We are getting glimpses of the future, and it is not looking too good. We are seeing how radical political agendas are being implemented throughout the Western world, along with the ugly consequences which inevitably follow. Indeed, some nations are more advanced (or should we say, more degenerate) than others in this rampant coercive utopianism.
Consider the UK and its recently passed ‘equality’ legislation. Some people who were awake enough to see how bad this law would be fought it as it was being debated, but unfortunately many – including many believers – were simply asleep at the wheel. They did not know or did not care about how these draconian laws would radically impact their society. And now pro-family and pro-faith folk are beginning to feel the full weight of this coercive legislation.
Two examples can be cited here, both having to do with the misnamed Equality Act 2006, which makes illegal any discrimination on the grounds of sexuality, and a particular part of it, the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations. This of course is really just a Special Rights for Homosexuals Act. It uses the blunt instrument of the law to coerce ordinary citizens to embrace, support and promote the homosexual lifestyle.
The two recent examples demonstrate how these laws are a frontal attack on the rights of citizens to follow their conscience, to exercise free speech, and to practice their faith. The first has to do with a Christian magistrate who was compelled to resign rather than give in to the reigning pro-homosexual orthodoxy.
The 63-year-old Family Court judge refused to place children in the care of homosexual couples, and he sought to exempt himself from cases involving homosexual applicants, which would force him to compromise his Christian convictions. But the new laws meant he had to go. He is now appealing a decision which said he could not opt out of these cases. He complained that the UK Labor Government was treating vulnerable children like “guinea pigs” by legalising homosexual adoption.
The second incident involves an elderly couple who have been fostering children for years, but now are finding they can no longer do so because of the new laws. The Daily Mail describes the events this way:
“They are devoted foster parents with an unblemished record of caring for almost 30 vulnerable children. But Vincent and Pauline Matherick will this week have their latest foster son taken away because they have refused to sign new sexual equality regulations. To do so, they claim, would force them to promote homosexuality and go against their Christian faith. The 11-year-old boy, who has been in their care for two years, will be placed in a council hostel this week and the Mathericks will no longer be given children to look after. The devastated couple, who have three grown up children of their own, became foster parents in 2001 and have since cared for 28 children at their home in Chard, Somerset.”
The article continues, “Earlier this year, Somerset County Council’s social services department asked them to sign a contract to implement Labour’s new Sexual Orientation Regulations, part of the Equality Act 2006, which make discrimination on the grounds of sexuality illegal. Officials told the couple that under the regulations they would be required to discuss same-sex relationships with children as young as 11 and tell them that gay partnerships were just as acceptable as heterosexual marriages. They could also be required to take teenagers to gay association meetings. When the Mathericks objected, they were told they would be taken off the register of foster parents. The Mathericks have decided to resign rather than face the humiliation of being expelled. Mr Matherick, a 65-year-old retired travel agent and a primary school governor, said: ‘I simply could not agree to do it because it is against my central beliefs. We have never discriminated against anybody but I cannot preach the benefits of homosexuality when I believe it is against the word of God’.”
Increasingly those who support freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of conscience, and freedom to affirm traditional views of marriage and family will find themselves at the wrong end of the law. These sorts of cases are simply going to increase, and soon we will find more and more believers and rebels against the new political correctness being fined, imprisoned, and turned into the new pariahs in society.
And much of this has happened – and will happen – because we were not willing to stand up for what is right in the first place. Too many people have just not entered into these culture wars, and it may now be getting too late.
We are losing our liberties fast, and religious freedom is quickly beginning to crumble in the West. How much worse must things get before we all stand up and be counted? I remind us all of the words of Martin Luther King Jr: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
And an earlier Martin, who paid a heavy price for faith and freedom, is also worth quoting: “In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up” (Martin Niemoller, German pastor and Holocaust survivor).
How long before we wake up and realise that the very freedoms which we fought so long and hard for are quickly unravelling before our very eyes? The day is getting late, and action is needed. We need to become involved, before we find that we no longer can take a stand.
