Regarding our post earlier in the week: QC Times Agitprop . . . and the QC Times’ Barb Ickes’ front page hagiography of a young “gay” and “out” local high school student, our illustrious senior editor had this to offer:
From a Barb Ickes, column, May 12, 2012:
“Many gay Americans like me made peace with ourselves long before the president made peace with us. Just as Obama’s position “evolved,” those of us who are gay had some evolving to do, too.”
When 52% of California voters passed Proposition 8, a state constitutional amendment which provided that marriage between a man and a women was to be recognized by the state as the only valid such union, its supporters were publicly targeted by the militant gay activists. Some lost their jobs, others had their businesses boycotted and were forced to close. Many who had donated to the Prop 8 campaign had their identities publicly revealed and were subsequently subject to threats and intimidation, some as bad or worse than the subject of Ms. Ickes story was allegedly subjected to.
Every business, large or small is a potential target for GLBT militants should they exhibit anything other than all out endorsement of the Gay movement’s agenda. When the founder of the Chick-fil-A restaurant chain expressed his personal religious-based opposition to gay marriage, it brought down on his company the full wrath of the gay community and its supporters and enablers. In addition to its call for a nation-wide boycott of the firm’s restaurants , incidents of physical intimidation and vandalism were reported in various places around the country. Despite an unprecedented outpouring of public support for the company and the rights of its founder to his personal views, Chick-fil-A eventually and quietly surrendered and withdrew its support to any organization opposed to gay marriage, winning the gay movement’s “permission” to exist.
The gay community doesn’t ask for mere acceptance of their “lifestyle choices” by the nation’s institutions and its fellow citizens; it demands that those “choices” be celebrated, endorsed, and promoted by all, regardless of one’s religious beliefs, moral objections, or opposing personal views regarding public behavior.
Ms. Ickes, a member of the Times’ editorial board and self proclaimed lesbian, has long served the gay agenda on behalf of the Quad City Times. Readers of the Times might recall the campaign the Times waged in opposing the Catholic diocese objections to a scholarship presentation by an organization which promotes the gay agenda in one of its high schools. Like Chick-fil-A, the Bishop capitulated and the presentation went on.
The Wall Street Journal reports on small businesses around the country who are being literally run out of business for refusing on religious grounds to bake cakes or photograph weddings for gay unions. Stories from Oregon, Illinois, New York, Washington, New Mexico describe small companies being sued by states for refusing to bake cakes, arrange flowers, and perform other services for same sex couples.
There are those of us who believe that every person has a right to his or her life choices and their personal beliefs as long as they do no harm to others, however, they should not be required, either through activist pressure or government coercion,or other intimidation to give public testimony and pay homage to lifestyles and behaviors to which they object for moral or religious reasons.
I am mindful of an excerpt from Ms.Ickes story:
“McAtee (mother of the subject of the story) also struggles to understand what motivates people to behave badly toward people who are different, especially when the primary difference is a private matter.”
I agree with Ms. McAtee. People should not behave badly toward people who are different. I wonder, though, why this mother and son who believe matters such as his personal lifestyle choices should be private, choose to collaborate in a deeply personal and detailed newspaper story with an obvious goal of publicizing, community-wide, those choices.
DLH
Ed note: For more reading on the subject read Ben Shapiro’s book: Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences Americans
