There Is No Morality That Stands On A Bedrock Of Lies
Via Dan Savage… I’ve been railing online since the early 1990s about how essentially immoral the anti-gay religious right is. How the scorched earth take no prisoners war they’ve been waging against gay people demands absolute renunciation of everything fine and decent a human being can possibly be, systematically strips away any human nobility they might have possessed, any aspiration to honor and justice and truth, any higher emotion then simple, relentless, pure as venom hate. The culture war leaches out of them anything decent they might ever have been, leaving behind a pathetic caricature of a human being, whose only purpose in life is hating someone a little more today then they did yesterday.
The Moral Majority. Family Values. Traditional Values. Christian. God Fearing. Bible Believing. I grew up in that milieu, and the people waving those flags today have utterly no relation to any of that. None. Morality, virtue, values, these are not things they aspire to, they are masks they hide behind. Time and again back in the Usenet days, I would find myself arguing with a bigot who told me with easy confidence that I didn’t want to get into an argument about morality, so thoroughly had they co-opted the meaning behind the words. Time and again I would beat them over their pathetic heads with their own cheapshit failures of moral character. I was raised in a Baptist household, and I know how fire and brimstone are done. Often I wished that I could see others doing the same, rather then conceding the moral argument to a bunch of gutter crawling louts. Listening to James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, William Bennett, Lou Sheldon, et. al., yap, yap, yapping about morality is like listening to Al Capon bellyaching about crime.
These are not moral people. They are thieves in the house of human virtue, leaching off the efforts of better men and women who have tried over the ages to lift humanity from the caves to the stars. They steal from those of us who love life, and love humanity, and love this good earth and want to leave it a little better for our having walked upon it, the tools we have uncovered over the centuries for testing right from wrong, true from false, good from evil, and turn them against us, to drag us down into their gutter, so that they will shine. They have preached for so long that they are the keepers of civilization’s essential virtues that many of us have come to believe it. They are vampires, feeding on them, never to be nourished by them.
If I’m grateful for anything, it’s that I lived long enough to see the moral crusade being brought right back to them. Here’s a video from YouTube user robtish that shows in neon lights how horribly warped the moral compass is over at the Traditional Values Coalition. What do you call a people who claim FBI statistics show only a small number of violent crimes were committed against homosexuals in 2007, while omitting, among other violent crimes, the category of murder from the tally? Moral? Virtuous? Christian?
This is what the culture war does to its soldiers. It strips them of everything within them that could have been fine and noble and decent. No higher virtue then hating the enemy is allowed to live within you. Not honor, not reason, not any sense of right and wrong is allowed. Hate does not share power with anything else a human heart might be capable of. You let it in, and it will consume you. There is the evidence…right there, laughing in your face.
Many people are going to remember yesterday as the day Arlen Specter switched parties, and it became painfully clear to most Americans how fast the republican party was collapsing into a political black hole of insular nativism and bigotry. But I will remember it as the day I watched, slack-jawed, this article on Keith Olbermann’s Countdown…
I am 55 years old. I still remember the Nixon years as if they were yesterday. I remember Agnew spitting on four dead students at Kent State. I remember Ronald Reagan’s indifference to the growing AIDS epidemic. I remember him laughing at Bob Hope’s sick AIDS joke during the re-dedication of The Statue of Liberty…
I told one of my students that the most memorable Reagan AIDS moment for me was at the 1986 centenary rededication of the Statue of Liberty. The Reagans were there sitting next to French President Francois Mitterand and his wife, Danielle. Bob Hope was on stage entertaining the all-star audience. In the middle of a series of one-liners Hope quipped, “I just heard that the Statue of Liberty has AIDS but she doesn’t know if she got it from the mouth of the Hudson or the Staten Island Fairy.” As the television camera panned the audience, the Mitterands looked appalled. The Reagans were laughing. By the end of 1989 and the Reagan years, 115,786 women and men had been diagnosed with AIDS in the United States, and more than 70,000 of them had died.
I will go to my grave remembering how the republicans cynically incited anti-gay hatred in one election after another in order to win votes. I have watched them grow meaner, smaller and cheaper year after year after year and I cannot begin to describe how sickening it feels to think I’d seen them finally hit bottom, only to realize that there is no bottom. Last night on Olbermann Chris Matthews was blunt in the wake of Specter’s defection, that the republicans had made two deals with the devil that they were paying for in spades now. First, they embraced Nixon’s racist “southern strategy” to peel southern states and white working class democrats away from the party. Second, they embraced the culture war of the religious right. Now, after the Bush economic and military debacles, what had been the republican’s only two marketable strengths, national security and the economy, have withered away, leaving decent people to finally, Finally see the Devil’s Deal…the stinking rotten core that has been animating the party ever since Goldwater lost. And they’re flinching away. In droves.
I am 55 years old. I’ve watched all this happen in my lifetime. And watching the Republican Noise Machine on Fox News trying to whip up the swine deadly flu outbreak into a brown-skinned people hatefest still managed to leave me completely dumbfounded. It really is the party of hate now.
Freeing People From The Bondage Of Homosexuality In Uganda, One Bullet At A Time…
Via Box Turtle Bulletin… Scott Lively and Exodus’ hard work in Uganda is paying off it seems…
Timothy Kincaid, notes that the Ugandan government is now denouncing Amnesty Internation and UNICEF the U.N.’s children’s relief fund, for promoting homosexuality (UNICEF is accused of smuggling pro-homosexuality books into Ugandian schools…) and he asks…
I wonder if American anti-gay groups, including Exodus International, are proud of the part they played.
Yes.
