I was kind of intrigued by last week’s Buzzfeed article, attempting to whip up the internet mob for the purpose of going after Chip and Joanna Gaines, who have a hugely popular home renovation show on the HGTV channel, and cannily have never said a word on the show regarding their more or less mainstream Christian beliefs, or their attendance at a mega-church where the pastor apparently is on the record as having expressed disapproval of the concept of the institution of formal marriage being anything other than that of a man and a woman. (Note: I’ve never watched the show myself, although my daughter has. Blondie avers that Joanna Gaines is a one-note designer; her thing is shabby chic. All to the good, since that is my own preference, well-mixed with Laura Ashley comfortable country antique seasoned with a splash of William Morris/Craftsman. And … well, most people have items of décor and large furniture of which they are fond … who the heck clears the deck and redecorates every year or so, in response to the fashion of the moment? Only the very wealthy and socially insecure, I surmise.)

More power to them – the Gainses and their redecorating business; not the internet lynch mob, always ready to be whipped up to a fine frothing frenzy. Really, this early 21st century is increasingly resembling the 16th, in the ruthless search for the ritual burning at stake by officials or by the annoyingly self-appointed for individuals who refuse to give lip-service to the prevailing social/political orthodoxies. One would go mad, trying to keep track of them. What was a conventional, blandly conformist stance yesterday or the day before appears as high crime in the eyes of the self-anointed Social Savonarolas. Believing and saying that all lives matter, that actual, official-type marriage is a one man/one woman arrangement, and that one ought to be able to choose a neighborhood to live in according to what one could afford and among a racial/social/economic demographic with which one was comfortable … apparently, all those assumptions are now the worst kind of badthink, egregious hate-crime, the worst-evah! What is an ordinary, conventional-thinking person to do, now?

It is something of a reassurance, seeing that the 21st century Social Savonarolas appear to suffer from having their torches dialed down a bit of late. The scheduled ritual burning-at-stake for the Gainses has been derailed by HGTV recalling which side their bread is buttered upon, and the Gainses themselves going tactfully above the fray by being all high-minded and decently ignoring the ruckus below them. The threatened Chick-Fil-A boycott four years ago – derailed by an outpouring of support for the company and long lines at every Chick-Fil-A outlet in the country – may have been a harbinger, an early warning of how exactly how sick and fed-up ordinary people were of being hectored, lectured, battered and ostentatiously boycotted by the Social Savonarolas. The designated targets may also have gotten a lot less inclined to roll over and apologize for these their offenses, likely having noticed that making any gesture of apology or explanation just encourages the Social Savonarolas – and that the best response is either to ignore as Chip and Joanna Gaines did, or tell them to FOAD.
Is the Social Savonarola’s Heretic-Lynching card now overdrawn? Discuss.