It appears that Sauron is living in Toronto, where he eeks out a meager living as a jeweler. Making rings of power has always been his speciality, and imbuing them with subtle yet powerful evil is his passion.

So when a lesbian couple entered his store and ordered custom wedding rings, they had no idea they were dealing with the Lord of Darkness.

Nicole White and Pam Renouf liked dealing with Today’s Jewelers because the store custom-makes rings, CBC reported.

“They were great to work with. They seemed to have no issues. They knew the two of us were a same-sex couple,” White said. “I referred some of my friends to them, just because I did get some good customer service and they had good prices.” That was before one friend went in to purchase a ring for his girlfriend — and instead found a distressing sign.

Inscribed on the inside of the rings, they found text in the Black Speech of Mordor, roughly translated, “One Ring to rule them all, One ring to find them; One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.”

No, actually it was worse. The sign in Today’s Jewelers read “The sanctity of marriage is under attack. Let’s keep marriage between a man and a woman.”

“It was really upsetting. Really sad, because we already had money down on [the rings], and they’re displaying how much they are against gays, and how they think marriage should be between a man and a woman.”

So now they’ve demanded a refund from store owner Esau Jardon (née Sauron of Arda), because he’s somehow imbued the rings with his anti-gayness.

Jardon didn’t refuse to serve the lesbian couple. He didn’t refer them to another jewelry shop. He didn’t act horrified at their marriage plans. He gladly accepted their business. He was willing to make great rings for them.

But now, because he posted a sign in his shop, he’s evil and everything he makes must therefore be evil, and he’s not entitled to be paid for his labor (even though he made the rings).

I can see someone suggesting a parallel: a Jewish couple walks into a jewelry shop and meets the owner, Herr Heinrich von Schwann. He’s a nice guy, highly recommended, and takes their ring order and their money.

The couple returns to collect the rings and pay the balance owed, and as they arrive they notice a swastika flag in the back office through a door left cracked open. Horrified, they ask for their money back. Why should Jews accept a ring from a Nazi? Maybe the man melted down rings collected in the Holocaust to make them. It’s blood jewelry!

It’s a good analogy, but of course the Jewish couple should ask von Schwann about his flag, and maybe he’d tell them it was a “souvenir” his father brought back from the war, where he fought with the Allies against his ancestral people. Would they want the refund then?

The analogy falls apart because there’s been no Holocaust against gays (unless you want to count the Nazis, or any of the 53 Islamic states who slaughter homosexuals). Christians don’t have piles of gay fingers from which they harvested wedding rings in order to melt them down, imbue them with gay hate cooties, and sell them back to lesbian and gay couples.

This kind of thinking is what’s known as a “blood libel,” where a group is accused of having beliefs which make their very existence a stain on humanity. Blood libels have mostly been reserved for Jews (primarily used by Nazis and Muslims to promote anti-Jewish sentiment), but we can see how they may be used against Christians too.

Jardon posted a sign in his shop that customers could see, but that’s not his crime. His crime is believing what the sign says. If he had not posted the sign, but the gay press in Toronto had published a story listing businesses which oppose gay marriage—and White and Renouf saw the article and asked for a refund, would it not be the same?

It would. And I’m sure they’d have brought the article into the store and questioned Jardon, “is this true?” before asking for a refund. Because it’s not Jardon’s sign they have a problem with, it’s his thoughts—his mind, which they believe to be hopelessly depraved.

Maybe they’d make him go through sensitivity training, like Colorado ordered Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, to do. And if the training doesn’t take inside Phillips’ brain, maybe they’d order it again, and again, until he’s able to “think right.” I think Colorado may have gotten the idea for this from Mao’s “re-education camps,” but I can’t be sure.

In Toronto, the authorities haven’t ordered Jardon to a re-education camp (yet). But I’m sure he’ll be forced to eat the cost of the rings. He has finished them, but I doubt he will see the balance due.

Jardon said he’s an immigrant, and feels blessed to live in Canada. “One of the reasons my family chose to come to Canada was the freedom of rights,” he said, noting the freedom of religion and freedom of speech. “Nothing in that shop or in these posters is against the law… There’s nothing there that means to discriminate or to hate anybody else.” Jardon said he won’t apologize for his beliefs. “I feel really bad that [White] feels that we would in any way try to hurt or discriminate against her, but we will not retract from what we believe. I cannot say, ‘Well because you feel bad, I will stop believing what I believe,'” he said.

This is what’s coming to America soon. It’s gone from “you must redefine marriage in California even with a majority voting to not do so,” to “the federal government is not defending the definition of marriage and recognizes gay marriage,” and it may take the next step soon. The Supreme Court may rule in June that all states must redefine marriage.

Then we will have what Canada has: you must acknowledge, celebrate and participate in same-sex marriage in every possible way. You must think right, because your thoughts are imbued with evil, and that evil can be forged into a ring, baked into a cake, or simply ooze from your pores.

In other words, if you don’t love same-sex marriage, love it with all your heart, soul and strength, you have cooties.

Image credit: Jessica Kanagalingam ©2015 – ©Lord of The Rings to J. R. R. Tolkien & Peter Jackson