Recently a petition bearing 110,000 signatures was delivered to the Washington Post demanding a ban on any article that questions global warming. Public pressure to limit debate on global warming is an attack on the freedom of the press through “ideological agitation.”
The new phase of intolerance, which banishes all opposition from public discourse, is the new thought police. Stopping debate all together is called totalitarian. And there are plenty of groups these days whose definition of political correctness is just that – totalitarian, visiting serious consequences on those who refuse to be silenced.
Another example of the intentions of the dictatorial thought police is gay marriage. Just as the science of global warming is allegedly settled, so also “are the moral and philosophical merits of gay marriage.” To oppose it is treated as racism and bigotry. Opponents are marginalized and shunned, and in some cases destroyed personally and professionally like the CEO of Mozilla, who resigned after it was discloses that six years earlier he made a relatively small donation ($1000) in support of California’s Proposition 8, that defined marriage as between one man and one woman. The measure passed by half a million votes (more than 6 million people voting for Prop 8).
Advocates of gay marriage have no tolerance (the very thing they demanded for themselves a few years ago) for opposition, even if it is minor. To them the gay marriage issue is closed and they want an ideological totalitarian clamp put on free speech.
And then there is the so-called “war on women,” designed to impugn motives of sexism on anyone who opposes free contraception for all in the Obamacare mandate. Never mind if you have religious convictions. Women’s “reproductive health,” as it is euphemistically called takes a much higher precedence on any moral, ethical or religious objections that might be raised. All opponents are made out to be victimizers of women and are accused of denying women “access to contraception.”
In the days of Lot the men of Sodom who gathered around Lot’s house were just as demanding and forceful as their modern counterparts today. Lot was threatened when he tried to suggest that what these men wanted was a moral wrong.
Likewise also, as it was in the days of Lot… Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.” Luke 17:28, 30
Freedom of speech, and even freedom of thought, which are protected by the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution, is under assault from multiple sources. If freedom of speech is undermined, so will every other freedom.