Thou shalt not let live

Heads LGBTs win, tails Christians lose:

Let’s understand what happened here. This Christian jeweler agreed to custom-make engagement rings for a lesbian couple, knowing that they were a couple, and treated them politely. But when they found out what he really believed about same-sex marriage, even though the man gave them polite service, and agreed to sell them what they asked for, the lesbian couple balked, and demanded their money back — and the mob threatened the business if they didn’t yield. Which, of course, he did.

Now I am not going to say that we are witnessing the final days of the classic liberal social contract, because I've always believed that "live and let live" is an unworkable illusion. It's simply impossible to have a working social contract that does not exclude anyone. But it is certainly the case that, until now, "live and let live" has been the first and most important article of the unofficial creed of the Western society, a Utopian idea that everyone had to if not believe, then at least pay lip service to.

We're now in the process of stripping this idea of its divine status. Our friends the lesbian couple are so clearly uninterested in the whole "let live" part that they are basically flaunting their contempt for this notion, and the flaunting is met with nothing but cheers of approval. (Sure, there were some boos, but those were few and far between, and issued mostly by social outcasts with not much to lose.) This contempt also comes through loud and clear in oft-heard slogans like "I can tolerate anything but intolerance" or "There's no freedom of speech for hate speech".

Given that, I wonder what's coming next. What will the next first commandment be?

(HT: Lamentably Sane.)