RedState.com compared an Oregon law protecting LGBT individuals from discrimination to China's Cultural Revolution, an ideological purification campaign in which an estimated one million Chinese died between 1966 and 1976.
In an August 20 blog post, RedState front page contributor streiff decried the “never ending [sic] war waged by homosexual activists on people of faith,” exemplified by Oregon's 2007 Equality Act, which bans anti-LGBT discrimination in categories like employment, public accommodations, housing, and education. RedState cited the case of a bakery that refused to provide a wedding cake to a same-sex couple to advance its claim that supporters of LGBT equality are at war with religion. The conservative website expressed outrage that under the law, the bakery had to treat the lesbian couple's “shabby simulacrum of marriage” the same as any other marriage:
For the crime of refusing to participate in a shabby simulacrum of marriage a family business is now being investigated by the State of Oregon and, unless they toss away their religious beliefs, will be fined perhaps to the point of bankruptcy. According to the article there are no caps on the fines allowed under the law.
This is not unprecedented, RedState said. Just look to Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution:
One of my favorite Catholic blogs makes another very good point. We have seen this before:
During the Cultural Revolution in China (1966-1976 - the time when the greatest damage was being done in the name of the Spirit of Vatican II) people were bullied into rejection of the sì jiù, the Four “Olds”: Old Customs, Old Culture, Old Habits, and Old Ideas. The Four Olds were equated with monsters and demons, “cow ghosts and snake spirits”, that had to be purged.
The conforming hoards, taken up in a frenzy of fear and zeal, marched in the streets chanting slogans, pasting up posters, such as “Beat down the bad elements!”, “Beat down Jesus following!”, “Beat down the counter revolutionists!”.
Those who were perceived - usually through denunciation - to adhere to the Four Olds, counter-revolutionists, were seized. The lucky ones were forced into public self-criticism, humiliation, physical abuse and re-education. The less lucky were killed. Many “intellectuals” (just about any with more than a high school education) were sent to re-education camps in the country-side where they were “educated” by the purer proletariat through forced-labor and more self-criticism and abuse.
We aren't there yet, but Stevie Wonder can see where we're headed.
The post included an image of Chinese dissidents being pilloried by a massive crowd.
You heard it first at RedState. Today, it's laws stating that it's unlawful to discriminate against people based on who they are. Tomorrow, labor and reeducation camps across America.