The Left’s most consistent value: Disdain for religious people
Story by Kaylee McGhee White, Washington Examiner, 12/8/22
During the Supreme Court’s oral arguments in 303 Creative v. Elenis on Monday, the U.S. deputy solicitor general made a stunning admission. He said the government believes a web designer has the right not to create a custom site for a Christian organization if she disagrees with the group’s teachings on marriage but that she does not have the right to turn down an LGBT organization if she disagrees with its support of same-sex marriage.
Some might chalk this up to the predictable hypocrisy of the Left. But it’s not really hypocritical at all. This position that religious people can be forced to provide the same sort of service that others can deny to them is entirely consistent with the Left’s utter disdain for people of faith and their right to live according to their beliefs.
Here’s another example. Earlier this week, a Christian nonprofit organization discovered that its reservation at a Richmond, Virginia, restaurant had been canceled by the restaurant’s management at the last minute. When the Family Foundation reached out to the Metzger Bar and Butchery to figure out if there had been some sort of miscommunication, the group was informed that its event at the venue had been canceled because the restaurant’s waitstaff disliked its political beliefs.
Without mentioning the Family Foundation by name, Metzger’s management said in a statement that it would not serve an organization “that seeks to deprive women and LGBTQ+ persons of their basic human rights in Virginia.”
We have always refused service to anyone for making our staff uncomfortable or unsafe and this was the driving force behind our decision,” the restaurant said. “Many of our staff are women and/or members of the LGBTQ+ community. All of our staff are people with rights who deserve dignity and a safe work environment.”
Now imagine if the roles had been reversed and that restaurant’s owners were devout Christians who decided to cancel a reservation from, let’s say, the Human Rights Campaign because they disagreed strongly with the HRC’s values. It is not an exaggeration to say protests outside the restaurant would pop up overnight and that leftist activist groups would coordinate a massive online pressure campaign to force the restaurant’s owners to shut their doors for good.
Indeed, the Left already engages in such acts of intimidation against religious groups that are just trying to mind their own business. Last week, in Washington, D.C., for example, leftist activists repeatedly disrupted a pro-life banquet held by a local pregnancy resource center, shouting down the banquet’s speakers and holding a protest outside the venue.
All of this fits the same pattern. The Left despises religious people and their beliefs and wants to force them into submission or stamp them out entirely. That’s why Colorado has used an anti-discrimination law to punish Christian creatives who object to leftist orthodoxy; why a Virginia restaurant takes pride in denying service to a Christian organization; and why leftist activists relentlessly harass anyone and everyone who holds values different from their own.
They are every bit as intolerant and bigoted as they accuse religious people of being, but the difference is that leftists don’t care. They will gladly haul a Christian baker to court over and over and over again, vandalize and attack pregnancy resource centers and Christian charities, and ostracize and shame those who question their efforts until the only people left in the public square are those willing not just to accept, but celebrate leftist ideology. Complete and total conformity is their goal, and religious people are just another roadblock to bulldoze along the way.