Guilty by Reason of Insanity

by David Limbaugh

  Leftist closed-mindedness also pervades American journalism. The mainstream media are monolithically liberal, mostly atheist, Democratic, and cloistered in their own echo chamber. On his podcast, outspoken atheist Sam Harris noted that surveys show few leftist journalists follow their conservative counterparts on Twitter, while many right-wing journalists follow their counterparts on the left.36 Mainstream media figures insist they are unbiased, objective reporters, but researchers from Arizona State University and Texas A&M University found the opposite when they conducted a survey of some 462 financial journalists around the country. The results surprised the researchers, as even the supposedly hard-nosed financial reporters were overwhelmingly liberal. Some 58 percent admitted to being left of center and 37 percent said they were moderate. Only 0.46 percent said they were “very conservative” and 3.94 percent said they were somewhat conservative—a combined total of 4.4 percent, then, lean right of center.37 This bias is not lost on the American people. Rasmussen Reports found that 45 percent of all likely voters in the 2018 midterm elections believed that most reporters tried to help Democratic candidates whereas only 11 percent said they tried to help Republicans.38

  “THIS CASE IS ABOUT CRUSHING DISSENT”

  A textbook example of leftist intolerance is the campaign to vilify Chick-fil-A. The attack is aimed at the franchise owner, Dan Cathy, who supports traditional marriage, which the left wrongly characterizes as anti-gay hate. In 2016 Mayor Bill de Blasio called for a boycott of New York City’s Chick-fil-A restaurants, declaring, “I’m certainly not going to patronize them, and I wouldn’t urge any other New Yorkers to patronize them.” But his officious intermeddling failed and possibly backfired. Three years later, Chick-fil-A now has twenty stores in the city, including the largest store in the franchise, which opened in 2018 in the city’s financial district. Chick-fil-A, in fact, is a good corporate citizen. All the company’s New York City restaurants contribute to the New York Common Pantry to provide meals for the poor.39

  Recently, San Antonio City councilman Roberto Treviño, boasting of the city’s efforts “to become a champion of equality and inclusion,” proposed removing the Chick-fil-A from the San Antonio airport.40 “San Antonio is a city full of compassion, and we do not have room in our public facilities for a business with a legacy of anti-LGBTQ behavior,” he said. In other words, we’ll show our inclusiveness by excluding Chick-fil-A and show our compassion by being uncompassionate toward the restaurant and its patrons. Can anyone point to one instance in which Chick-fil-A refused to serve a gay person or mistreated one in any way? Why not let customers make their own decisions about their dining instead of punishing restaurants and their customers because of their owners’ opinions?

  Leftists have targeted and boycotted Chick-fil-A throughout the nation. Thankfully, their efforts have mostly failed, as Chick-fil-A was already flourishing just a year after the boycott began in 2012.41 But this doesn’t discourage gay activists, who demand that companies fulfill a slate of demands or risk losing their ranking in the annual Corporate Equality Index published by the Human Rights Campaign, a gay advocacy group. Companies, despite no government coercion, are changing their policies to meet these demands, which include ensuring that sex-reassignment surgery is covered by every health insurance plan a company offers.42

  The left’s assault on Christian religious liberty goes far beyond Chick-fil-A. In 2006 Elane Photography of Albuquerque, New Mexico, declined to photograph a “commitment ceremony” for two women in a same-sex relationship due to the religious beliefs of its owners, the Huguenins. One of the women, Vanessa Willock, filed a complaint with the New Mexico Human Rights Commission, which ruled the Huguenins had violated state anti-discrimination laws.43 The decision was affirmed by the Second Judicial District Court, the New Mexico Court of Appeals, and the New Mexico Supreme Court, after which the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case. New Mexico Supreme Court justice Richard C. Bosson, in his concurring opinion, wrote, “In the smaller, more focused world of the marketplace, of commerce, of public accommodation, the Huguenins have to channel their conduct, not their beliefs, so as to leave space for other Americans who believe something different. That compromise is part of the glue that holds us together as a nation, the tolerance that lubricates the varied moving parts of us as a people. In short, I would say to the Huguenins, with the utmost respect: it is the price of citizenship.”44

  But the price of citizenship shouldn’t include being forced to accept others’ beliefs. Justice Bosson is twisting the definition of liberty to include ideas antithetical to liberty. Jordan Lorence, senior counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian liberties law firm that represented the Huguenins, commented, “The core of what’s happening to the Huguenins is basically a government action to suppress dissent and force affirmation to a specific set of beliefs. This is a threat to basic First Amendment freedoms.”

