand, the horrors of living under Islamic theocracy in Iran.

For example, wife beating is permitted if the husband merely suspects her of disobedience. Everyone, Cyrus said, needs to read the Koran. Get educated, she said, and speak out.

Anni recently spoke for at a forum on radical Islam in the Chicago suburbs. Her presentation was video-recorded. Her story is now posted on the IFI YouTube channel. This 19-minute presentation will leave you much better informed and with a deeper understanding of why Christians should actively oppose the promotion of Sharia in our nation. You can watch it here below, or click HERE.

Her Twitter account is @Anni_Cyrus, and her website is Live Up To Freedom.

The Left is working overtime to silence and/or marginalize conservative voices in America
The time to support IFI is now!

American courts are being told that certain outrageous activities are actually normal, constitutionally protected, Islamic religious behavior.

• In a Michigan court doctors are accused of mutilating young girls, some as young as seven years old, through cutting off parts of their genitals. A defense lawyer claims that this Islamic practice must be allowed, stating “I believe that they are being persecuted because of their religious beliefs and I do not make that allegation lightly.”

• A lawyer for the state of Hawaii claims that President Trump’s attempted travel ban is unconstitutional. Executive Order 13780 includes a request to collect
  

  “…information regarding the number and types of gender-based violence against women, including so-called “honor killings” in the United States by foreign nationals…”

  The lawyer argues that gathering this data discriminates unconstitutionally against Muslims.

Are these lawyers correct? In the name of religious freedom must America accommodate violent Islamic behavior? Should people here be allowed to govern themselves by Islamic law? In considering these questions we will examine:

• What it would mean to have active sharia courts.

• What virtues God requires of government.

• How American courts handle a collision between religion and civil law.

• How to prevent or neutralize Islamic courts.

Islamic law is always biased towards Muslims

A Muslim society wants to be governed by Islamic sensibilities, which are manifested in sharia. The result is a religious government, favoring Islamic believers and discriminating against non-Muslims. According to Wikipedia, sharia is

“…derived from the religious precepts of Islam, particularly the Quran and the collection of books known as the Hadith.”

Under Sharia, plaintiffs come to a religious elder, called an imam. After hearing their testimony the imam uses the Quran, with other holy books, to craft decisions to be enforced by officials.

Some elders, called mufti, are allowed to declare a fatwa. This is a pronouncement about how Muslims should handle a particular circumstance. A Muslim anywhere, not just in the jurisdiction of that mufti, can decide to obey the fatwa or ignore it. Fatwa examples include:

• Condemn the author  to death. Rushdie wrote a book that enraged Muslim sensibilities. The Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini declared a fatwa that Rushdie must die. In response to the book and the fatwa, rioters burned bookstores, Rushdie’s associates were attacked, and he himself went into hiding.

• Ban the use of polio vaccines. No, polio vaccines are OK. Both fatwas were issued.

• Forbid viewing movies about Islam.

• Wives must not leave the house except in emergencies.

Sharia is biased towards Muslim concepts of justice, rights, and equality. Americans hear these words but don’t realize how Muslims interpret the concepts. Here are some examples of sharia justice.

• A Muslim man’s testimony in court is always believed more than that of a woman (Quran 2:282, Sahih Bukhari (a Hadith book) 6:301).

• A man can be convicted of rape only if there are multiple male witnesses against him (Quran 24:4). But if a female accuses a man of rape then the female gets punished. Her testimony isn’t valid against the man, but is a confession of her having sex outside of marriage.

• Non-Muslims are barely tolerated in society. They can live only by continual payment of ransom (jizya, Quran 9:29). They must also watch what they say: witness an Indonesian governor, a Christian, convicted of blasphemy for suggesting that Muslims could vote for him.

• A Muslim can’t leave the faith without incurring a death sentence.

• If a man kills a Muslim it isn’t a criminal matter. Rather, the offender must work out a deal with the deceased’s family, perhaps buying them off with blood money (qisas, Quran 2:178). If that doesn’t work the deceased’s family may personally kill that offender.

