AFA is “being trampled” in Mississippi

Timothy Kincaid

April 28th, 2014

The American Family Association is no longer able to live out the dictates of their Christian faith and conscience. They are being persecuted terribly and it’s ever so sad.

You see, some people in the state are selling goods and services to gay people. Knowingly. And not even giving them a dirty look.

Oh the misery.

It all started when the state legislature passed a bill (much like the Arizona bill that was vetoed) which says that “Government should not substantially burden religious exercise without compelling justification”. And while those words are probably not something I’d disagree with, the unspoken intention of the bill was to block any local ordinances that prohibit discrimination against gay people.

And as there are no such provisions anywhere is Mississippi, it was just the Mississippi Legislature reconfirming to the world that it’s comprised of a bunch of back-woods, redneck, gay-hating yahoos.

Well, this seemed a bit mean to some businesses, so they decided to come up with a way of telling gay customers that they were welcome in their stores. A couple of gay business owners and a “straight, white, Southern, Christian conservative male” Republican up the street designed a sticker that a shopkeeper could put in their window.

Which is all sorts of bullying and silencing of the rights of those who don’t want gay people to be able to buy goods and services. Or something. (AFA’s OneNewsNow)

Buddy Smith, executive vice president of Tupelo-based American Family Association, offers his take on the sticker campaign.

“It’s not really a buying campaign, but it’s a bully campaign,” he says, “and it’s being carried out by radical homosexual activists who intend to trample the freedom of Christians to live according to the dictates of scripture.

“They don’t want to hear that homosexuality is sinful behavior – and they wish to silence Christians and the church who dare to believe this truth.”

And what is one to do about those who break the Scriptural dictates prohibiting selling stuff to gay people?

Smith offers a word of caution for those who do business with facilities posting the decal supporting homosexual activism. “If you do that, you are agreeing with these businesses that Christians no longer have the freedom to live out the dictates of their Christian faith and conscience,” he tells OneNewsNow.

Kidding aside, this is hysterical in pretty much every meaning of the word. Please please, AFA, keep saying stuff like this.

Bose in St. Peter MN

April 28th, 2014

Yeah, I faux-empathized with Buddy Smith elsewhere by noting my mom’s “bullying” me as a kid by giving my siblings a cookie at the same time she gave me one, no matter how much I thought they were being booger-heads that day.

(Well, except I ate the cookie…)

Richard Rush

April 28th, 2014

These people are de facto Rushdoony Christians. Their labeling us as homofascists and gaystapo is a slick tactic designed to direct the spotlight away from themselves. While they clearly want to BE fascists, they don’t want to admit it, and certainly don’t want people to realize it.

Baker

April 28th, 2014

“I am a straight, white, Southern, Christian conservative male [Republican]. I don’t understand why Christians consider one sin worse than another sin.”

“Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.”

“We don’t discriminate.”

L. C. Burgundy

April 28th, 2014

Exactly how is this bullying? What dictionary are they using?

Neil

April 28th, 2014

Apparently, if you refuse to be bound by right wing ideological strictures on serving LGBT folk you’re some kind of bullying, silencing oppressor. It’s trampling on their dictates. The irony.

Richard Rush

April 28th, 2014

Somewhere near the time Timothy was writing the headline for this post, Mississippi, including Tupelo (home of AFA), was “being trampled” by large tornadoes.

http://www.wcyb.com/news/deaths-confirmed-as-tornadoes-slam-several-states/25689642

mikeksf

April 29th, 2014

Oh, AFA. Stop the whimpering, take the bull by the horns, get proactive! Post “we reserve the right to not serve de gays” signs in shop windows and lunch counters and on marquees. It would make knowing your righteous christian supporters much easier if they would just simply stand up and be counted.

Gus

April 29th, 2014

L. C. By saying their businesses don’t discriminate they are saying the Christianists do. Thus shaming and denying the Christianists their Constitutional right to publicly shun the apostate.

Victor

April 29th, 2014

Some Christians (of the Mississippi AFA variety, at least) believe that any confluence of cultural change and acceptance of LGBT people that gives said Christians a reason to feel uncomfortable about speaking their mind is a restriction on the free exercise of their faith. It is a logical extension of the mindset that created the Alternate Reality of Faux News. It must be threatening to find yourself in a world that no longer believes in your right to rule it. So you build artificial mechanisms to insulate yourself. But just when you thought you were safely back in the 1950s some radicals up and make a window sticker… How long before the free exercise of window sticker application is itself outlawed?

FYoung

April 29th, 2014

It’s so unfair. I mean, stoning isn’t even allowed anymore. What is a good God-fearing Christian to do?

MattNYC

April 29th, 2014

IOW, these stickers indicate that a gay person could go into a business and not be lectured on their “lifestyle”??? What kind of demonic, anti-business person would want to prevent the harassing/haranguing of customers????

Yohannon

April 29th, 2014

Ever notice that the process for the discredited is the opposite of that of the “good fight” as described by Ghandi?

First they are the winners, the ones with the reins of power.

Then they are fought.

Then laughed at…

And, finally and ignominiously, ignored.

Mind you, we’re still in between the fighting and laughing stage, where there’s still that awful chance of being severely beaten and killed by the small pockets of infectious intolerance claiming allegiance to a man who likely would be hanging out with the queers and the sluts as his main crew in the FIRST place. WWJD, indeed!

Nathaniel

April 29th, 2014

The comments on the ONN article are delicious – almost no one is buying they bullying angle. Even the (very few) comments from clearly anti-gay are supportive of the stickers in principle – “I know where NOT to shop.” You can’t claim to be doing this for religious freedom, then complain that others are exercising their religious freedom.

It is almost sad how desperately they want people to agree with them. Even the poll on the page asks not whether you support the right of the sticker-bearers, but rather why you disagree with their right to put these stickers up. I look forward to the not-not-too-distant future when AFA starts pushing to outright ban serving gay people, since clearly giving businesses the right to not serve gay people was insufficiently satisfactory.

SharonB

April 29th, 2014

The AFA, single-handedly doing their best to de-convert the entire next generation.

Mark F.

May 1st, 2014

The irony is that these idiots are still free to discriminate against gay people all they want in MS, and yet they still are complaining!

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