On the top left hand corner of Fox News.com is the Fox News logo under which is the trademark Fox "fair & balanced" slogan. Yet, on today's home page, there is a secondary lede headline which reads, as Fox fact, "Punished for Beliefs, Todd's American Dispatch, Bakery Loses Gay Battle." The headline is linked to an article in which "Toddles" Starnes treats us to his trademark homophobia which, in this case, is a big, fat whine about how Christian bakers were forced to shut down their bakery after "militant homosexuals" protested the bakers' refusal to make a wedding cake for a lesbian couple. Poor Toddles is upset that his fellow Christians have to follow nasty laws that say you can't discriminate against those nasty gays who are being so intolerant. Yeah, I know, WTF!
In the title of Starnes' article, he alleges that "Christian Bakery Closes After LGBT Threats, Protests." He reports that a family owned Oregon bakery is closing its doors after "a vicious boycott" by "militant homosexual activists." Starnes writes that the baker told him that while he has nothing against gays, he "can't take part in gay wedding events" because of "their religious faith" and because "I don't want to help somebody celebrate a commitment to a lifetime of sin." (So he really does have something against gays!) Starnes repeated the "militant homosexual" meme with his reference to how these "militant homosexual groups" protested and launched boycotts after the lesbian couple went to the press. And OMG "to make matters worse, the state of Oregon "has launched a formal discrimination investigation against the Christian family" which Toddles is having none of because this means that "Christians who live and work in Oregon must follow man’s law instead of God’s law." (Hey Toddles, this is a secular democratic republic and not a theocracy.)
The article is a full out validation of the baker's (and Todd's) belief that forcing business to follow non-discrimination law is a violation of religious freedom. As Toddles says, "gay rights trump religious rights." In addition to the Oregon bakery, Starnes lists other persecuted business owners who are being investigated for similar instances of anti-gay discrimination. Starnes notes that the business will continue out of the baker's home. But what Starnes doesn't mention is that when the controversy erupted, business surged and that the owner had to hire new people to keep up the demand. (Christians, like Toddles, do love their sweeties) According to the owner, after the initial publicity, the bakery’s phone "was ringing off the hook." So one expects that they will continue to have a following.
I guess that despite Starnes' patriotism, he doesn't believe that Christians should be obligated to follow laws like "the Oregon Equality Act of 2007, which states that people cannot be denied service based on sexual orientation." But then Starnes is from a region of the country which, until the 1964 Civil Rights law, had no problem denying service to folks based on their color. I wonder if Toddles' family believed, as did so many Southern Christians, that anti-miscegenation laws were fine because the bible preached against racially mixed marriages. The bible is also OK with slavery.
But Starnes claims that this case exposes the "true nature" and intolerance of "the left." But what it's really exposing is Toddles' homophobia and contempt for the law. It also exposes Starnes' hypocrisy in that, as pointed out by "Equality Matters," Starnes didn't seem to care about the impact of his personal boycott of a barbecue restaurant that refused to continue allowing a Christian Church to use its facilities after a pastor preached against gays.
Poor Toddles.