• If a man kills a non-Muslim deceased’s family has fewer paths to justice than do Muslims (Sahih Bukhari 9:83:50).

According to American courts, Sharia is not actually a legal system. In successful arguments before the United States Tenth Circuit court the plaintiff argued:

Furthermore, plaintiff has presented testimony that “Sharia Law” is not actually “law”, but is religious traditions that provide guidance to plaintiff and other Muslims regarding the exercise of their faith. Plaintiff has presented testimony that the obligations that “Sharia Law” imposes are not legal obligations but are obligations of a personal and private nature dictated by faith. Plaintiff also testified that “Sharia Law” differs depending on the country in which the individual Muslim resides… Based upon this testimony, the Court finds that plaintiff has shown “Sharia Law” lacks a legal character, and, thus, plaintiff’s religious traditions and faith are the only non-legal content subject to the judicial exclusion set forth in the amendment.

Because Sharia isn’t based on legal precedent, you might present a Sharia court the same argument multiple times and get a different decision each time. The court relies on the judgment of its imam, who isn’t required to be consistent.

Because of its pro-Muslim bias, an unprepared American plaintiff coming before a Sharia court ought to be in for quite a shock. But even if the plaintiff appeals the verdict to regular civil courts, a Muslim tendency to “take the law into their own hands” might make any appeal moot.

Freelancing Islamic justice

Regarding justice, existing Muslim societies have a dual personality. On one hand is the usual deference to rulers and established government. On the other hand is an acceptance, even encouragement, of vigilantism. It is fairly easy to find instances of mob action, where people are attacked, and even killed, for defaming Islam. No trial, just the lynch mob.

Encouragement to autonomous action is built into Islam. Here the Quran says:

“And when the sacred months have passed, then kill the polytheists wherever you find them and capture them and besiege them and sit in wait for them at every place of ambush. But if they should repent, establish prayer, and give zakah, let them [go] on their way. Indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful.” (Quran 9:5)

This verse spurs continuing attacks on non-Muslims, including Christians. It is just one verse among a multitude that encourage action independent of judges and courts.

A recent European development is the appearance of Sharia patrols. These gangs roam through neighborhoods, intimidating and assaulting residents into sharia-compliant behavior. There were even attempts to start these in Minneapolis and Dearborn.

Once you recognize this tendency towards independent, often violent, action you’ll better understand why there are so many “lone wolf” attacks, and “you offended Islam” riots, by Muslims around the world.

Honor killing is another aspect of this vigilantism. Somehow, Islamic or family honor is restored if you kill a rebellious child, the daughter who is seeing a non-Muslim, or somebody who insults Islam. Some scholars think that Islamic support for honor killing arises from an Islamic parable about Moses (Quran 18:65-81). Through its lawyer, the state of Hawaii claims that honor killing is part of Islamic religious expression.

Whether or not honor killing is explicitly supported in Islam, it is accepted in Islamic societies. This is evidenced by the lack of Muslim mass outrage, and the absence of condemnation from imams, when such killings occur. Because of sharia’s concept of qisas (killing is a civil, not government, problem) there isn’t anything there that discourages taking revenge through independent action.

This tendency towards freelancing the verdicts of Islamic justice suggests why authorizing sharia courts could be dangerous to American communities.

• In a Philadelphia mosque its leaders detained a man accused of theft. They tried to chop off his hand, a sharia penalty for theft. They were unsuccessful, the man was hospitalized with severe cuts, and one of the mosque leaders was arrested.

Had the mosque leaders succeeded in their punishment the man would certainly have recourse in state courts. He’d also be permanently without his hand, something no legal appeal can fix.

Godly government and American law

God told us what He requires of a righteous society and its government. I touched upon this topic in a previous article. In summary, the rulers must:

• Provide even-handed and truthful justice (Amos 5:12).