11 Replies to “The Bitter Fruit of the Coercive Utopians”
Dear Bill,
Where I live in Britain, Dorset, is one of the most beautiful, rural/maritime counties of Britain. It is difficult to believe, as I look out my window onto an Autumn and ancient landscape that records two thousand years of the Christian faith that Britain is becoming a rotting carcass to which vultures, even as I write, are coming to feed.
There have been many debates recently as the demographics rapidly change, as to what our identity really is. What is it that makes the British, British? My own view is that it was because we were a free nation, paid for by the blood of countless and often unrecorded (in this life) martyrs, like Latimer, Ridley and Cranmer.
We were not afraid to speak the truth. Indeed this is why we fought the tyrants Hitler and Stalin and that is in some measure what still attracts immigrants to our shores – apart from the rich pickings of the so-called Welfare State. This freedom was based on knowing the truth of Jesus Christ who said, “you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Jonathan Oloyede, a black, Nigerian pastor and evangelist, living in London says, ”The United Kingdom, once a missionary powerhouse of the world, now stands at a crossroads. As a nation she has drifted far from the boundaries of her Father’s anchorage. A ship at the mercy of strong sea currents, adrift from her moorings.”
Australia is also synonymous with a nation that loves its freedom and sense of fair play, but unless it realises the source of that freedom and acknowledges it once more, you too will come under the yoke, on the one hand of ideologies that profess to bring absolute, personal freedom but which in fact only lead to bondage and oppression, and to the fear and superstition of Islam on the other.
Talking of bondage, and going straight to the heart of the Trojan horse that is attacking us and soon to be you, don’t allow yourself to be disarmed and distracted by the argument that Australia will need extra laws banning any speech or written word (Bible) that could in any way be construed as inciting hatred, bullying, intimidation, abuse and violence towards Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transsexuals. This is the elephant in the room!
They use this “fair dinkum,” laudable extra law in order to silence the “uncompassionate and judgemental” Christians but the very thing that turns the LGBT community on is precisely abuse, violence, sado-masochism, bondage and sexual violence. It is a brilliant tactic that has worked with devastating results on a Christian community who,as Bill said a few articles back, have developed a “somewhat sloppy and unhelpful understanding of such things as compassion, tolerance and the like.”
The website http://zombietime.com/ has a disturbing report on the Folsom Street Fair. But a warning – it is not for the faint hearted.
Ewan McDonald, Victoria.
Thanks for this Ewan, I will pass this piece of heavy ordnance onto folks in Britain . It may not be for the faint hearted but this is not the time for those with fine sensibilities to stick their heads in the sand.
And thanks Bill for the powerful poem by pastor Martin Niemoller and coming back to the Mathericks; today it is the fostered child that Somerset County Council’s social services department have taken. Tomorrow it will be Matherick’s own children and the children of any other parents who refuses to comply with the Sexual Orientation Regulations. No doubt hundreds of thousands of children were taken away and put in orphanages during the reign of Stalin.
When people hold up the nice friendly and respectable gay couple down the road who, like us, do the shopping, mow the lawn and walk the dog as representing the gay community, forget it. The true face of the gay lobby is Ben Summerskill of Stonewall, the official government voice for the homosexuals. The link between him (or the Australian equivalent), Stonewall, Pink News and the Folsom Street Fair is direct.
David Skinner, UK
This is probably what we will be in for in Australia if we elect Chairman KRudd and Comrade Gillardova.
Jonathan Sarfati, Brisbane
Indeed Jonathan, since Federal Labor has a policy to remove ‘discrimination’ against homosexuals and to introduce various anti-vilification laws.
Ewan McDonald, Victoria.
And we might also get this situation if Chairman Rudd copies NZ’s leftist leader Helen Clark:
Chairman Rudd and Comrade Gillardova…dear me. “Chairman Rudd” is probably the most right wing Labor leader ever. Save the name calling for the school-yard.
Simon Kennedy, VIC
Christian socialist Rudd “right wing”? What does that make the rest of us then? Off the scale I presume.