  Lorence is correct. It was not Ms. Willock’s and her partner’s liberty that was at stake. Their rights weren’t violated by one photographer who, it’s important to note, didn’t deny them service in general but only for this specific ceremony, for religious reasons. This cannot be fairly described as a balancing of competing rights or freedoms. Only the Huguenins’ freedom was infringed, not that of the same-sex couple. But in our politically correct culture, certain activities are accorded quasi-holy status as courts and other decision-making bodies contort themselves into logical incoherence to justify their decisions. Consequently, they greatly diminish civil liberties and turn the victimizers into victims.

  In a similar case, Barronelle Stutzman, proprietor of Arlene’s Flowers in Washington state and a devout Christian, had no problem serving and employing homosexual people during her career. She served one such person, Robert Ingersoll, for more than eleven years before he asked if she would prepare an arrangement for his same-sex marriage ceremony. She declined based on her religious beliefs, and he sued her. Washington is not among the twenty-plus states that have enacted Religious Freedom Restoration Acts (RFRAs), which allow defendants to assert their religious faith as an affirmative defense in such actions. Stutzman lovingly serves everyone, including gays, but her conscience doesn’t permit her to use her talents in support of a ceremony she believes contradicts her faith.

  The Washington State Supreme Court ruled against her. Her attorney, Kristen Waggoner, who works with Alliance Defending Freedom, observed, “This case is about crushing dissent. In a free America, people with different beliefs must have room to coexist. It’s wrong for the state to force any citizen to support a particular view about marriage or anything else against their will. Freedom of speech and religion aren’t subject to the whim of a majority; they are constitutional guarantees.”45 In our leftist culture, which dominates the judiciaries of too many states, some people are more equal than others, and certain liberties must yield to the gods of political correctness.

  In perhaps the most well-known such incident, Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Colorado, refused, because of his religious convictions, to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. Once again, he didn’t deny them service in general but would not prepare a cake to celebrate a same-sex wedding. The complaining couple wasn’t harmed. They could have gone anywhere else to buy a custom-made wedding cake. But they refused to allow this baker to exercise his religious liberty, and the Colorado Civil Rights Commission ruled against Phillips. This surely was a deliberate targeting of a Christian baker to force him to conform to their values and thought edicts. The U.S. Supreme Court held that the commission violated Phillips’s First Amendment liberties, on the narrow grounds that the commission displayed “anti-religious bias.”

  But the relentless left never quits.46 It went after Phillips again. Denver attorney Autumn Scardina won a ruling from the commission against Phillips for discrimination because he refused to bake a custom-ordered cake to celebrate her transition from male to female. After Phillips sued the state, claiming that he was being pers
ecuted for his Christian beliefs, he and the commission agreed to drop their respective cases. But Scardina wouldn’t let it go. She filed a civil suit against Phillips in federal district court.47 Please tell us again who the true haters are?

