Question: It is becoming increasingly obvious that the right has lost the culture war, and this nation is going to become another European-style, liberal society. Soon the moderately conservative majority on the Supreme Court will be replaced with liberals and conservates will be minorities. Liberals will have their way in all three brances of the federal govt.
My question is this: in the America ruled by Reid, Pelosi, Obama, etc., will there be a place for fundamentalist groups to believe and live as they see fit (provided they are non-violent)? will there be a place even for radical groups (think the KKK, flat-earthers, LDS, Muslims, fundamentalist Christians, etc.)? Will such groups be allowed to educate their own children, attend their own church/mosque/synagogue? write books? have a newspaper? start their own businesses? operate their own schools?
Obviously this question is prompted by the recent stories out of Houston and Idaho where fundamentalist Christian pastors are being forced to turn over their sermons, and where pastors are being forced to perform same-sex marriages and where bakers are required to bake cakes for gay couples, etc.
and one follow-up question if you will permit.……if the answer is no, there is no place for such groups, then I have to ask.….what does the name “liberal” mean? what has become of classical liberalism? do today’s liberals have any kind of connection with the historical movement which we know as “liberalism”?
Pastors are not and will never be forced to perform marriages they don’t want to do. Do you think they were forced by law to perform interracial marriages when that was the big cultural battle of the time?
Pastors (as opposed to for-profit companies) aren’t being forced to officiate at same-sex weddings. And they never will be.
What you describe just ain’t happening. And we don’t live, and never will live, in an “America ruled by Reid, Pelosi, Obama, etc.” For one thing, Obama won’t be president much longer, and the Constitution bars him from running again. And the LDS and Muslims, and fundamentalist Christians, aren’t “radical groups.” The KKK, maybe, but liberals (as you may have noticed) are very much in favor of the freedom of speech and assembly and stuff like that. And flat-earthers are just loonies, and nobody cares about them
I posted before that “Daily Caller” site. It seems like an extreme right-wing scare site, I’ll wait for a better source before commenting. But to my knowledge, pastors were not forced by law to perform interracial marriages, and I see no reason to think that will change for same sex marriage.
EDIT: Or I could have noticed what Saintly Loser did, which is that it’s a company, not a pastor.
That article talks about a for-profit institution, not a tax-exempt church, possibly, maybe being issued a misdemeanor ticket for breaking the town’s anti-discrimination laws. It’s also written by an extreme right-wing paper, so there likely is bias as to how the story is being reported.
It is so far afield from the idea that churches will have to perform SSMs, that it can hardly be used as an example of such a thing.
I do see the reasoning behind the OP-He thinks that if the Right Wing got full control over the country they would restrict their opponents to the max, so it only makes sense that the left would of course do the same, right?
Except liberals aren’t exactly the Left, and even then there are many degrees of authoritarianism to be found on said Left. The Right is also divided, but not to the same degree. Still, that’s not an invalid point.
but my question applies to for-profit businesses as well. Will Christian bakers be forced to make cakes for gay couples? will muslim taxis be forced to carry passengers who have alcohol? will the KKK and flat-earthers be allowed to peacefully march in public spaces? and believe me…I totally agree that the KKK and flat-earthers are stark crazy but that’s just the point.……free speech is about protecting the rights of exactly these kind of people.
and what about the pastors in Houston who were asked to turn over their sermons?
In a way I sort of agree. I think that is why so many right-wingers (myself included) are becoming libertarians. We are beginning to realize that we just aren’t going to win the culture war in this nation. Our best hope is a free society where we can just be ourselves provided we agree to let everyone else be what they want to be. It seems the only way. I wonder if liberals would be willing to agree to this. (?)
He’s also mistaking the general trend of liberal values winning out as some war that is won or lost. In 10 or 20 years nobody will look at this time and think “The liberals won the country!” any more than they did after interracial marriage was legalized or segregation banned.
ok…but who would have thot just ten years ago that pastors would be forced to turn over their sermons to inspect them for any anti-gay thoughts? It’s the return of the Alien & Sedition Acts. Alien and Sedition Acts - Wikipedia
I can only speak for myself, but be as culturally conservative as you like, just keep it out of laws I must follow and out of public school where my kids go.
I can agree to that. but will you agree to allow me to refuse to bake a cake for gay couples and allow Muslims not to taxi people who have alcohol and allow flat-earthers to operate their own schools, etc. etc.?
I believe that had to do with the pastor using his position to influence the voting of the congregation.
Which violates the tax-exempt status churches operate under.