Ewan McDonald, Victoria.
Simon Kennedy, instead of whinging about decent challenge-riposte (which has ample biblical precedent), find out more about them. For example, Chairman Rudd refused to answer when asked whether he would introduce a federal equivalent of Vic’s anti-Christian “anti-vilification” bill. Rudd is just using the typical Left tactic of campaigning to the Right while intending to govern to the Left.
And even in the unlikely event that his campaigning is honest, it’s doubtful that Comrade Gillardova and her allies among the 70% Union leaders on the front bench won’t demand their pound of flesh. Just look at Gillardova’s clearly stated aims when a student member of a communist group to use Labor to implement the radical Left agenda.
Jonathan Sarfati, Brisbane
Thanks Ewan, the zombietime.com website is shocking, and a real eye-opener for me. I was horrified when the Australian flag was burnt during the Coogee debacle and felt it was quite justified for calling the young perpetrator (who subsequently apologised) to account for it. I am truly gob-smacked that there are so many US citizens raising their hateful voices against their own country and president, and with such vehemence and vitriol. Shame.
Garth Penglase
Just in case people are not aware this is a very useful site when researching the differences between the parties from a moral stand point. http://australiavotes.org/
I am very concerned that Mr Rudd is little more than a ‘poster boy’ for the Labor left. I know that there are Christians on both sides in the major parties, but it seems to me that the Labor party is significantly behind in standing for Christian ethics, and Rudd seems to be surrounded by leftist politicians and union leaders.
As stated elsewhere, Australia has examples in NZ and the UK of left governments quickly implementing anti-Christian laws and removing Christian freedoms.
We must make a halt of this in Australia. Return the party that is best going to stand for our freedoms and God’s commandments. This must be our top priority.
Dear Bill,
Where I live in Britain, Dorset, is one of the most beautiful, rural/maritime counties of Britain. It is difficult to believe, as I look out my window onto an Autumn and ancient landscape that records two thousand years of the Christian faith that Britain is becoming a rotting carcass to which vultures, even as I write, are coming to feed.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7057765.stm
There have been many debates recently as the demographics rapidly change, as to what our identity really is. What is it that makes the British, British? My own view is that it was because we were a free nation, paid for by the blood of countless and often unrecorded (in this life) martyrs, like Latimer, Ridley and Cranmer.
We were not afraid to speak the truth. Indeed this is why we fought the tyrants Hitler and Stalin and that is in some measure what still attracts immigrants to our shores – apart from the rich pickings of the so-called Welfare State. This freedom was based on knowing the truth of Jesus Christ who said, “you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Jonathan Oloyede, a black, Nigerian pastor and evangelist, living in London says, ”The United Kingdom, once a missionary powerhouse of the world, now stands at a crossroads. As a nation she has drifted far from the boundaries of her Father’s anchorage. A ship at the mercy of strong sea currents, adrift from her moorings.”
Australia is also synonymous with a nation that loves its freedom and sense of fair play, but unless it realises the source of that freedom and acknowledges it once more, you too will come under the yoke, on the one hand of ideologies that profess to bring absolute, personal freedom but which in fact only lead to bondage and oppression, and to the fear and superstition of Islam on the other.
Talking of bondage, and going straight to the heart of the Trojan horse that is attacking us and soon to be you, don’t allow yourself to be disarmed and distracted by the argument that Australia will need extra laws banning any speech or written word (Bible) that could in any way be construed as inciting hatred, bullying, intimidation, abuse and violence towards Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transsexuals. This is the elephant in the room!
They use this “fair dinkum,” laudable extra law in order to silence the “uncompassionate and judgemental” Christians but the very thing that turns the LGBT community on is precisely abuse, violence, sado-masochism, bondage and sexual violence. It is a brilliant tactic that has worked with devastating results on a Christian community who,as Bill said a few articles back, have developed a “somewhat sloppy and unhelpful understanding of such things as compassion, tolerance and the like.”
