An op-ed appearing in the New York Times is calling for draconian new standards in the imposition of liberal ideologies by insisting that major credit card companies stop saying they stand for equality while processing payments made to "hate groups" such as pro-family centers and Christian groups.

Written by Jamie Chandler, a political scientist at Hunter College, and Palmer Gibbs, a Georgetown graduate student, the article calls upon American Express, Visa, MasterCard and Discover to stop processing donations to "hate groups" such as those listed by the controversial Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) - which is notorious for including Christian churches and pro-family organizations on the same list as Al-Qaeda and the KKK.

The authors fault these credit card companies for claiming to be diversity-sensitive while profiting from groups that "assert gays are pedophiles, that Arab-Americans want to subjugate the country to Shariah law and that immigrants are mounting hostile invasions of the U.S."

The authors proceed to give two examples of the hate groups who shouldn't be allowed to receive credit card donations.

"A $250 donation to the Family Research Council – an extremist group that vehemently opposes the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and asserts that homosexuality is the same as pedophilia – earns the credit card company about $7.50," they complain.

"A visit to the Web site of the International Conspiratological Association – a white supremacist group that denies the Holocaust – reveals credit card logos directly above a graphic reading 'White Pride World Wide.' This brand identifier communicates tacit approval of the association’s mission, and signifies its membership in a community of millions of retailers and cardholders."

How any reasonable adult could compare the Family Research Council to the International Conspiratological Association is beyond me. It's like comparing the Boy Scouts to the Gestapo.

They go on to say that by providing merchant services to these and other "hate groups", the companies are contradicting their stated values.

"They cannot encourage diversity only when there is an award to be won. They must live and breathe it every day," the authors say, apparently oblivious to the fact that they are now dictating the terms of operation to American companies who are operating in a free society.

And lest we accuse them of censoring our free speech, the authors go on to create a new "privilege" known as "credit card donations" so they can impose their version of how this "privilege" should be used.

"Stopping these services is not a matter of violating hate groups’ civil liberties, or limiting their right to raise money," the authors insist. "They are free to collect cash donations and spread their message. This is what’s guaranteed to them in the First Amendment. But unlike cash, the ability to accept credit card donations is a privilege. It comes with the expectation that the relationship will not denigrate the card companies' reputations."

If credit card companies are willing to accept payments for porn - which certainly denigrates their reputation - I hardly think they're going to stop accepting payments for organizations that support traditional marriage. This is how it works in the free world which is why the only place on earth where the authors' extreme regulations could possibly fly is in a third world dictatorship.

While reading this article, I couldn't help but notice how out-of-control liberal extremists are becoming in this country. They are resorting more and more often to bullying people into silence rather than to honest dialogue, to name-calling rather than debate, to imposing rather than proposing.

We can't oppose same-sex marriage without being a homophobe. We can't oppose President Obama's policies without  being a "racist". We can't oppose abortion and contraception without being "anti-woman."  We can't disagree with ObamaCare without "wanting to strip 30 million people of their health care."

It's pretty clear who's carrying things to the extreme here - and it isn't the so-called "haters".

The only way to put a stop to the flagrant viewpoint discrimination that is tearing this country apart is to stop playing along with the phony "tolerance" and "diversity" movements of our day and expose the hatred that is fueling these movements in the United States.

The melting pot that is America can only survive with authentic "tolerance," which is the antithesis of hatred, and was the kind taught so simply and so perfectly by Jesus Christ - love thy neighbor as thyself.

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