• Give judgments that don’t favor either the rich or the poor (Leviticus 19:5).

• Be even-handed in our treatment of the aliens in our midst (Deuteronomy 10:17-19).

This is God’s standard for Christian society, Islamic society, and indeed any society.

American law is deeply rooted in English common law, which grew from the Christianized English society. Judges still look to common law when making decisions. Why, then, worry about Islamic courts if America has a Christian foundation? Because American Christians have, by and large, abandoned the public square. We tell ourselves, and are told by others, to leave our religion in the church building. Without the continual guidance of God’s church, which is a preserving salt to society, its guiding light (Matthew 5: 13-16), we’ve accepted all sorts of nonsense and called it justice.

Rulers are to be a terror to wrongdoers, and God’s servants in avenging wrongdoing (Romans 13:3-4). How will our rulers and judges know what must be avenged unless they understand God’s mind on the matter? And who will tell them if the Christians don’t (Romans 10: 14)? It’s high time we again do our duty to preserve and guide American society.

When religion and civil law collide

Soon a judge must decide if an Islamic practice, or a Sharia court, should be allowed in America. The framework used to make this decision will be the Lemon test. From Wikipedia:

• The statute must have a secular legislative purpose. (Also known as the Purpose Prong)

• The principal or primary effect of the statute must not advance nor inhibit religion. (Also known as the Effect Prong)

• The statute must not result in an “excessive government entanglement” with religion. (Also known as the Entanglement Prong)

The government’s claim of compelling interest in its law is measured by these three tests. The law is upheld if it passes all three tests; otherwise, the law’s restrictions are deemed unconstitutional.

The claim of government compelling interest has been tested many times. Here are a few important decisions.

• The Mormons are persistently banned from practicing polygamy in the United States. Utah couldn’t become a state until polygamy was officially banned there. Among the many points of the points that were decided is (from Wikipedia):

“The Court recognized that under the First Amendment, the Congress cannot pass a law that prohibits the free exercise of religion. However it held that the law prohibiting bigamy did not meet that standard. The principle that a person could only be married singly, not plurally, existed since the times of King James I of England in English law, upon which United States law was based.”

• The state of Oregon passed a law insisting that all children must attend public schools. Leaders of Catholic church schools objected and the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the law. From Wikipedia:

“He stated that children were not “the mere creature[s] of the state” (268 U.S. 510, 535), and that, by its very nature, the traditional American understanding of the term liberty prevented the state from forcing students to accept instruction only from public schools. He stated that this responsibility belonged to the child’s parents or guardians, and that the ability to make such a choice was a “liberty” protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.”

• When instituting Obamacare the government insisted that all health plans must include contraceptive coverage. The Little Sisters of the Poor objected to this requirement, citing long-standing Catholic opposition to these products. After many court fights the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in their favor, remanding the case back to a lower court where the Little Sisters could negotiate a plan not having the objectionable requirement.

• A non-Christian religious group sued for the right to use a certain tea, deemed to be a prohibited Schedule 1 drug, in their worship services. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in their favor.

“The Court found that the government was unable to detail the government’s compelling interest in barring religious usage of Hoasca when applying strict scrutiny as the RFRA demands of such regulations.”

The lawyers opposing Islamic practices, such as sharia courts, will need to prove that the government has a compelling interest in banning them.

Preventing or neutralizing Islamic courts

Muslims coming to America bring with them their possessions and their cultures. Those that successfully assimilate learn what part of their cultures must change in their new home. The others try to recreate their cultural practices here. One of those practices might be a sharia court.

The successful establishment of sharia courts, rendering enforceable judgments, amounts to colonization, replacing the existing civil authority with their own. Of all of a government’s compelling interests, keeping its own sovereignty is utmost. What approaches can we take to prevent or neuter sharia courts?

No sponsored, or parallel, sharia courts

Sometimes a sharia court is called an arbitration council, which provides advice voluntarily followed by its participants. However, changing its name doesn’t change its character. A sharia court is an Islamic religious proceeding, and government must have nothing to do with it.

