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| Priests in Bydgoszcz, Poland, about to be shot by Nazis. |
Some years back, Charlie Craig and Dave Mullins entered the Masterpiece Cake Shop in Colorado and asked Jack Phillips, the proprietor, to design a cake for their wedding.
Phillips declined, saying that he does not design cakes for same-sex weddings. He also refuses to design cakes for bachelor parties and Halloween.
Charlie Craig and Dave Mullins received many offers of free cakes. That did not satisfy them. They, and their allies, wanted Jack Phillips to suffer.
Suffer Phillips did. His case went all the way to the Supreme Court.
Today, the Supreme Court decided in favor of Phillips, but not, alas, on the grounds of his freedom as an artist to accept or decline artistic commissions at will. Rather, they decided on the grounds that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission was hostile to Phillips' Christianity.
You can read their decision here.
The Supreme Court cites the Colorado Civil Rights Commission's conflation of Jack Phillips' Christian beliefs with the Holocaust.
That's right. Christophobes in power in the US conflated Jack Phillips' Christianity with Nazism.
The Supreme Court said that that is wrong.
Below please find a quote from the Supreme Court decision:
***
On
July 25, 2014, the Commission met again. This meeting, too, was conducted in
public and on the record. On this occasion another commissioner made specific reference
to the previous meeting’s discussion but said far more to disparage Phillips’
beliefs. The commissioner stated:
“I
would also like to reiterate what we said in the hearing or the last meeting.
Freedom of religion and religion has been used to justify all kinds of
discrimination throughout history, whether it be slavery, whether it be the
holocaust, whether it be—I mean, we—we can list hundreds of situations where
freedom of religion has been used to justify discrimination. And to me it is
one of the most despicable pieces of rhetoric that people can use to—to use
their religion to hurt others.”
To
describe a man’s faith as “one of the most despicable pieces of rhetoric that
people can use” is to disparage his religion in at least two distinct ways: by
describing it as despicable, and also by characterizing it as merely rhetorical—something
insubstantial and even insincere.
The commissioner even went so far as to compare Phillips’ invocation of his sincerely held religious beliefs to defenses of slavery and the Holocaust. This sentiment is inappropriate for a Commission charged with the solemn responsibility of fair and neutral enforcement of Colorado’s antidiscrimination law—a law that protects discrimination on the basis of religion as well as sexual orientation.
The commissioner even went so far as to compare Phillips’ invocation of his sincerely held religious beliefs to defenses of slavery and the Holocaust. This sentiment is inappropriate for a Commission charged with the solemn responsibility of fair and neutral enforcement of Colorado’s antidiscrimination law—a law that protects discrimination on the basis of religion as well as sexual orientation.
***
That's right. An American CIVIL RIGHTS COMMISSION is staffed by Christophobes who insist that Christianity = Nazism.
In "Bieganski the Brute Polak Stereotype" I argue that that stereotype exists at least partly to rewrite history, to shift blame for the Holocaust from Nazism, which was influenced by Social Darwinism, Romantic Nationalism, Neo-Paganism, and Scientific Racism, to Catholicism.
You can read "Against Identifying Nazism with Christianity" here.
It is good to see the United States Supreme Court slam it down, but the juxtaposition of Nazism and Christianity is hardly unusual. It is pretty standard fare in Holocaust books and Holocaust-related discourse. It is featured in the USHMM (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum). Finally, it is a standard meme that is repeated in Jewish-authored books (I know; I have reviewed many).
ReplyDeleteIronically, whenever the well-meaning Christian spokesmen apologize for past Christian anti-Semitism, they are tacitly feeding this Nazism-Christianity meme.
It's amazing that there are still many ignorant people still trying to link traditional Christian anti-Judaism to Nazism. WTH is wrong with historically uninformed and misinformed Jewish and non-Jewish scholars on this subject?
DeleteHi Danusha, thanks for linking this. Ive read the whole thing. So, this is what your American taxpayers money is spend on, am I right? I am shocked of this sentence here:
ReplyDeleteThe
commissioner even went so far as to compare Phillips’
invocation of his sincerely held religious beliefs to defenses
of slavery and the Holocaust.
Words are failing me.WTF.
Quote: I argue that that stereotype exists at least partly to rewrite history, to shift blame for the Holocaust from Nazism, which was influenced by Social Darwinism, Romantic Nationalism, Neo-Paganism, and Scientific Racism, to Catholicism.
ABSOLUTELY. Ive read stuff writen by Christian (Catholic & Orthodox) people who were not really fond of Jews- like Polish Cardinal Hlond or Romanian political activist Codreanu. What is obvious: They NEVER deny the basic humanity of Jews. They do not claim that Jews are "subhuman" or genetically inferior. They NEVER advocate exterminating them. Hlond is very specific on this topic: It is NOT allowed to spit on them, to beat them, to call them names ect. Their criticism is, imho, to a large part justified (like the claim that Jews do not integrate well into Polish and Romanian society). They do not obsess about racial "purity". Roman Dmowski, a well-known Polish politcal activist, ridicules the idea that Jews are a wholly different race, Codreau writes in "For my Legionaries" that every foreigner or his progeny will marry at some point a Romanian and this family will become a 100% part of the Romanian nation (today we would say through cultural assimilation. Marring into a Romanian familiy really helps with that). He critisizes Jews for marring only other Jews. (BTW Whites in RSA are doing the same thing, they never marry an African. Totally not racist...)
Nazi-German antisemitism is a completely different league than negative Christian attitudes towards Jews.
In my humble opinion, history is repeating itself in front of our very eyes with the Muslim community. We are not allowed to be honest on this topic for fear of being called "islamophobes". So the rage is festering on. Some day, mark my word, it will erupt.
Hanna for some reason Blogger stopped informing me about comments. I thought there were no comments. I investigated and found a bunch of old comments that were never posted. I'm trying to address this problem now. I apologize. I'm posting this message under everyone's comment so everyone knows.
Delete