Finally, just to see where we are going and what we will be coming to, a Mardi Gras or Gay Parade “in your area,“ step by step, drip by drip. I urge you to google -and yet tell you to flee from – the Folsom Street Fair: http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-5622.html
http://www.folsomstreetfair.com/documents/2007_Official_Folsom_Street_Fair_Guide.pdf
Time to get back to prayer.
David Skinner, UK
The website http://zombietime.com/ has a disturbing report on the Folsom Street Fair. But a warning – it is not for the faint hearted.
Ewan McDonald, Victoria.
Thanks for this Ewan, I will pass this piece of heavy ordnance onto folks in Britain . It may not be for the faint hearted but this is not the time for those with fine sensibilities to stick their heads in the sand.
And thanks Bill for the powerful poem by pastor Martin Niemoller and coming back to the Mathericks; today it is the fostered child that Somerset County Council’s social services department have taken. Tomorrow it will be Matherick’s own children and the children of any other parents who refuses to comply with the Sexual Orientation Regulations. No doubt hundreds of thousands of children were taken away and put in orphanages during the reign of Stalin.
When people hold up the nice friendly and respectable gay couple down the road who, like us, do the shopping, mow the lawn and walk the dog as representing the gay community, forget it. The true face of the gay lobby is Ben Summerskill of Stonewall, the official government voice for the homosexuals. The link between him (or the Australian equivalent), Stonewall, Pink News and the Folsom Street Fair is direct.
David Skinner, UK
This is probably what we will be in for in Australia if we elect Chairman KRudd and Comrade Gillardova.
Jonathan Sarfati, Brisbane
Indeed Jonathan, since Federal Labor has a policy to remove ‘discrimination’ against homosexuals and to introduce various anti-vilification laws.
Ewan McDonald, Victoria.
And we might also get this situation if Chairman Rudd copies NZ’s leftist leader Helen Clark:
School dobs mum to CYF for hand smack
Jonathan Sarfati, Brisbane
Chairman Rudd and Comrade Gillardova…dear me. “Chairman Rudd” is probably the most right wing Labor leader ever. Save the name calling for the school-yard.
Simon Kennedy, VIC
Christian socialist Rudd “right wing”? What does that make the rest of us then? Off the scale I presume.
Ewan McDonald, Victoria.
Simon Kennedy, instead of whinging about decent challenge-riposte (which has ample biblical precedent), find out more about them. For example, Chairman Rudd refused to answer when asked whether he would introduce a federal equivalent of Vic’s anti-Christian “anti-vilification” bill. Rudd is just using the typical Left tactic of campaigning to the Right while intending to govern to the Left.
And even in the unlikely event that his campaigning is honest, it’s doubtful that Comrade Gillardova and her allies among the 70% Union leaders on the front bench won’t demand their pound of flesh. Just look at Gillardova’s clearly stated aims when a student member of a communist group to use Labor to implement the radical Left agenda.
Jonathan Sarfati, Brisbane
Thanks Ewan, the zombietime.com website is shocking, and a real eye-opener for me. I was horrified when the Australian flag was burnt during the Coogee debacle and felt it was quite justified for calling the young perpetrator (who subsequently apologised) to account for it. I am truly gob-smacked that there are so many US citizens raising their hateful voices against their own country and president, and with such vehemence and vitriol. Shame.
Garth Penglase
Just in case people are not aware this is a very useful site when researching the differences between the parties from a moral stand point. http://australiavotes.org/
I am very concerned that Mr Rudd is little more than a ‘poster boy’ for the Labor left. I know that there are Christians on both sides in the major parties, but it seems to me that the Labor party is significantly behind in standing for Christian ethics, and Rudd seems to be surrounded by leftist politicians and union leaders.
As stated elsewhere, Australia has examples in NZ and the UK of left governments quickly implementing anti-Christian laws and removing Christian freedoms.
We must make a halt of this in Australia. Return the party that is best going to stand for our freedoms and God’s commandments. This must be our top priority.
Garth Penglase