In punishment for their adherence to their religious conscience and for causing offense to the hatred-filled bigots of the gay left, SunTrust bank abruptly severed its business relationship with the Benham Brothers.
SunTrust Banks is cutting ties with would-be reality stars David and Jason Benham after liberal activists attacked them for their conservative views on abortion and gay marriage, The Daily Caller has learned.
In a statement provided first to TheDC on Friday, the Benham brothers confirmed that SunTrust Banks has pulled all of its listed properties with the Benham brothers’ bank-owned property business, which includes several franchisees across four states.
The move comes just a week after HGTV announced it was canceling a planned home renovation show hosted by the brothers.
“If our faith costs us our HGTV show and our business, then so be it,” said Jason Benham on Friday.
As the Washington Post’s Johnathan Capehart says, there is no requirement for the progressive left to be tolerant of the Christian Right; who must be re-educated so that their views conform.
[T]olerance, no, is not – it should not be a two-way street. It’s a one-way street. You cannot say to someone that who you are is wrong, an abomination, is horrible, get a room, and all of those other things that people said about Michael Sam, and not be forced — not forced, but not be made to understand that what you’re saying and what you’re doing is wrong.
Update: SunTrust Bank may be backing down. Not because of tolerance for liberty or freedom of conscience; but because someone figured out that Christian-Bashing isn’t a good PR strategy for a bank located in the South.
As a banker, in a former incarnation, I had to deal with this SunTrust Bank, briefly. They’re not the norm. It’s a pathetic company, not representative of the industry. Every company has its “culture” that defines it & they’re way off, in many ways. Who knows what their reasoning is based on. It may be simple pc intolerance or some sort of deep southern sensibility that’s warped into something ridiculous.
Frankly, this kind of bullshit flies only in America. Regardless of the fascism of PC correctness in several countries of Europe, at least we do not get to bow down to this mafia level. Maybe because to some degrees we have experienced Nazi-fascism recently and it is not an abstract term for us.
I have seen the ‘gay kiss’ of 2 soccer players and I was relieved that according to press, twitter exploded from disgust and scorn and nobody was sent to re-education camps, very unlike the fawning and vapid adulation on the other side of the atlantic.
Maybe there is still hope for some modicum of common sense. Some countries will soon be ruled by portions of sharia law. It is going to be fun watching gay marriage becoming a silly footnote in history of the Netherlands or Norway.
owever, they gay left is now saying that boycotting the Beverly Hills hotel owned by a Sultan who instituted Sharia Law which will call for gay people to be killed is not the answer. The solution is talk. Yup… No bias against Christians.
I couldn’t care any less what the Benham brothers believe or say… and I resent the cultural Marxist who demand that I do.
The leftists are everything they claim the right is: intolerant, rigid, closed-minded, anti-science, anti-free speech, authoritarian… you name it.
@ Susan Norway is starting to wake up to the gang rape of its children due to the Islamic principles of al-hijra, & diminitude. Once the pain muslims inflict overrides the PC programing you will see things like the you tube video “one golden dawn vs 30 anarchists” the guy makes “Epic Beard Man” look like a lightweight. The news about all rapes in Oslo Norway for the last 5 years have been committed by non Europeans got attention as well.
The recent Boko non-muslim child sex slavery is bringing al-hijra into the light and will help rid the west of sharia. Muslim crimes against gays are still getting ignored by the gay left.
So where are the lefties who previously claimed businesses were “public accommodations” that had to serve all customers?
Looks like SunTrust has done an abrupt “about face”.
I wonder why?
So SunTrust has clarified its short circuit and decided to erase the immediate past.
They carefully avoid explaining how the third party of the second part misapprehended the inference of the first party while the fifth party was privy to the mood ring emanations of the party of the inbeween part. The good new is that we can all move along as there is nothing to see here.
Along with Groucho, I wouldn’t bank with a bank that would accept the likes of me.
See, to the left, you’re not just holding a different opinion, you are WRONG!! AND EVERYTHING WRONG MUST BE CORRECTED!! BECAUSE WE ARE RIGHT AND GOOD AND TRUE AND YOU MUST FOLLOW!! ALL HAIL BIG BROTHER!!
Why did SunTrust reverse it’s position?
Very simple. Banking laws forbid discrimination on the basis of religion. And someone called them on it, and if they had continued the lawsuit would have drained them dry.
Sun Trust reversed its decision. Yay, but that’s not good enough. It’s time to start hurting those entities that spinelessly bow down to the leftist bullies, gay and straight, or that freely adhere to and promote progressivism. It’s time to start fighting the leftists the way they fight us. No, that’s not a very Christian attitude, but right now I’m feeling a bit o’ William Tecumseh Sherman: Live by the New Testament but fight by the Old.
While I have expressed pro-libertarian sentiments in the past, the increased zealotry of the Left has turned me away from libertarianism, which, being an encapsulation of the phrase “Live and let live,” can only be followed by men in peacetime. But I don’t think I’m a conservative, either. At it’s true essence, “conservatism” means an attempt to conserve the status quo. To be a “pure conservative” means to dedicate oneself to the preservation of the status quo, and then the enshrinement of any change that occurs, repeated ad infinitum. It’s like being a parachute on a race car: you may slow the car down, but you will never stop it if the car doesn’t help you.
If you really like a status quo, and want to see its return after it is changed, you have to stop protecting the new status quo and work to undo it. In other words, you need to become a reactionary in the original sense. It’s not enough to simply resist the Left, you need to actively work against them. Too bad that too many Republicans who call themselves “conservative” are a-ok with the Progressives’ agenda.
