Remember the Oregon bakery, owned by religious Christians Aaron and Melissa Klein, which refused to put a gay message on a wedding cake? Remember that they were relentlessly attacked, fined $135,000, and sued by the state’s attorney general? Forced to close their shop and go into debt?
Are you aware of Jack Phillips, a Christian baker in Colorado, who was ordered by the the state’s Civil Rights Commission to serve wedding cake to LGBT couples against his will – a case that is going to be heard by the Supreme Court?
With those in mind, please read the following dialogue, pulled from Rick Moran’s article at dailycaller.com – complete with video – which occurred between ben borgman, gay owner of the Bedlam Coffee Shop in Seattle, and the anti-abortion protesters who came into his shop – not to demand that he agree with their views, but just to get coffee:
“I’m gay, you have to leave,” the owner tells the group. “This is offensive to me. I own the place. I have the right to be offended.”
“There’s nothing you can say. This is you and I don’t want these people in this place,” the owner says. The group asks why he can’t tolerate their presence, prompting the owner to ask them if they would watch him have sex with his boyfriend.
“Can you tolerate my presence? Really? If I go get my boyfriend and f*ck him in the a** right here you’re going to tolerate that? Are you going to tolerate it?” the owner asked. “Answer my f***ing question! No, you’re going to sit right here and f***ing watch it! Leave all of you! Tell all your f*cking friends don’t come here!”
The group gets up to leave, as one woman among them says, “just know that Christ can save you from that lifestyle.”
“Yeah, I like a**. I’m not going to be saved by anything. I’d f*ck Christ in the a**. Okay? He’s hot,” he said.
Anyone want to compare that to the simple, non-obscene refusal to write a gay message on a wedding cake or to serve cake for a wedding the server disavows for religious reasons?
Now: what do you suppose is going to be done about it?
Does anyone seriously think there will be the same outcry? The same condemnations of intolerance? Does anyone seriously think the coffee shop will be fined out of existence and ben borgman put into debt? That this is going to the Supreme Court?
Theoretetically, intolerance is a two way street. But I wouldn’t bet on anyone learning it from the comparison between what happened to Aaron and Melissa Klein, what Jack Phillips is going through, and what will happen to ben borgman.
We’ll see….
