A good description of the former Soviet Union and the current United States of America.

Homosexualists are shock troops used by the elite to shut up Christians right now. It used to be “you are all Tories” or “You are all racists”. (except in the Former NSDAP, when it was “you do not work to meet the needs of the people”). Now it is homphobia.

Meh.

We have to deal with the issues we have now. And if that means that we offend people who beat up those they disagree with, such as the radicals who threatened to kill the leaders of the Avondale Mosque, well we stand with those who are trying to do good, and against overt evil.

Regardless of what we are called.

I also want regulations on hours, robust apprenticeships and unions, and charities that provide for the poor, injured and indigent. I would like a safety net with conditions. We had all of those things in NZ by the late 1880s.

I come from the English Presbyterian Tradition, and we were called nonconformists: one reason why we emigrated to the USA and the Antipodes.

I live in NZ: and I note the problems that occur here. On the issue of homosexuality &c I took the example from the previous day. You want more?

Easy.

Stonestreet goes on to list high profile figures who have been on the receiving end of “smash-mouth, brass-knuckle treatment” over their support for traditional marriage. They include Mozilla founder Brendan Eich who resigned following a backlash over his support for Prop 8; Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson who was suspended from his own reality show after criticising homosexuality; the Benham brothers dropped by the Home and Garden TV network after reports of their conservative Christian values emerged; and Miami Dolphins player Don Jones who was suspended and sent on sensitivity training after tweeting “horrible” in response to images on the TV of gay St Louis Rams player Michael Sam kissing his boyfriend.

“Apparently one cannot even host a home improvement show if one does not also parrot the new sexual orthodoxy,” Stonestreet wrote.

He continued: “Sensitivity training? Re-education? What is this, Communist China?” continued Stonestreet.

“In every case, the message to those who disagree with all this sexual ‘tolerance’ is clear: If you want to keep your job, shut up.

“Apparently the sexual left cannot tolerate even the slightest dissent.”

I say again, there is nothing new under the sun. The current orthodoxy you chafe against so much is a much milder and less vicious one than the orthodoxies of the past. You don’t like homosexuality being normalised? You think it’s bad that there is pushback against people who think homosexuality is bad? Probably there is and, as always, it goes too far. But those poor persecuted people can start a blog, or write a book. In the not so distant past, homosexuals were beaten, killed and imprisoned. In Uganda, they still are, with the full blessing of the Church. I bet they’d much rather suffer the mild version of persecution that you are railing against.

Your choice of Tudor England is apt. That was real persecution – burnings, hangings, maimings, torture, exile. If you think God would be just to destroy the wickedness of the Western world as it is now, I take it you believe that speaking out for homosexuals and for feminist women who (shock! horror!) get fat, is a far graver sin in His eyes than the horrors of religious persecution in the past, or as it plays out in non-Western countries today.