• A government body that works with a sharia court, refers clients to it, or accepts results of its judgments, breaches the U.S. Constitution’s Establishment Clause. It favors one religion over another.

• The sharia court renders its judgments by Islamic standards. A plaintiff acting on the court’s advice will inevitably hurt someone else who expected an action compliant with civil law.

• The sharia court is abetting breaking the law if its “voluntary counseling” causes people, knowingly or not, to use it to evade the civil courts. This “parallel law” court challenges the sovereignty of the existing government. If a sharia court is a conduit for law evasion then its use must be somehow blocked.

If you can’t ban the sharia court, ban its results

Many states have tried banning sharia. However, such bans might not stand up to legal scrutiny. The state of Oklahoma forbade its courts from considering or using sharia. Its ban was overturned by the Tenth Circuit court, largely because it violated the Establishment Clause. That ban mentioned sharia by name, targeting one religion while not affecting any other.

The plaintiffs in the Oklahoma case successfully argued that the ban didn’t define sharia well enough to target it. With that guidance in mind, we should ensure that harm can’t arise from sharia court judgments. If all a sharia court did was provide a chance for Muslims to get together and argue then it would be harmless. Only when its decisions spur criminal action does it become dangerous. If a fear of prosecution deters such actions then the sharia court is neutralized.

Here are approaches that are religion neutral and serve compelling government interest:

• Honor killing: Stripped of its emotional content, this is cold-blooded murder. It’s also premeditated, thanks to the imam’s decision, and the court’s participants can be prosecuted for being co-conspirators. There is no “religious practice” exemption for murder. Aggressive investigation and prosecution can deter honor killings. However, plea deals would merely tell these Muslims that the government is willing to accept a form of blood money (qisas).

• Acid attacks: This is an ambush attack, dousing someone’s face with a caustic substance. This disfigures the victim and demoralizes the community. Europe is subject to a plague of them. These attacks aren’t a religious practice, but grow in number where vigilantism goes unpunished. Because the resulting disfiguring severely alters the victim’s life there must be strong laws that cover these attacks. I pray that smart police street work can detect perpetrators before they can ambush their victims.

• Female genital mutilation (FGM): This act is done on very young girls with the complicity of her parents. Doing this procedure is already a federal crime, but that shouldn’t prevent states or localities from passing their own laws proscribing it. The government has a compelling interest in preventing child abuse. Detecting that the crime has occurred involves cooperation between doctors, hospitals, school officials, and perhaps others in the child’s life. They can look for behaviors and signs that a girl might be suffering from this deed.

• Sharia patrols: These patrols are just a street gang. Time for the police anti-gang squad.

No blasphemy laws

Muslims worldwide have called for a ban on speech critical to Islam. To the Muslim world criticizing Islam is blasphemy (Quran 33:57-61). Some people hope to ban criticism in the United States by framing it as a ban on “hate speech.” Such a ban would restrict religious freedom and free speech, and a law banning Islamic criticism runs afoul of the Establishment Clause.

Finale

The best defense against sharia in America might be aggressive enforcement against evils done in the name of Sharia. Do we have the fortitude and persistence to prevail?

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The Leftist media and Islamic supremacist groups have been doing a victory dance ever since Saturday night, when Fox News issued an apology for statements made on the air by terror expert Steve Emerson and others about Muslim no-go zones in Britain and France. However, the apology doesn’t say what it has widely reported as saying – and there is considerable evidence that Muslim areas in both countries are a growing law enforcement and societal problem.

Fox Report host Julie Banderas stated:

Over the course of this last week we have made some regrettable errors on air regarding the Muslim population in Europe, particularly with regard to England and France. Now, this applies especially to discussions of so-called ‘no-go zones,’ areas where non-Muslims allegedly aren’t allowed in and police supposedly won’t go.