  It’s noteworthy that conservatives don’t tend to react to inconveniences by declaring all-out political war the way the left does. A photographer refused to photograph the family of Alan Sears, the president and CEO of Alliance Defending Freedom, the Christian religious liberties law firm. “While I appreciate your inquiry,” the photographer said, “I oppose the goals and interests of your organization and have no interest in working on its behalf.” Objecting to Sears’s beliefs on gender issues, the photographer refused him service for an innocuous shoot having nothing to do with those issues. Note that no leftists were outraged over this denial of service, and unlike leftist bullies, Sears did not sue the photographer or stoke an angry online mob against him. He simply found another photographer, like most other people would do in a free society.48

  SUBMIT OR BE BULLIED INTO SUBMISSION

  Unforgiving activists savagely attacked Brendan Eich, cofounder of Mozilla, leading to his resignation from his position as CEO of the company just days after being appointed in 2014. His sin was having contributed $1,000 to Proposition 8, a California state measure to codify that marriage is between one man and one woman, six years earlier. Leftist groups also boycotted Mozilla’s internet browser, Firefox. Mozilla chairwoman Mitchell Baker said, “Mozilla believes both in equality and freedom of speech. And you need free speech to fight for equality. Figuring out how to stand for both at the same time can be hard.”49

  But Mozilla did not vindicate free speech or balance the interests of free speech and equality. To the contrary, by capitulating to pressure to oust Eich, the company sacrificed free speech at the altar of political correctness. Some rationalized that free speech wasn’t the issue, claiming Eich wasn’t fired for his views but instead resigned. In fact, he was forced out because a large part of the Mozilla community refused to follow his leadership after he voiced opposition to same-sex marriage and wouldn’t retract it. Employees and volunteers were threatening to quit the company, users were switching browsers, and donors were announcing they would no longer contribute to the firm.

  While he had a right to free speech, some said, so did the Mozilla community and its supporters and consumers, so free speech wasn’t compromised.50 This is sophistry. The salient issue is the intolerance of the left and its insistence on hyper-politicizing everything. It’s not as if Eich was looking for soapboxes to denounce same-sex marriage. Yes, he stood by his views when challenged, but that was a matter of his personal integrity. Why couldn’t leftists just accept one person having a different opinion than theirs? Why couldn’t they let Eich’s personal views remain personal? This is the way the left operates. You either support its agenda, get bullied into submission, or get forced out.

  Leftists have successfully targeted other groups for their views, statements, and practices on same-sex marriage and other gender issues. They effectively shut down Pure Passion Ministries and their videos on Vimeo about people who abandoned homosexuality or transgenderism. The videos featured a Christian perspective of sexuality and relationships, which is now anathema to the left. Vimeo also blacklisted an announcement for the “Hope Conference” featuring Christian speakers Janet Mefferd and Joe Dallas. Its message opposing same-sex marriage was deemed offensive and inappropriate, as the conference proclaimed there is hope in Jesus Christ for change and transformation.51 Vimeo spokesperson Melissa B. explained, “It seems that a number of your videos go against the Vimeo Guidelines of: ‘We also forbid content that displays a demeaning attitude toward specific groups, including: Videos that promote Sexual Orientation Change Efforts (SOCE).’ ”

  Dr. Michael Brown highlights the hypocrisy, noting that by this logic Alcoholics Anonymous, weight loss, and debt reduction videos would be censored, as they each arguably demean certain groups. “In reality, all these videos are welcome on Vimeo, because none of them cross the forbidden line of saying: If you’re not happy being gay (or bisexual or transgender), God has a better way,” writes Brown. “This is absolutely forbidden!”52 Brown says those who have come out of the closet now want to put dissenters into the closet. The contradiction in such thinking is worth repeating: they insist on gender fluidity, almost as an article of faith, yet they forbid expression of the opinion that fluidity can operate from gay to straight. Brown also observes that Vimeo is full of videos of terrorists and pornographers, two groups not blacklisted by the high priests of political correctness.

  Dr. Brown’s own videos on cultural issues, including sexuality, marriage, and male-female distinctions, were removed from YouTube’s “AdSense” program because they allegedly contained “controversial religious” ideas and were marked “not suitable for advertisers.” Similarly, AmazonSmile removed videos of Christian legal defense firm Liberty Counsel and D. James Kennedy Ministries because the notoriously leftist Southern Poverty Law Center wrongly labels both organizations as “hate groups.”53 Of course, the SPLC’s definition of hate is, essentially, “politically conservative.”

