Anita Bryant was canceled by both the left and the right in America

The liberal consensus in 1964 was that atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair was the most hated woman in America. By 1980 Anita Bryant came in a close second.

The gay mafia canceled Anita Bryant for the obvious reasons, and the business and entertainment industries canceled her because politicization of such a toxic issue was universally deemed bad for the bottom line, but the evangelical right canceled her for divorcing her husband, leaving the once very popular singer and entertainer with no way to attract a crowd and make a buck.

“I don’t regret it, because I did the right thing,” she said in a 1990 interview. “Sometimes you have to pay a price for what you believe is right.”

She was a three-time Grammy nominee. LBJ absolutely loved her. Bob Hope entertained the troops in Vietnam and elsewhere with her for seven consecutive years. She was the face for many years of Florida orange juice, and of the Orange Bowl Parade, among other gigs.

She passed away from cancer in December, but the family did not announce her death until January 9th.

 

Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.  

-- Leviticus 18:22

If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them. 

-- Leviticus 20:13 

And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery.

-- Mark 10:12

 

The urge to cancel others is natural, a feature of mingled human nature, good and ill together

 Begone, or else let me. 'Tis bane to draw

The same air with thee.

 

-- Ben Jonson

Cancel culture isn't so different from religion in that, sometimes, religion also offers no chance of reconciliation

 Cancel culture looks a lot like old-fashioned church discipline  

The story is good, as far as it goes, and makes many useful points. At the end the author discusses an interesting religious example of reconciliation where mutual listening and reconciliation occurs, but stops short of providing a secular example of same. 

Admittedly, it is difficult to think of any in these polarized times.

An astute commenter grasps the salient points:

The key difference is Southern Baptists only disciplined members…free to leave and join rest of society if you want…today’s cancel culture cancels you from society as a whole, not a small group which you are free to leave if you like. 

Exactly.

The true analogy from the secular side is e.g. to Greek ostracism and exile. But even there exile was temporary by law and carried no stigma on expiry, and required a significantly sized quorum to be legal.

Some Biblical examples seem downright Draconian by contrast:

And the LORD said unto Cain ... a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.
 

-- Genesis 4:9ff.

Offenders against the Holy Ghost are irredeemable:

Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men.

-- Matthew 12:31

For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.

-- Hebrews 6:4ff.

Paul, on the other hand, is all about reconciliation:

Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.

-- Galatians 6:1

But he recognizes that this is more of a vertical business than a horizontal one, dependent as it is on the divine action in Christ, not human initiative:

To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. 

-- II Corinthians 5:19

And then we have Matthew's Jesus swinging back in the other direction again. Jesus is more sanguine about the appropriateness, necessity, and efficacy of human action in reconciliation than Paul is:

Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.

-- Matthew 5:24

And why is that?

Because Jesus isn't planning on dying for anyone's sins, let alone rising from the dead. He's planning, instead, on the imminent end of everything and God's final judgment, and it's up to his hearers to repent.

The cancel culture warriors probably have more in common with this flinty Jesus than we'd like to admit, and are about as unpopular.

Today's cancel culture is the very enemy of the Christian culture: "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors"

Thou, whom avenging pow'rs obey,

Cancel my debt, too great to pay,

Before the sad accounting day.

-- Roscommon

And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. ... But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. 

-- Matthew 6:12, 15

Famous (((atheist))) cancels event due to act of G-d