To be clear, there is no formal designation of these zones in either country and no credible information to support the assertion there are specific areas in these countries that exclude individuals based solely on their religion.

There are certainly areas of high crime in Europe as there are in the United States and other countries — where police and visitors enter with caution. We deeply regret the errors and apologize to any and all who may have taken offense, including the people of France and England.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s joyous headline read: “Fox News admits ‘no-go zones’ are fantasy.” The far-Left Crooks and Liars blog exulted: “Fox Pundits Finally ‘Apologize’ After A Week Of Being Mocked For ‘No Go Zones’ Claim.” More restrained but still unmistakably gleeful was the New York Times: “Fox News Apologizes for False Claims of Muslim-Only Areas in England and France.” The Leftist media has seized on Fox’s apology to declare that there are aren’t any no-go zones in France or Britain – and by extension that there is no problem with Muslim populations in Europe. NewHounds’s summation was typical: “Fox News has become the laughingstock of Europe this week as first England and then France lampooned its ignorant, Islamophobic reporting.”

The only problem with all the cork popping around Fox’s apology was that there is a problem with Muslim areas in Europe – and the Fox apology didn’t go so far as to say there wasn’t. To be sure, the controversy began with undeniably inaccurate statements from Emerson. He said on Fox on January 11 that “there are actual cities like Birmingham that are totally Muslim, where non-Muslims just simply don’t go in.” That is false, and Emerson has acknowledged that and apologized.

However, Emerson was not guilty of fabrication, just of overstatement. Some of the comments on a piece in the UK’s Daily Mail about his gaffe and British Prime Minister David Cameron’s reaction to it (he called Emerson a “complete idiot”) insisted that Emerson was at least partially right: “Just shows cameron doesn’t even know what is happening in this country , as the news presenter is totally correct , its a no go zone .” “There ARE some parts of Birmingham where you darent or shouldn’t go !” “Is he far off the truth? Maybe it’s not true for Birmingham as a whole but there are certain areas where it is true. Certainly it is true of certain other Towns in the UK. Bradford, Leicester, Luton spring to mind.”

Fox’s apology stated that,

“To be clear, there is no formal designation of these zones in either country and no credible information to support the assertion there are specific areas in these countries that exclude individuals based solely on their religion.”

That says as much as it says, and no more. It says that neither the British nor the French government has designated any areas to be no-go zones where non-Muslims aren’t allowed in, and that there is no evidence that non-Muslims are not allowed into any areas in either country.

But this carefully worded statement does not actually say that there aren’t areas in Britain or France in which non-Muslims are menaced for not adhering to Islamic law. That is a real and abundantly documented problem. Emerson pointed to it when he said:

“In parts of London, there are actually Muslim religious police that actually beat and actually wound, seriously, anyone who doesn’t dress according to Muslim, religious Muslim attire.”

While Emerson’s implication that this was an ongoing phenomenon was false, there were indeed such Sharia enforcers in London between 2011 and 2013. In July 2011, the UK’s Daily Mail reported:

“Islamic extremists have launched a poster campaign across the UK proclaiming areas where Sharia law enforcement zones have been set up. Communities have been bombarded with the posters, which read: ‘You are entering a Sharia-controlled zone – Islamic rules enforced.’”

In December 2013, members of one of these self-styled “Muslim patrols” were imprisoned; according to the Guardian, in London they

“harassed people, berating them with shouts of ‘this is a Muslim area!’ They forced men to dump their alcoholic drinks, instructed women on the appropriate way to dress, and yelled insults at those they perceived to be gay.”

They didn’t just berate people; as Emerson said, they beat them. In YouTube videos, they threatened to do so, saying: “We are coming to implement Islam upon your own necks.” In June 2013, Muslims attacked an American who was drinking on the street, grabbing the bottle out of his hands and smashing him in the eye with it, causing permanent injury. In August 2013, according to the Daily Mail, “two brothers in law who went on a sponsored walk wearing comedy mankinis had to be picked up by police – after they were pelted with stones and eggs by residents who told them ‘this is a Muslim area’ and demanded they leave.”