  “APOLOGIZING IS LIKE A MATH PROBLEM”

  Don’t ever doubt that leftists enforce conformity among themselves, ensuring that few register dissent from their dogma. Like Mark Duplass and Joe Biden, mainstream media icon Tom Brokaw learned the hard way that his liberal bona fides don’t immunize him from violating leftist speech codes. During a Meet the Press panel on NBC, Brokaw portrayed Republicans as racist, claiming that when he asks them about immigration they say they “don’t know whether [they] want brown grandbabies.” So far, so good, as far as the left is concerned. Then he stepped in it. “I also happen to believe that the Hispanics should work harder at assimilation,” Brokaw said. “That’s one of the things that I’ve been saying for a long time, that they ought not to be codified in their communities but make sure that all of their kids are learning to speak English and they feel comfortable in the communities. And that’s going to take outreach on both sides, frankly.”54

  Brokaw apparently did not know the broad, bipartisan consensus on the value of assimilation has collapsed—the left now views assimilation as just another racist ploy. The blowback was predictably intense. Investigative journalist Aura Bogado accused Brokaw of “arguing classic white supremacist talking points in a deeply racist rant on national television.” Julio Ricardo Varela of LatinoRebels.com said, “It really was a punch in the gut to a lot of people. It was not only factually incorrect; it was also xenophobia in action.” An alliance of Latino advocacy groups demanded that NBC issue an apology, increase diversity among Meet the Press guests, produce a series on American Hispanics, and cough up money for the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. “Mr. Brokaw’s comments are more than just out-of-touch musings,” the groups decalared. “Mr. Brokaw’s comments are part of a legacy of anti-Latino sentiment that is spreading freely in 2019.”

  Naturally Brokaw profusely apologized, declaring, “I feel terrible if part of my comments on Hispanics offended some members of that proud culture,” and noting that he has “worked hard to knock down false stereotypes.” He later added that he was “very sorry” for comments that were “offensive to many.… I never intended to disparage any segment of our rich, diverse society which defines who we are.”55 The outrage at Brokaw’s remarks reveals both the left’s malicious redefinition of racism and its rejection of assimilation in general. The alternative to assimilation, of course, is balkanization—and that’s precisely what the left wants.

  One common thread in the left’s speech policing is that an apology no longer suffices. The offender must repeatedly grovel and then do some form of penance, either publicly paying homage to the cause he offended or making significant financial contributions. In some cases, offenders cannot earn forgiveness, no matter how much they prostrate themselves before the altar of left-wing orthodoxy. Self-appointed leftist el
itists are the sole and final arbiters of whether sufficient contrition has been displayed. Kevin Hart got a taste of this when he was bullied into stepping down from hosting the Academy Awards. When he was selected, leftists decried allegedly homophobic tweets he’d made almost a decade before and a statement he had made during a 2010 special, “Seriously Funny,” indicating he would prevent his son from being gay if he could.

  Hart initially refused to apologize, saying his remarks were jokes and he had matured since then. But when the condemnations piled up, he withdrew from the Academy Awards and apologized “to the LGBTQ community for [his] insensitive words from [his] past.” This still wasn’t enough. Brandi Miller, in HuffPost, argued Hart “still misses the point.… A true apology, a true acknowledgment of harm done from Hart would involve talking about the implications of his words, not just apologizing for who he used to be.… Apologizing is like a math problem. To get the credit, you have to show your work.… Let’s be honest, tweeting ‘I apologize’ isn’t that hard and doesn’t really involve much internal reckoning, but with his actions, he can show a changed life.” Hart could “show his work,” she said, by donating money to gay groups or requesting a gay cohost for the Academy Awards.56 USA Today opinion contributor Rich Kiamco suggested Hart should “make a 20-minute killer set about his homophobic fears.”57

  You see, it’s not enough to apologize. You must fully adopt and crusade on behalf of their viewpoint or be permanently banished. On a steady march to control our thoughts and behavior, the left will mow down anyone in its way.