With every day that passes in the wake of the Supreme Court rulings on DOMA and Prop 8, cometh another wingnut searching for something crazy to say that will outshine all the other crazy things that have been said in the last few days. They’re going through the classic stages of grief, and the “denial” phrase has been particularly fun to watch. “Abject fear of imaginary threats” isn’t one of those stages, to my knowledge, but that’s where Matt Barber is staking his claim, over at WorldNetDaily (you shouldn’t click, because the site is full of pop-ups about buying gold, because WND readers are a really easy mark for scammers):
So dramatic.
While poorly decided U.S. Supreme Court cases are a dime a dozen, prior to Wednesday, two stood alone as the most wretched and constitutionally groundless in American History. First was the 1857 Dred Scott decision. Among other things, it robbed African-Americans of both their U.S. citizenship and their dignity.
Next came the 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade. It has robbed over 55 million U.S. citizens of their very lives. For the first time in American history, the high court imagined a phantom constitutional right for women to dismember alive their own pre-born children.
Fifty-five million citizens? I wasn’t aware Social Security cards were issued immediately upon embryonic implantation. Not going to spend a lot of time listening to a Fundamentalist Christian male yammer about abortion. Skipping ahead, we finally get to the point:
Tragically, this past week we hit the unholy trifecta. A third precedential abomination was added to the mix. On Wednesday, the high court handed down two cases concerning the pagan left’s abjectly bizarre efforts to redefine the age-old and immutable institution of marriage (Hollingsworth v. Perry and U.S. v. Windsor).
I know, it’s just bizarre that, considering the fact that we actually do exist, gays and lesbians would like the same rights as everyone else. We’ll skip ahead again, as we have no time for people who use two-thousand words when a simple “waaaaaaahhhhhhh!” would suffice.
Still, while much will be written about Windsor from a legal standpoint, for now, let’s focus on another of the decision’s inevitable outcomes: Anti-Christian persecution. If, through judicial fiat, “gay marriage” ultimately becomes the law of the land, tens-of-millions of Christians (as well as Jews and Muslims) will be forced to choose between obedience to God and obedience to Caesar – between fidelity to conscience and government oppression.
What are they going to have to do, Matt? Refuse to get gay married? And please don’t include Jews in your trifecta of bigotry, as something like eighty percent of them support marriage equality. Nor should you include Christians or Muslims, since you don’t speak for any but the most extremist elements of the three faiths.
Millions of us have already made that choice.
Yes, Matt Barber’s wife can rest easy tonight, secure in the knowledge that no matter what that mean old Supreme Court says, Matt’s not gonna leave her for a dude.
As we’ve now seen in states that fancy mock “gay marriage,” for instance, the only way to force Christian individuals and business owners – such as bakers, photographers, innkeepers and florists – to lend their talents to sin-centered “gay weddings” is through the power of the police state. This amounts to a systemic, immoral and profoundly unconstitutional trampling of the First Amendment.
No, it doesn’t, and anyone who thinks it does is Constitutionally illiterate. It is, however, the same whine that segregationists used, but the parallels between that movement and the modern anti-gay movement are well-documented, of course.
What follows will be a deviant-sexual-behavior-based “LGBT” suspect minority class with all the associated trimmings. In the eyes of government, Bible-believing Christians will be treated as modern-day racists. Any outward expression of the Judeo-Christian sexual ethic will be trumped by newfangled “gay rights” and deemed verboten. For all intents and purposes, Christianity will be criminalized. This is not mere speculation. It’s been the plan all along.
Again, so cute, acting like he speaks for “Christians.” He doesn’t even speak for a clear majority of Christians. But yes, LGBT people will finally be treated as a suspect class under the law, and yes, anti-gay religious people will eventually be viewed like racists. Government won’t do that — society will. Among those under thirty, it’s already basically assumed that if you’re anti-gay, you’re a religious extremist. But no, just like backwards racists who are still allowed to exist freely, so too will anti-gay bigots. Their views won’t be criminalized, but they will be marginalized by polite society. Again, the government isn’t doing that.
