Happy happy joy joy

Happy Ramadan! Happy Gay Pride Month! Happy General Convention!

While, perhaps, the truth shall set you free, it is very, very unwelcome. At the very least, you will get a SJW pushback, viz.

In an amazing tweet, the Bishop of Springfield said he was distinctly unimpressed with the quality of youth (millennials) and tweeted "steady progressive orthodoxy; not much Jesus. Just being honest about my experience over 5 GCs." Katie Sherrod of the alternate Diocese of Ft. Worth tweeted back, "Even if bishop of Springfield thought it, why on earth would he tweet it? Can't imagine how hurtful it was to these young men & women."

At worst, it will get you fired. I work at a place denominated a "university." If I were to say something akin to "Of course, I have nothing against gay people, being related to and friends with many, and abhor persecution, affirming the need for all necessary civil protections, but my religious beliefs would not allow me to countenance gay marriage," I would undoubtedly be reprimanded. Because I have tenure, I could not be immediately dismissed. But were I to persist, my life would be made so miserable that the emergence of a final process of removal from office could only be the most welcome coup de grâce.

The stark reality is

Obergefell v. Hodges is ultimately less significant than the Eich affair. Justice Kennedy might be sincere about freedom of religion being respected; it makes no difference if being known to disapprove of gay marriage will get you fired from your job and made unemployable thereafter. There’s not much worse the government could do to you. The First Amendment assumes a social context that makes its immunities from government coercion meaningful. It was assumed that at least one of the following would be true:

1. Most people would be self-employed.
2. Employers wouldn’t care about employees’ beliefs.
3. If they did care, there would be a diversity of beliefs among employers.
4. At the very least, government and employers wouldn’t be taking orders from the same group.

... Now the media gives the orders. Whether they’re executed by the Department of Justice or the Human Relations department of your company doesn’t make much practical difference for you. The old distinctions are now artificial. Government, NGOs, private corporations – it’s all the same group of people. They went to the same schools, read the same papers, and often openly coordinate with each other ...

Only two things affect most of us. 1) Being known to disapprove of sodomy will get you fired pretty much anywhere because “hostile work environment”. 2) Gay=good, sex=meaningless is official orthodoxy, so it is taught in schools.

Opinions -- what we used to call 'beliefs' -- are now strictly verboten!

*****

Addendum: Any outsider suffering from the delusion that colleges and universities are bastions of freedom (and not massive bureaucratic factories of incessant brainwashing and social conformity) should read Inside Higher Education. Here are two unrelated articles from the most recent issue that, nonetheless, cover just two tiny dots of this pointillistic nightmare:

• U of Idaho Will Cover 2 Lynching Murals in New Facility
• Monks Seek Shared Governance

The Gaze and the Voice.