‘Persecution’ of US Christians worsening

‘The left and militant gay movement are getting bolder and bolder, and too many Christians are stewing in their apathy.’

So saith David Limbaugh, brother of the ghastly hatemonger Rush Limbaugh. He is currently flogging a book, Jesus on Trial: A Lawyer Affirms the Truth of the Gospel.
In an op-ed in the Washington Examiner  – “Criminalizing Innocent Christian Behavior” –  David Limbaugh sprang to the defence of a pair of Idaho bigots, Donald and Evelyn Knapp, pictured above, who operate a marriage mill in Idaho that excludes gay couples.
According to a lawsuit filed last Friday by the Knapps, the city of Coeur d’Alene is “unconstitutionally coercing” them to perform gay weddings at their Hitching Post Wedding Chapel “in violation of their religious beliefs, their ordination vows and their consciences”. Trumpeted David Limbaugh:

Increasingly in our society, the sacred and not-so-sacred beliefs of everyone but Christians are protected while Christians are deemed intolerant pariahs who must be forced to conform to behavior repugnant to their beliefs.
Notice who the aggressors are here. Notice who is being intolerant. Why can’t same-sex couples who want to marry under the newly minted law [in Idaho] find ministers who have no objection to the procedure? Are they seeking the vindication of their rights or trying to force their beliefs on other people to the point of compelling them to deny their own?

He added:

Do you remember when many of us warned that the same-sex marriage movement wasn’t just about living and letting live, that it would inevitably encroach on the religious liberties of Christians and others who don’t agree with this newly created institution? We also warned that this would involve not just societal pressure but the power of state coercion, and we’re already here.
The left’s denials that religious liberty was in jeopardy were as trustworthy as President Obama’s assurances that Obamacare would not violate the conscience rights of religious groups — which is to say, not at all.
The sheer acceleration of the left’s militancy should horrify people. Just last week, these actions seemed like a realistic but distant threat, but today they’re already happening.
Many of us keep warning our fellow Christians (and other freedom lovers) that their apathy and refusal to fight for their rights in the public square is going to bite them where it hurts. Could it be that this, along with other disturbing developments around the country, will wake them up? We shall see.

Enter Samuel Rodriguez, President of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. Yesterday he  was a guest on James Robison’s “Life Today” programme where he called upon Christians to vote according to “what the Word of God says” because there is a movement at work that seeks:

To silence Christians in America.

Samuel Rodriguez

Rodriguez warned that Christians cannot afford to sit out this election because “today’s complacency is tomorrow’s captivity” and just as Christians in other countries are being killed by terrorists, so too are Christians in America being silenced by those who promote:

Moral relativism and cultural decadence. There is an attempt, believe it or not, to silence Christians in America. There is a war against our Judeo-Christian value system … we speak against terrorist groups that are doing so many horrific things to our brothers and sisters in Christ and other religious minorities around the world but in our own nation, from a political standpoint, from a legislative standpoint or a public policy standpoint there is an attempt to silence Christendom. There is an attempt!

Incidentally, earlier this month Rodriquez travelled to the the Bahamas with a clot of anti-gay Christian activists to condemn a gay pride event there. The celebration, at a private resort, was cut short in response to a backlash that reportedly included death threats and vitriol on local talk shows.
Among those who slammed the pride event and the LGBT movement in general was Dr Myles Munroe, who heads Bahamas Faith Ministries International. He put out a six-page statement attacking the LGBT rights movement and saying it had “hijacked” and “raped” the civil rights movement. He called the gay pride event:

A celebration of insanity. I think the attempt to equate the historical civil rights movement with the demands for the right to dignify, glorify and accept as normal the practice of a lifestyle that could render the human race, for which they sacrificed, extinct is illogical, dishonest, and is the abuse of the blood and imprisonment of many.
It’s a hijacking of the gains paid for by the blood of honorable men and women for an unnatural, human-destroying behavior.

The Ministry of Tourism and Manager for Religious Tourism celebrated the visit.  A Ministry of Tourism update in the Bahamas Weekly said that Grand Bahamas:

Remains the choice destination for repeat International religious events such as Dr Myles Munroe’s Global Leadership Summit and Angela Pipersburgh’s International Women’s Summit.