Rod Dreher on Lavender Brownshirts on the March

He writes:

Understand what is happening here. This is a business owner who has served clientele, including gays, without incident for many years. She even gave money to gay charities. But she is a Mormon, and her religious commitment leads her to support traditional marriage. For that, she is treated like a criminal, and reduced to either renouncing her faith or possibly losing her business.

Is this really where gay activists want to take this country?

Because I assure you, if you put people in the position of this Mormon restaurant owner, and the Mormon theatrical director who just resigned under pressure for defending the idea that marriage should be between one man and one woman, you are summoning up demons that you will not be able to control.

What if traditionalist/conservative Christians began to harrass people who gave to the effort to defeat Prop 8 in a similar way, on the grounds that the anti-Prop 8 people supported a cause that would have taken away some of their religious freedom? What then? Would it be just to drive them out of business, or humiliate them into confessing their sin of having given money to a political cause out of conscience?

If a gay man who'd given money to fight Prop 8 were hounded out of his job by Christian protesters, I'd send him money to help him pay rent until he got on his feet again. I would have voted for Prop 8, but I don't see people who fought against it as bad people. I concede that same-sex marriage is enormously important to them. I regret that we can't all find some sort of live-and-let-live agreement here (I would have thought extending all the civil and legal benefits of marriage to them without calling it marriage would be an acceptable compromise, until the culture changes enough to reach a consensus on the acceptability of gay marriage, but obviously not). But for reasons of religious belief, and out of the conviction that religious liberty must be protected, I would have voted for Prop 8.

Meanwhile, the FBI is investigating possible hate crimes against Mormon temples.

And some gays are even employing the 'n' word to attack blacks who voted in favor of traditional marriage.

I am opposed to any group that uses thuggery to impose its views on others. In a pluralistic society we may have to put up with views we don't like and democratic decisions that go against our deeply-held beliefs. Like Ron, I would be appalled if Christian groups behaved like this and I would denounce them. I hope that the many freedom-of speech and democracy respecting gay activists I know will do the same and rein in these thugs that are doing terrible things for their cause.

Can't we all accord one another some respect and some civility as we go about trying to effect reform or change?