OREGON: Govt. official: those who resist “gay” marriage must be “rehabilitated”

Fr Z's Blog (Once named: What Does The Prayer Really Say?) ^ | 8/18/2013 | Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

[markomalley]

"Hold high the great red banner of Mao Zedong Thought--thoroughly smash the rotting counterrevolutionary revisionist line in literature and art" - 1967

During the Cultural Revolution in China (1966-1976 – the time when the greatest damage was being done in the name of the Spirit of Vatican II) people were bullied into rejection of the sì jiù, the Four “Olds”: Old Customs, Old Culture, Old Habits, and Old Ideas.  The Four Olds were equated with monsters and demons, “cow ghosts and snake spirits”, that had to be purged.

The conforming hoards, taken up in a frenzy of fear and zeal, marched in the streets chanting slogans, pasting up posters, such as “Beat down the bad elements!”, “Beat down Jesus following!”, “Beat down the counter revolutionists!”.

Those who were perceived – usually through denunciation – to adhere to the Four Olds, counter-revolutionists, were seized.  The lucky ones were forced into public self-criticism, humiliation, physical abuse and re-education.  The less lucky were killed. Many “intellectuals” (just about any with more than a high school education) were sent to re-education camps in the country-side where they were “educated” by the purer proletariat through forced-labor and more self-criticism and abuse.

Re-education camps.

I read sometime today at the site of the National Organization for Marriage:

Oregon Official Says Bakers Who Support Traditional Marriage Need ‘Rehabilitation‘

Despite the fact that Oregon bakers saw a huge boom in business after standing up for their belief in marriage (proving that many other Oregonians feel the same way), Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian says the state government’s goal is to “rehabilitate” them:

A lesbian couple filed a formal complaint against “Sweet Cakes by Melissa” in Portland after the owners – Aaron and Melissa Klein – declined on the basis of their Christian faith to provide services for a lesbian “wedding.”

“To say that this couple needs to be ‘rehabilitated’ for believing and practicing the values on which this nation was founded is entirely beyond the pale,” says [Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association].

“This sounds like Stalinist Russia or China under Mao, where those who thought for themselves were forced under government coercion into re-education camps. This is not the America that was given to us by our Founders.”

Matt Barber [vice president of Liberty Counsel Action] says the “rehabilitation” remark connotes some kind of ailment, mental illness or physical ailment. “You know, we rehabilitate criminals,” he explains. “Are they saying that Christianity is criminal here and we have to rehabilitate those who embrace the Christian sexual ethic? That’s what this official in Oregon is saying.”

Wildmon wonders what might follow if the bakery owners refuse to be “rehabilitated.” -One News Now

Please say a prayer for Archbishop Alex Sample, who has the heavy pastoral mandate in the Archdiocese of Portland.

Let’s be clear about something: we are not yet being truly persecuted, in the strong, physical sense.  We are not in N. Korea or China.  Our churches are not yet being systematically burned, as in Egypt.  Our priests and bishops are not yet being hunted down and “disappeared”.

But the storm clouds are gathering.  Soft-persecution is rising.

Pò sì jiù!

[fwdude]

I’ll be going to Oregon soon for a Christian conference, and will have to pick the vendors I choose to do business with very carefully.

I wonder if Sweet Cakes is on my route so that I can buy a round of cakes for the group?

[Salvation]

 

First They Came for the Jews

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

~Pastor Martin Niemöller

Community and individuality are not opposites. People cannot survive on their own. When the odds are stacked against you, you must rally with the oppressed and hated.

When a growing oppressive regime is taking hold, you must act, otherwise you will soon face your enemy alone and hopeless.

Strength of community is a strength as much as individualism, as long you are willing to face weaknesses in your own community. Ignoring slacking values will mean that you will be rallied against by those you oppress.

Niemöller affirms we must rally against unhealthy organized regimes. We must also stay vigilant with those that appear to be good natured, as all organisation attracts corruption. Niemöller also warns us that if it is you who are corrupt, then you will face a stronger combined force of foe!

~Vexen Crabtree

[Clinging Bitterly]

Well now, I lived in Western Oregon for 50 of my 55 years, 30 of those 50 in Eugene. Don't go painting all of us with that brush.

Here's the thing - Are all the people of Oregon supposed to ignore the state constitution, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman? Yes we voted for that and it is what a majority of Oregonians decided. I don't think it said except churches and bakeries who shall adhere to exactly the opposite under threat of re-education.

We do not abide the recent Supreme Court decision, which applies only to the goverment.

[campaignPete R-CT]

Pat again.

Buchanan, 1999:
“Politics is the last contested battlefield of our culture war, for only through politics can the new cult, a militant and intolerant secularist faith that will abide no other, impose its values on us.

But how, then, does it avail us to withdraw from politics, to retreat, to give up? Where do we go? What shall we do?

We cannot quit. We can no more walk away from the culture war than we could walk away from the Cold War. For the culture war is at its heart a religious war about whether God or man shall be exalted, whose moral beliefs shall be enshrined in law, and what children shall be taught to value and abhor. With those stakes, to walk away is to abandon your post in time of war.“

[Texas Songwriter]

Judgementalism and intolerence have been judged, and will not be tolerated.