A “Muslim area” – maybe even a “no-go zone.” Not in the sense that non-Muslims are barred from entering, but in that, if they do enter, they have to adhere to Sharia restrictions.

The Fox apology is all the more curious in light of the fact that others, even on the Left, have noticed the no-go zones in France before some Fox commentators began talking about them in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks. David Ignatius wrote in the New York Times in April 2002:

“Arab gangs regularly vandalize synagogues here, the North African suburbs have become no-go zones at night, and the French continue to shrug their shoulders.”

Newsweek, hardly a conservative organ, reported in November 2005 that

“according to research conducted by the government’s domestic intelligence network, the Renseignements Generaux, French police would not venture without major reinforcements into some 150 ‘no-go zones’ around the country–and that was before the recent wave of riots began on Oct. 27.”

The police wouldn’t venture into these areas without major reinforcements in 2005. Does anyone really think that the situation has improved in the intervening years?

And the day after the Charlie Hebdo massacre set off Fox’s discussions of no-go zones in France, the reliably Leftist New Republic wrote:

“The word banlieue (‘suburb’) now connotes a no-go zone of high-rise slums, drug-fueled crime, failing schools and poor, largely Muslim immigrants and their angry offspring.”

So something the New York Times noted in 2002 and Newsweek in 2005, and that the New Republic reported was still a problem in January 2015, is now something that Fox News has to apologize for discussing?

Clearly there is a problem in these areas. Two of the three Charlie Hebdo murderers were born and raised in France. Where did they get their ideas about killing blasphemers? Not from French schools. They learned them in the Muslim areas where they were born and raised. What’s more, France leads the West in the number of Muslims who have traveled from there to wage jihad for the Islamic State, with well over a thousand Muslims leaving France to join the caliphate. Where did they get their understanding of Islam?

In objecting to Fox’s coverage, the French government objected to claims that these areas were outside their control and subject to Sharia, but it is obvious that whatever control they do have over these areas is not enough to prevent the indoctrination of all too many young Muslims into the jihad ideology.

There needs to be a balanced, honest public discussion of these Muslim areas in Britain and France. The controversy over what has been said on Fox in recent weeks only obscures the need for that discussion. And Fox’s apology, however carefully worded, only plays into the hands of Leftists and Islamic supremacists who have a vested interest in rendering people ignorant and complacent about the reality of what is going on in these areas.

So now would be a good time for Fox to apologize for its apology – and to devote extended attention to the Muslim areas of Britain and France, and shed light on what is really going on in them. That would be to provide a service far greater than the usual surface-scratching of television news.

This article was originally posted at the Front Page Magazine website.

Written by Rod Dreher

Nick Zukin, a Portland restaurateur who believes in same-sex marriage but who publicly criticized the boycott of the Chauncy Childs store (for background, see yesterday’s post), writes to say:

A couple comments and corrections:

1) The business owners did not make their opinions known on their business Facebook page. The woman had posted on her personal page and the author of the video had been investigating her and found it out. I’m not sure why he was investigating her. I believe he said in the video that he had heard rumors. I don’t know if those rumors were about her comments on gay marriage or about her being Mormon or what. In fact, the only reference they originally made to the controversy on their Facebook page was to say that they do not and will not discriminate in any way. I think some people are still under the impression that this battle is over discrimination, but the leaders of the movement to boycott their business clearly know that this is over her beliefs about gay marriage, not about any actions on her part or the part of her business — other than her quasi-public statement on her Facebook page.

2) I was very clear throughout this mess that I was a strong proponent of marriage equality. It didn’t matter. It was enough that I thought a boycott was excessive to be deemed an enemy. Today I had someone leave a 1-star review on my restaurant’s Facebook page saying that they were regular customer who liked the food, but they don’t like the “hate” that comes with it. Here is how the Oregonian quoted me:

“The idea of blacklisting and boycotting people for their thoughts and beliefs, as opposed to their actions leads to a world that is less tolerant, less caring and more segregated,” Zukin told The Oregonian. “I don’t think the results will be the ones that people want.”