Live and let live never applied to those who kept trying to stab you in the back. If conservatives win the white house in 2016 they need to go after the big leftist donors with the IRS since the leftists only condone crime against their enemies but expect no retribution.
I don’t see any problem with it.
I thought God wanted us to fight against anything that is bad, wrong or evil.
If that’s true, then it is a Christian attitude.
According to “The Daily Caller” they have reinstated the Brothers citing some nonsense after they were inundated by Conservative callers/writers etc.
I’d have slightly more respect for SunTrust had they made a decision and stuck to it. I believe a private business has a right to discriminate for any reason. I don’t have to bank with them and never would. Now they’ve pissed off the left as well as the right and I hope they fail epically, although I’m sure they’ll tell leftists that they tried to discriminate in their favor but couldn’t legally do so. Perhaps they think they’ll attract more like-minded customers than they’ll alienate. It could be that Corporate made an announcement prior to consulting Legal. What a mess.
SunTrust is welcome to have a whole list of social actions it opposes. That includes singling out Mormons, Southern Baptists and Scientologists.
When, however, their customer base questions their banking decisions based on their social agenda, it is also fine for the customer base to fire their bank.
I would prefer that SunTrust openly and proudly post the list of what offends their corporate sensibilities. If they don’t want to provide savings accounts to lesbians, fine. Just stand up and announce it.
What frosts me about the Benham is that SunTrust is not big enough in its piety dance to list what about the Benham’s they take as offensive.
Would, for instance, SunTrust have the courage of their public image convictions to tell the Benham’s what political correctness corrections they must make in order to be in good stead with SunTrust?
Years ago I regularly passed a fish house on a major highway that had a huge sign saying that n*ggers, sp*cks, and J*ws were not welcome. They stayed open for a very long time. Maybe we need to go back the good old days when shunning and open discrimination was more manly.
@ Seane-Anna: I hate it that so many people have erroneously interpreted Jesus’ teachings to boil down to “Be a doormat.” His teachings about giving your shirt, going two miles, and turning the cheek were all creative forms of civil disobedience that helped people to assert their rights and their dignity without resorting to violence. There’s more than one way to fight for your rights, and Jesus knew that.
Jesus also chased the money lenders and salesmen outnofnthe temple.
Pretty sure this is wedding cakes and floral arrangements in the reverse.
If a Christian has to bake a wedding cake a bank has to keep its contracts.
The liberal left isn’t content anymore to get “rights” now they want to take them away from those who dare disagree with them. I am extremely uncomfortable with the move to take people’s businesses and jobs.
Sean, a true Libertarian is willing to fight for liberty, not just sing Kumbaya and hope everyone joins in.
When liberty is taken away, a Libertarian fights to get it restored.
Which means that a true Libertarian would want government as small as possible, the same goal that true Conservatives want.
Kc Rob:
You are generally correct, but the Christian fundies are anti science too. They don’t believe in evolution and adhere to the ridiculous notion that the earth is 6K years old.
@ davinci: But my Bible says seven days! It has to be true, or my whole faith is going to collapse!
Young Earth-ism is a particularly obnoxious side-effect of the modern “Interpret-it-yourself” brand of Protestantism. Self-interpretation is so counterproductive because it often comes without the benefit of cultural context, original documents, or comparison with others’ research. The Catholic Church has done some pretty exhaustive research into the original sources, but many people don’t have access to that kind of information, or reject the Catholics’ work due to lingering theological animosity.
Plus, you have to make some pretty convoluted leaps of logic justify Young Earth creationism. I once had a debate with a creationist and beat him at every turn. When I had exhausted his talking points, he changed tactics and said that fossils and such are just God’s way of tricking stupid non-believers, and he would never let a “true believer” fall for “His deceptions.” God apparently makes up the numbers scientific instruments to punish people who don’t believe His Bible.
How egotistical does somebody have to be to think that God is actively screwing over everybody in the world but you?
Yes Sean
http://i1124.photobucket.com/albums/l569/rusty98119/IMG_37200282346142_zps3xipar1c.jpeg
@rusty :
“My dear, homosexuality is like a penis.
It’s a perfectly fine thing for one to be and take pride in, but when one takes it out and waves it in my face we have a problem.”
I assume you would find this statement to be offensive.
God said, “Let there be light”.
The largest light event ever “seen” was the big bang.. ummm…
@ TnnsNe1: I’m not saying that the Bible is completely wrong. I was raised Catholic, so I was taught that even the parts of the Bible that are “mythical” have an element of truth to them. Even if we believe that the Genesis story was told or shown to Moses by God, I think it’s likely that God would’ve shown Moses a condensed version of history to get to the relevant parts, i.e. where humans come in. Either way, the first thing Moses would’ve seen was a big explosion. Sudden light in darkness.
I can’t help but wonder if the atheist scientists who deny religion so stridently do so because they can’t bear the implications of the existence of a God.
Shrill atheism implies belief.
Physicists have labeled the “unknown force” of the universe “The God Particle”.
What’s even more obnoxious is when this “Jesus would tell the Benham brothers Get ye behind me, Satans!!” pleading comes from non-Christians who think that Jesus was “just another Scripture-thumping hack from Galilee.”
If Jesus has no authority on the matter of who gets into heaven, where does his authority to speak about homosexuality come from?
In short, the Benham-brothers controversy should properly be regarded as an internal dispute for Christians who share the Benhams’ basic theological premises.
“It’s time to start fighting the leftists the way they fight us. No, that’s not a very Christian attitude…”
I’m fond of “he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one” even if the context is wrong.
KCRob, I agree with this completely.
Sean L, if you find your politics are between libertarian and conservative, you may actually be a “classical liberal”.
pst314, I was thinking of that verse, I’m glad you posted it.