Facebook members can say virtually anything about Christians who uphold a male-female foundation for sexual ethics. But I can’t share my religious perspective.
By Robert Gagnon
July 3, 2018
Facebook has become one of the great censors of our day. Rather than provide a forum in which people can express their own views freely on controversial issues (controversial, that is, from a left-wing perspective), Facebook administrators have seen fit to selectively impose their radical sexual ethics on users of their social media site.
On June 14 at 1:09 PM I learned that Facebook blocked me for 24 hours because of my alleged “hate speech.” They made my post visible only to my eyes and fixed things so that I could not post or comment on my own FB page or even send communications through private FB messaging. I was directed to the “community standards” that prohibited “a direct attack on people based on what we call protected characteristics — . . . sexual orientation . . . gender identity.”
They said: “If you request a review, someone from our review team will take another look at the post.” There was a little dot to click but no place to make my case, just as there was no specific explanation for why my remarks were being treated as “hate speech.” I clicked the dot and was informed, “Someone will be taking another look at this video.”
I found out that the next time I am blocked it will be for three days; after that, 30 days; with the eventual threat of disabling my Facebook account entirely. What heinous act of “hate speech” did I commit?
I had responded to this perverse video from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation from the program “CBC Life.” In it Canadian television personality Jessi Cruikshank sits at a table with a garland of rainbow balloons, providing lead-in questions to two girls and two boys, who seem to be ages five to eight. The purpose of the video is simple: to proselytize for support of “Gay Pride Month.”
It’s Awesome to Talk to Other People’s Kids about Sex?
Cruikshank started by proclaiming, “Happy pride, everybody!” and asked, “Who knows what ‘gay pride’ means?” After getting an answer she gushed with glee: “It’s a celebration of sexual diversity!” Then she enlisted them in the “LGBTQ” cause by telling them: “So I’m not gay, but I’m a gay ally.” As an authority figure, she coaxed them to join her, asking, “Are you gay allies?” Subtext: You better be, if you know what is good for you.
Not being entirely corrupted at such a tender age, one girl thought that Cruikshank was referring to the game of Hide and Go Seek (bless her innocent heart) when asked, “What does it mean to come out of the closet?” Cruikshank pressed on: “What do you think about gay marriage?” “Do you think it would be cool to have two moms?” “What would it be like to have two dads?” Cruikshank worked to foster a view of “advantages” to same-sex parents.
Cruikshank launched into a litany of “gay celebrities” or “gay icons,” most of whom the children did not know. When a girl asked who Jodie Foster is, Cruikshank outdid even herself: “Jody Foster is a woman and she made me question my sexuality when I was a child because I liked her so much. And she was nude in a film ‘Nell,’ not that I remember watching several times as a child.”
How creepy is that? One of the two little girls answered with an awkward “Wow,” accompanied by an eyeroll, as if to say, “I didn’t need to hear that.” She didn’t. Cruikshank then summed up for the children: “Remember: What are we to the gay community?” She was expecting to hear “gay allies,” but some in their confusion responded, “Gay icons.” To this Cruikshank added: “Everybody should grow up and aspire to be a gay icon.”
Throughout the presentation, Cruikshank fulfilled the Orwellian role of reinforcing “correct” responses with: “Great answer!” “Makes sense.” “Right!” There was one and only one right response to the presentation: Complete, unequivocal agreement with “LGBTQ” ideology.
These young children had obviously been prepped in advance to affirm homosexual and transsexual behavior. Imagine what would have happened to young children who expressed a different view. Undoubtedly, they would have been shamed.
Children at this age are not obsessing about sexuality, nor should they. Yet the “LGBTQ” movement generally feels a need to have them obsess over such things because it is more important for them to win “converts” than to guard the hearts and minds of young children.
So Here’s the Post That Landed Me in Facebook Jail
My posting on this video was straightforward:
This clip is about celebrating sexual perversity, not ‘sexual diversity.’ Brought to you by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Canadian equivalent to our PBS, paid for by tax dollars. No indoctrination or recruitment going on here (or on PBS), right? Any resemblance to Orwell’s Big Brother (or Kim Jong-un) is purely coincidental? It is a measure of how corrupt things have become that this woman is not vilified throughout Canada and legislators are not threatening to remove funding from the CBC. By the end the woman is talking to little children about Jody Foster helping her to question her own sexuality as a child and about Foster’s nudity in a film.
I consider my post a reasonable response to corrupt indoctrination of children. It is certainly a stance in line with my religious beliefs. Associating “sexual perversity” with “sexual diversity” is consistent with the Christian stance on homosexual practice as “abhorrent” and intrinsically self-“dishonoring” activity (Leviticus 18:22; 20:13; Romans 1:24-27).
It was also consistent with Cruikshank’s efforts at both sexualizing the thoughts of young children and even hinting that they should question their own sexual identity. It was also consistent with Christian rejection of “pride” as a virtue.
Finally, my comments fit the fact that trumpeting “sexual diversity” emphasizes sexual differences, which for consistency’s sake would have to include (minimally) other sexually “diverse” behaviors, including adult-committed forms of polyamory and incest. If one is going to celebrate “sexual diversity,” there is no sense in limiting oneself to homosexual unions and transgenderism.
This is particularly so since the biblical prohibition of incest and the New Testament prohibition on polygamy can be derived from the definition of marriage as the union of two sexual complements. If one’s object is to celebrate “sexual diversity,” then vive la difference!