He went on to say that if a business was actively discriminating, “if it wasn’t serving gays, or people were disrespectful to gays in their store, I would be there protesting and boycotting.”

3) Since taking down his video, the author has been attacked as well on the boycott’s Facebook page and in the comments sections for local news stories. They’re now calling him a “sell out” for trying to make something positive out of this and for being willing to meet with the people he disagreed with and vilified.

4) The restaurant I used to work for and still own a part of posted on their Facebook page that they find my position “appalling”. I posted in response merely the two paragraphs from the Oregonian above and my response was deleted and I was banned from commenting.

This has gotten so out of proportion. It really is sad and counter-productive. I don’t think anyone is being helped by this. I wrote this on Facebook in response to someone attacking me today:

Certainly there have been horrible crimes against individual homosexuals and the gay community in general throughout history and even recently in the United States. People still do and probably will do terrible acts against LGBT people here in the United States and elsewhere. And if they do, they should be punished for it. Hardly seems fair to lay all of that at the feet of this woman, though, even symbolically.

Only 2 years ago, Barack Obama’s stated position was the same: against gay marriage. As was probably 95% of Congress, including Democrats. It was not the right position, but it didn’t prevent well over 60% of Portlanders voting for him in 2008. That’s actually less than the national average for the percentage of gay Americans that voted for Obama in 2008, which was 70%.

So apparently being leader of the free world is not important enough to keep the gay community from supporting him despite his failings for their community, but a woman with little or no political power who doesn’t believe in gay marriage owning an organic grocery store is a bridge too far?

And what’s the end result? Now you have people sympathetic to gay rights thinking that rights aren’t enough, but that they’ll be punished if they don’t share the same beliefs. They go from feeling sympathetic to feeling threatened. Maybe you think that you’ve galvanized the gay community and left-leaning activists? I don’t think that’s true. I received Facebook messages from a local LGBT leader saying that she supports me and not to let this get me down. I got several emails and messages from gay friends condemning what you guys are doing. My Facebook page is filled with gay friends echoing and supporting my position. People like Andrew Sullivan and Bill Maher are coming out against the efforts to purge businesses of those that differ in their beliefs, as well. You’re not bringing communities together, you’re tearing them apart, creating competing factions within the community and losing sight of the prize: equal rights.

I remember my mom telling me stories about this boy she liked in grade school. She didn’t know how to get his attention, so one time while he was at the drinking fountain, she came by and hit him in the head. He smacked his teeth on the faucet and started bleeding everywhere. The boy never liked her. I think she would have been better off talking to him and showing him kindness.

Brendan Eich is deemed unfit to run the company he helped found, not because he would discriminate in the workplace, but because six years ago he gave money to the Prop 8 campaign, which was supported by a majority of Californians. The Childs family will almost certainly lose their investment in what was an empty storefront they were rehabilitating to open an organic food store, not because they have mistreated gay customers, but because of Chauncy Childs’ personal disapproval of same-sex marriage. Nick Zukin strongly believes in same-sex marriage rights, but because he publicly stated his objection to punishing a business owner for her privately held opinions, his business is now the target of a boycott.

A gay reader of this blog (I leave it up to him to identify himself if he likes) who has campaigned for same-sex marriage and gay rights in general e-mailed last night to say he’s being called a “self-hating homosexual” and a “coward” for objecting to these tactics.

Nice movement for tolerance, diversity, and acceptance you have there. Is this what America has to look forward to? Will America become a place where people are denied their livelihoods because they support traditional marriage, or even, as in Zukin’s case, when they simply express disagreement with the more radical edge of the gay rights movement? Because it looks like this is where we’re headed.

This article was originally posted at TheAmericanConservative website.

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.