Bake Me a Cake, Redux

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The Colorado civil rights commissioners and LGBT activists share a set of core beliefs on what is acceptable as religious dissent—and the extent of state power in compelling artistic expression that violates the religious beliefs of a provider of creative services. Meanwhile, conservative Christian artisans have a different set of core beliefs at odds with the progressives. Consider, however, who is supporting cultural diversity here and who supports state-imposed uniformity.

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Religious Animus Revisited

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The Washington Blade reports that Sen. Krysten Sinema (D-Ariz.)
…the first openly bisexual person elected to the U.S. Senate, didn’t place her left hand on a bible as per tradition. Instead, she used a book obtained from the Library of Congress which includes both the U.S. and Arizona constitutions.

The Pew Research Center for Religion & Public Life states that Sinema is the only member of Congress that identifies as “religiously unaffiliated.”
Progressives in general are increasingly showing their animus.

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There’s Always a Hierarchy

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Social justice warriorhood is ostensibly about the victimhood of blacks, women, Muslims, transgender people, etc. But it’s also, and ultimately, about ensuring the power dominance of the highly privileged white liberal elite. On the left, identity politics has all but killed and buried old-fashioned class analysis as the matrix for understanding power relationships. If progressive politicos, academics, pundits, funders and activists were more confident in their views, they wouldn’t be so very afraid of engaging with nonprogressive viewpoints. The cultural contradictions of progressivism.

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Kevin Hart and Apology Politics

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Comedian Kevin Hart is out as ABC’s Oscar host due to homophobic tweets made in 2009 and 2011. Hart refused to apologize as a condition for perhaps being allowed to host the annual Hollywood self-celebration, and then posted what seems like a semi-apology. One of the controversial tweets from 2011 read: “Yo if my son comes home & try’s 2 play with my daughters doll house I’m going 2 break it over his head & say n my voice ‘stop that’s gay’.” As E Online reported:
In a 2015 profile for Rolling Stone, he once said one of his “biggest fears is my son growing up and being gay.”

“Keep in mind, I’m not homophobic… Be happy. Do what you want to do. But me, as a heterosexual male, if I can prevent my son from being gay, I will,” he previously explained.
Also:
Another Twitter user went to the great lengths of searching every time Kevin used the words “Fag,” “homo” or “gay.” They realized the comedian “seems to have basically stopped tweeting those words after 2011 — i.e. the year his first stand-up movie became a hit.”
As CNN reported, after withdrawing from the Oscars, Hart posted an Instagram video in which he said:
“Guys, I’m almost 40 years old. … If you don’t believe people change, grow, evolve as they get older, I don’t know what to tell you. If you want to hold people in a position where they always have to justify or explain their past then do you. I’m the wrong guy, man.”
Hart’s statement unleashed further controversy over whether this met the demands of a ritual apology, and the consensus was that it did not. The tweets from years past were homophobic and hateful, but Hollywood seems to offer a pass for past homophobia to those who are otherwise active social justice warriors and Democrats in good standing. Also, the issue of homophobia being more acute in the African-American community, perhaps especially among black men, is one about which honest discussion is not allowed (in 2008, when the anti-gay-marriage Prop 8 passed in California, those who pointed out that African-Americans voted overwhelmingly for Obama and for Prop. 8 where denounced for their racism). More. Another day, another black guy who has to apologize: Heisman Trophy winner Kyler Murray apologizes for anti-gay tweets. Is this helping or hurting black support for lesbian and gay equality and inclusion?

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Gay Youth at Risk

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Quillette is one of the few outlets willing to address the issue of how radical transgender activism endangers gay and lesbian youth, in no small measure by promoting the idea that gender nonstereotypical behavior (“effeminate” boys/”masculine” girls) indicates not homosexual orientation but transgender identity, and that these kids should be placed on puberty blockers as the first step to transitioning into the other gender (after which, presumably, they can live heterosexual lives). That sounds a lot like conversion therapy except with surgical finality. And yet LGBTQ movement groups have made transgender theory and activism their new central mission, and woe to anyone who questions the new transgender orthodoxy. Helen Joyce delves into these risks in great depth in her article “The New Patriarchy: How Trans Radicalism Hurts Women, Children—and Trans People Themselves.” Here’s another excerpt from Helen Joyce’s article:
Some gay people think that organizations set up to fight for gay rights made a mistake in throwing their weight behind trans activism. In an open letter in the Times in October, some prominent gays and lesbians accuse Stonewall, Britain’s biggest LGBT charity, of “uncritically adopting a form of transgender politics which undermines…the concept of homosexuality itself.” (It added “T” for transgender to its “LGB” (lesbian, gay and bisexual) mission in 2015.) More than 7,000 people have now signed a petition in support of the letter. Yet Stonewall’s CEO, Ruth Hunt, has denied any need for a rethink, saying that “trans equality is at the heart of our mission for acceptance without exception.”

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