Facebook Administrators Belatedly Acknowledge Error
Facebook violated its own community standards by attacking my “protected characteristic” of “religious affiliation”: treating a central belief and practice of historic Christian faith as “hate speech.” Facebook members can say virtually anything about Christians who uphold a male-female foundation for sexual ethics, without fear of “Facebook jail.” But I can’t do the same thing from my own religious perspective.
With only 22 minutes left on my FB sentence, on June 15 at 12:47 PM, I received another email from Facebook: “We’re sorry we got this wrong. We reviewed your video again and it does follow our Community Standards. We appreciate you taking the time to request a review. Your feedback helps us do better.”
I suspect my high visibility helped, as did the fact that friends with high visibility posted on Facebook about my ban. However, whether it is that, a product of targeted complaints by LGBTQ zealots, or biased algorithm, we must all band together when these things happen and give Facebook administrators all the bad press that they deserve. Inasmuch as Facebook administrators isolate and punish conservatives in darkness, their deeds need to be exposed to the light of public scrutiny.
My Story Is Not Isolated
Mine is by no means an isolated occurrence of Facebook allowing highly sexualized and politicized images and discussions to flourish when they support leftist ideology and disallowing them when they contradict leftist ideology, even if it means discriminating against religious beliefs. A number of Facebook friends have been victimized by the heavy left hand of Facebook censorship.
A West Virginia pastor, Rich Penkoski, has had his Warriors for Christ FB page (with its 225,000 followers) shut down for a year or so because he said, “If you are a homosexual, statistically speaking, you are more likely to be a pedophile” (go here, here, and here). He says he has been routinely harassed and threatened by LGBTQ activists on Facebook but FB administrators have done nothing.
On December 10, 2017 Brazilian blogger Julio Severo received a 30-day FB suspension for writing in Portuguese: “As Christians, we should love homosexuals, murderers, rapists, pedophiles and all the other sinners. Only Jesus’s love can do it in us.” According to Facebook administrators, this comment fell (absurdly) under one of the following forbidden categories: “offers of sexual services, solicitation of sexual materials, threats or depictions of sexual violence, threats to share intimate images or any sexual content involving minors.”
Kaeley Triller Haver received a seven-day suspension on her professional FB account for posting a picture of a synagogue restroom privacy sign.
In late April 2018, Peter Labarbera of Americans for Truth and a writer for the Christian Post received a 24-hour suspension for “hate speech” because he suggested that the expression “openly gay” be changed to “openly immoral,” in connection with Cynthia Nixon, a candidate for governor of New York who had called her lesbianism a choice (also linked to his Americans for Truth website).
When he next posted a picture of the suspension with a comment about its injustice, he was hit with a three-day suspension. Because I shared a picture of his first suspension on my personal FB page on April 27, I was given a warning and the post was removed.
On May 13, Jason Salamone received a 30-day suspension for “hate speech” because he disputed on Facebook the claim that a “nice person” who engages in homosexual behavior validates the behavior by virtue of being nice. His point was merely that “nice people can often do bad things.”
He added: “Did it ever occur to people that the reason why people caught up in homosexual practice seem very ‘cultured,’ articulate, artistic, meticulous, etc is that they are trying to overcompensate or ‘make up for’ the very unhealthy and unsanitary sex acts they engage in?”
Another FB friend, Jeanette Tyr Runyon, has received numerous suspensions. She received 30-day suspensions for a series of FB posts, including posting a picture with the words “Marriage =” and stick figures of a man and woman, and posting the words “Weston is a woman who thinks she is a man.” She notes that a FB comment on her site by a certain “Don Gardner” did not result in a suspension: “The sooner all you bigots are in concentration camps the sooner real Americans will be able to sleep Safely at night.”
Kaeley Triller Haver received a seven-day suspension on her professional FB account for posting a picture of a synagogue restroom privacy sign that read: “We sympathize with those experiencing a gender identity crisis. But please understand that in order to establish a safe environment in the synagogue in line with Torah values, only biological females (from birth) are permitted to use this restroom.”
Kaeley added the brief caption: “This should be interesting.” She also reports here on how Facebook administrators, in response to expletive-laden and threatening comments by trans-activists on her site devoted to the case against male access to female restrooms, did not think such vile comments violated FB “Community Standards.” Rather, FB administrators shut down her site when she compiled these comments to demonstrate how badly trans-activists behave.
Facebook Needs To Stop Censoring One Side
Facebook’s action against me was a shot across the bow. Because of oppression emanating from “LGBTQ” and “abortion rights” activists, the window of free speech on social media is closing fast. We must act while we still have a voice.
Last April Sen. Ted Cruz was right to point to “a pervasive pattern of bias and political censorship” on the part of Facebook censors. To this can be added a bias against Christian sexual ethics. It appears as if Facebook administrators have learned nothing since this Senate hearing.
As a dominant social media platform Facebook is becoming something like a public trust. Protections should be put in place guaranteeing free speech against one-sided, left-wing Facebook censorship. Alternatively, Christians should take their business elsewhere.
Robert A. J. Gagnon, PhD, is the author of "The Bible and Homosexual Practice" (Abingdon) and co-author of "Homosexuality and the Bible: Two Views" (Fortress). For 24 years he was a professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.
Photo Pxhere.com / CC0
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