We’ll skip several more paragraphs of nonsense so that we can get to the really fun part. Matt Barber recounts an e-mail exchange he recently had with one of his wingnut friends, and this is where the fears of being jailed are discussed:
Since, no doubt, the Obama NSA has already read our entire email exchange, I thought I’d go ahead and share excerpts with you as well. My colleague’s insights are profound. I found them encouraging. I hope you do, too.
“Amen,” I replied. “At the risk of sounding a bit apocalyptic, I’m fully convinced that this is part of His divine plan – perhaps to begin separating the wheat from the chaff. We have arrived: ‘As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.’ Matthew 24:37.”
I assure you that the Obama NSA is not so bored that they are reading Matt Barber’s e-mails.
“I agree with you,” he responded, “and that conviction makes all this much easier. What depresses me is the astonishing disconnect and irrationality that sin so easily produces, and how quickly it spreads; we are truly sheep and fully as stupid without a Good Shepherd.
“In my 35 years as a Christian, I never seriously believed we might end up in prison for our faith – except, perhaps, for something like a pro-life demonstration. This is the first time it seriously occurs to me that the trajectory of the nation is such that it is possible in five to 10 years. Oddly, this thought does not discourage or scare me; in fact, it’s almost a joyful thought that we might have the privilege to suffer for our faith. Rejoice greatly when men revile and persecute you for my name’s sake, for your reward is great in Heaven (a rough paraphrase of Matthew 5:12).
“It may be that the truly toughest tests we had were earlier in our lives,” he continued, “before we got fully engaged and in the movement. … Now we’re part of networks with support from like-minded people, and we’re largely insulated from what the opposition can do to us. The real heroes are our clients who speak up at the risk of losing their livelihood, getting thrown out of school, or getting death threats from the tolerance crowd. I feel now like my faith costs me less than when I was in private practice before hostile judges and antagonistic media hit-men.”
They’re always looking for a chance to play martyr.
“You nailed it,” I replied. “What an honor that our Creator chose us before time began to be part of a Gideon’s army of truth-tellers and defenders of the faithful. It’s an amazing time to be alive.
Ooh, not only martyrdom but a special commission from God? Go on!
But, as you mentioned, although we’re on the front lines, we also have tremendous support. It’s quite liberating to be written-off by the world and, consequently, free to speak and behave in a way that reflects the reality that we couldn’t give a rat’s behind what the world thinks of us. Those we represent rarely have that luxury.
“Whether it’s one day or hundreds of years,” I continued, “I really believe we are living in the last days (in the total scheme of time and space). I just hope that when and if the time comes, the Holy Spirit gives me the strength of character to not only refuse to deny His Truth, but to be like our martyred brothers and sisters who walked up and kissed the stake before being burned alive on it.
Somehow I doubt that Matt Barber will ever end up in a revised edition of Foxe’s Book Of Martyrs, but don’t disabuse him of his adorable hope. When you’ve spent your life fighting a losing battle, and when you’ve watched your entire life’s work unravel in the space of a couple of weeks, you’ve got to have something to hold on to.
“Anyway, that’s enough trying to cheer each other up for now,” I joked. “Keep on keepin’ on, my friend.”
Do I really believe American Christians will be burned at the stake over counterfeit “gay marriage”? No.
So all the preceding paragraphs were BS?
Do I believe Christians will face real persecution, such as loss of livelihood, civil penalties, physical abuse or even jail? Absolutely.
Oh. For doing what again?
Barber ends his piece by directing us to a website where fundamentalists can pledge to defy the Supreme Court (again, by refusing to get gay married, I guess). Doktor Zoom at Wonkette replies to Matt thus:
But just to be clear, he adds that he doesn’t really think Christians will be literally burned at the stake for not baking gay cakes. But he is absolutely certain that “Christians will face real persecution, such as loss of livelihood, civil penalties, physical abuse or even jail.” Or at the very least, they might be called mean names, which is totally the same.
Stay strong, Matt Barber, you martyr you!
Indeed, for Matt Barber and his cohort will certainly be called many more mean names in the coming years, and they will need quite a lot of intestinal fortitude to withstand our creativity.
