A few days ago, we came home to discover we had been visited by a special agent of the FBI. He left his card. I called him and left a message. We assumed it was related to a background check on one of our friends up for a job in the federal government.

It wasn’t that at all. When he called me back a few days later, he wanted to know about a Twitter exchange I had with the anti-Christian Human Rights Campaign. It should be noted that this group has been designated a hate group by the American Family Association for their attacks on Christians who stand up for traditional sexual morality.

The Human Rights Campaign was running a campaign on Twitter “asking” businesses to affix the gay rainbow somewhere visible in their business. This would ideally, for them, be attached to the front of the store.

I replied, “That’s a nice business. Too bad if something happened to it.”

The FBI told me they had gotten a civil rights complaint from the Human Rights Campaign. He said, please know, we are not opening up an investigation, but we are required by law to follow up.

“So, what did you mean by that?,” he asked.

I told him it was a reference to the mafia shaking down businesses for protection. Of course, he knew that. He chuckled when I told him. You could tell he was rather embarrassed at having to ask. He could not have been nicer. He said, without further questions, “I thought so.” He said, “no problem” and rung off.

The HRC’s ‘Swatting’

What HRC did is akin to “swatting,” the terrifying harassment tactic of deceiving law enforcement into sending a large number of armed officers to someone’s address when there is no such emergency.

What HRC did was waste the time of the FBI over something they knew had no basis in fact. The FBI is stretched remarkably thin working on issues of authentic crime. HRC caused an FBI agent to stop what he was doing, get in his car, and drive to our house.

What HRC did is akin to filing a false police report.

Conform or Suffer

HRC “asking” businesses to put up the gay rainbow to show their support for the gay cause is akin to a mafia shakedown. It works like this: A local restaurant is owned by a faithful Catholic who objects to the gay agenda. He does not want to put up the gay rainbow. He finds it offensive. So, he doesn’t put it up. Gays notice he doesn’t have the gay rainbow affixed to his window. “Why don’t you have the rainbow on your window?,” they ask. “Are you homophobic? Do you really want the local community to know about you?” You can see it spooling out from there. He is targeted by the local bully boys who proceed to make his life miserable, perhaps harming and even shuttering his business.

That’s what this anti-Christian hate group is doing. Intimidating businesses into accepting their propaganda and employing federal agents to harass their critics.

A friend of mine used to have one of the top jobs at Time-Warner. One day a young man came by and said human resources had given him approval to ask employees if they would put up the gay rainbow in their offices. My friend declined and that was the end of it. But that was a decade ago. Today, his refusal would be noted, and trouble would follow. Today he would likely put the gay rainbow up and simply grit his teeth.

A few years ago, top employees at JP Morgan Chase, one of the biggest banks in the world, got in touch with me with a story about a global employee survey that asked various questions including, “Are you LGBT or are you an ally.” Note that the employees had to have their names affixed to their answers. These employees were frightened that if they did not answer correctly, if they simply did not answer, they could be in trouble, a black mark across their name, perhaps reeducation, perhaps that expected promotion never to materialize.

Soviet Tactics

In his book The Power of the Powerless, Václav Havel writes about something similar in Soviet dominated Czechoslovakia. Businesses were asked to put up pro-Soviet posters in the windows of their shops. Most of them knew the punishment that would come if they didn’t. So most of them put up the posters simply to avoid trouble.

That’s what this anti-Christian hate group is doing. Intimidating businesses into accepting their propaganda and employing federal agents to harass their critics.

As is often said these days, this will not end well.