From September 5, 2017
A store owner in Fungus, New Jersey, has been charged with a hate crime for refusing to sell liquor to a 12-year-old boy who self-identifies as an adult.
Rodney Gesundheit, proprietor of Rod’s Adult Beverages, was arrested by Fungus police after the child signed a complaint. The case has been referred to New Jersey’s Supreme Human Rights Thing, where Mr. Gesundheit is expected to be sentenced to 400 months of sensitivity training.
“Whatever you say you are, that’s what you are!” explained SHRT Commissioner Mordred Drivel. “Except if you self-identify as innocent, of course. We’ve learned the hard way not to get beat by that cop-out.”
Fungus Township Prosecutor Lucy Goosey said, “We had him coming and going. If he’d sold the liquor to a minor, we’d have prosecuted him for that!”
The sad thing is, this is probably closer to the truth than one might expect.
Here’s an odd item:
http://www.nowtheendbegins.com/vatican-exorcist-warns-illuminati-satanists-giving-catholic-filipinos-cursed-rosaries/
I saw that this morning, but whenever I see the word “Illuminati,” my eyes glaze over.
LOL. The rosary bit is just about too much.
Tad ridiculous given that as Lee said the entire use of beads is absolutely unbiblical. Moreover, demons tremble at the Name of Jesus Christ not ‘catholic’ exorcist ritual.
Amen, Ezekiel. I can’t find a single place in Scripture where we are exhorted to use beads to pray, and I’ve not found one telling us to pray to Mary for intercession either.
Now, now… Protestants have their own denominational customs that can’t be found in Scripture. So did the Jews of Jesus’ time. It seems we can’t help making things up and attaching them to our religion. Somewhere in my archives is an article about “Christian cage fighting.” You won’t find that in the Bible. In another church, somewhere out in the Heartland, the pastor rode a bucking bull as part of the service.
I confess I don’t understand praying to Mary or to saints. I’ve asked Catholic friends and family members about it, but never got an answer that enlightened me.
Not that I’m trying to wimp out on you, folks, but I don’t want to see Christians fighting Christians–not when the Lord has so richly endowed us with enemies “out there.”
I sure didn’t think anyone was fighting, Lee. I’m neither a Catholic, Protestant, Baptist, Evangelical, Fundamentalist (all titles with doctrine somehow attached) – I was raised Catholic, left the church a 18 when I left home, flailed around in the world for many years, and landed on my feet through grace alone as a Christian without denomination.
If my comment was somehow misunderstood, or mean-spirited, please accept my apology.
Jesus is Lord of all!
Sounds just like me, now.,
And idiocy marches on –
https://fellowshipoftheminds.com/2017/09/05/sacramento-plans-to-pay-gang-members-1-5m-for-advance-peace-program/
“We had him coming and going. If he’d sold the liquor to a minor, we’d have prosecuted him for that!”
It’s coming to this point quickly.
The Soviet Union modus operandi was to round up the usual suspects and then find the crime. At least for now, we have Jeff Sessions instead of Loretta Lynch.
The law is no better than its enforcement. Just last night, I saw a video about an excommunicated Amish family. The wife was treated like a criminal because the pleats on her dresses exceeded 1” wide. The bottom line was simply this; the family had started studying the Bible itself, instead of Ordung regulation, as set by local Amish leaders, and they were trying to intimidate this family back into submission. It didn’t work; instead the family chose to accept excommunication, bought a car, and a propane tank and decided to join society. They see it as a blessing, although they suffered the loss of family and lifelong friends.
When civil law follows the same sort of path, it can get very ugly, very fast. They can hound someone and find fault, pretty much at will, with disastrous results.
I had heard that once you were truly “shunned” by the Amish community, there was very little chance of getting back,
Probably so. If someone does manage to be accepted back, they essentially bear a “scarlet letter” for the rest of their lives. One point made in the video I watched was that this would follow them, no matter where they went in the Amish world. Even if they went to an Ordung where their actions would not be considered wrong, they would still be treated as outcasts.
No matter what, they would live under a cloud of suspicion. Intne case of the people in the video I saw last night, they were fine with how it all worked out. They felt that they were far better off, spiritually, and were willing to accept that they were cast out of their community. They didn’t plan on moving away, or changing much about their lives. It was unusual, because to our eye, they looked Amish, but in fact, they stood out ad being different, from the viewpoint of the Amish.
For example, the husband of the family was wearing a shirt that looked gray, to my eye, but there was a tinge of violet to the color of the fabric, and that would have been unacceptable to the Amish, not to mention the fact that he wasn’t using suspenders. Unimaginable to most of us, but that is the harsh reality of the Amish.
I should add that shunning works quite effectively, until it doesn’t. Here’s what I mean …
If someone is shunned, whether religiously, socially, or even professionally, the reactions to this will be individual. Some people will make private exceptions and there will be leaks. Eventually, it breaks down, because almost everyone enforces shunning in appearance only, but not in substance. Onec that happens, no one can afford to “rat out” someone else’s non compliance, for fear of being ratted out for their own non compliance, and the effect is weakened.
I see such shunning as a desperate measure to maintain control, but in our modern, connected world, it can’t work. The same publicity that seeks to expel and marginalize will also attract supporters who will bend the rules, and eventually the rules simply quit working.
In the case of the couple mentioned above, they lost their Amish customer base, literally, overnight, but they gained more support from the broader community. At least at the time of the video, spring of 2024, they felt like being shunned was a blessing.
Sometimes you must make your own decisions. Often, control of minor things is to accustom people to comply with control of major things.
Exactly. It starts with what seems to be a reasonable proposition, but progresses into something less than reasonable. Orwell’s Animal Farm started with the premise that all animals were equal, but they ended up at all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
Watching the video (linked below) it was amazing the degree to which the hierarchy of the church could twist things, and absolutely reverse the meaning of the very Bible they purport to believe in.
I will check this out.
It was eye opening, and it showed the danger of allowing anyone so much control.