This has been another edition of Simple Answers, To Simple Questions…
Loving The Sinner…My Mother Came At Me With A Butcher Knife Edition
In a week where headlines announcing two more gay bashings glided across my computer screen, along with the murder-by-bullying suicide of an 11 Year Old Boy who couldn’t take the fag baiting he was getting at school anymore, this headline somehow managed to grab my attention…
After asking the conversation-opener of the group — "So, would you like to all share your coming out stories with me?" — a young woman on my right named Angie* immediately burst out, "My mother came at me with a butcher knife!"
Stunned, I was trying to process this when a young woman to my left whispered, "You don’t want to hear my story, it’s too violent." More violent than your mother attacking you with a butcher knife? How is that possible? What does that mean?
Maybe you don’t want to know. The author of this AlterNet post, Bernadette C. Barton, has done these Gay/Straight alliance visits previously, as she says, "…during my campus visits". Apparently this was the first time she’d done that in the God fearing Jesus loving South. Never mind the stories you heard that day Ms Barton…all the stories you didn’t hear are staring you in the face right here:
Meanwhile, the alliance students, although attentive and respectful to Angie and one another, did not act disturbed or even very surprised by the butcher-knife story or the ones that followed. Their general demeanor suggested that these kinds of horror stories were simply business as usual in their lives.
I am 55 years old and ever since I came out to myself in the early 70s, and began to wander my way through the gay community and this never ending scorched earth war on our hearts and souls, I have heard stories from gay teens and grown adults alike, bearing wounds from their childhood days that would make a stone cry, if not a fundamentalist. That time in our lives, when we are just discovering desire, and what it is to love another, and be loved by them in return, ought to be one of the most magical times in our lives. Instead, it gets turned into this:
"My father called me an abomination and quoted Scripture."
Remember this the next time you hear some drooling numbskull yap, yap, yapping about how they’re not anti-gay, just pro-family, and that same-sex marriage will irrepairably harm children. Presumably in some sort of way that a butcher knife, or their own parents calling them an abomination won’t.
I wrote previously that the fight for gay equality isn’t over simply when common, decent heterosexuals stop seeing their gay neighbors through the prism of every anti-gay stereotype the hatemongers have been pushing for generations, and start seeing us for the human beings we really are. That’s an important step, but not the final one. The last step comes when they finally start seeing the hatemongers for…well…the hatemongers they are.
The saving grace of it is that it gets easier the closer gay folk get to the equality prize. The masks of civility and decency just start dropping like crazy and for a moment, the homophobes seem to have suddenly become completely unhinged. But your gay and lesbian neighbors know that they have always been unhinged. They’ve just never talked that way in front of the rest of the nation before. Case in point, Peter LaBarbera. Or as he’s affectionately known over at Pam’s House Blend…The Peter.
LaBarbera’s signature act is to go "undercover" into the gay S&M scene and report back on all the unsavory things going on in the backrooms, sex parties and dungeons. Never mind that S&M isn’t a particularly gay phenomina. Never mind that you could wander through the heterosexual side of any adult bookstore anywhere in this country and find grown heterosexual adults engaging in the very same acts. LaBarbera seeks out the most exotic, the most extreme, the most unsavory things he can find in the gay community, and then presents it to his flock as what it is to be homosexual. This is how hatemongers have operated since the dawn of human history. Via Pam’s House Blend, here’s a typical example of how LaBarbera preferrs to operate…
Man, oh man…after he wrote me a letter to chastise me for making fun of his excursions to leather clubs to do undercover work for Jeezus, Illinois Family Institute’s Peter LaBarbera just lets it all hang out in an article on Salon (registration required) by Michelle Goldberg, "Sinners in the hands of an angry GOP." It’s an inside look at the goings-on at the War on Christians and the Values Voters conference.
Because Petey’s efforts to demonize the entire gay community are failing miserably (the Gay Games are going on in Chicago with Walgreen’s sponsorship; his marriage amendment initiative can’t get the signatures it needs) he must now escalate the homo-hate wars with a little spice — by trolling on gay boards for research on how to scare youth away from the gay agenda.
Perhaps worrying that anti-gay rhetoric hasn’t been sufficiently inflammatory lately, some speakers urged listeners to start using more scatological and stigmatizing language. Peter LaBarbera, who heads the Illinois Family Institute and is known for his obsession with gay men’s most outré sexual practices, told the audience, "My greatest frustration has been our side’s inability to make homosexual behavior an issue in the public’s mind." In order to inspire the kind of revulsion he wants to see more of, he read from a posting on a gay message board: "Hey guys, I know this is kind of gross and all, but I was wondering if I’m the only one. I’m usually the bottom in my relationship with my boyfriend. After having been the receptive partner in anal sex it’s only a few hours before I start to experience diarrhea … it really stinks, because I really like sex, duh, but it takes the fun out of it when I know I’ll be tied to the bathroom for the next day."
"I don’t think so-called GLBT teens are told anything like this" by their school counselors, LaBarbera said. "We need to find ways to bring shame back to those who are practicing and advocating homosexual behavior."
Take note of two things: firstly, that this is being discussed openly as a matter of tactics. It’s not about what the facts are, it’s about what creates the maximum effect. Secondly, this is the kook pews talking among themselves. This is being discussed at the War on Christians and the Values Voters Conference. In the mainstream news, they would never say they are choosing what to say about homosexuality mostly for effect. Yet note also, the rote bemoaning of their inability to get the message out. Time and again you hear them saying among themselves, that if they could only get their message out Teh Gays wouldn’t be winning the culture war. Note that, and note along with it that they are nonetheless careful to moderate their rhetoric in public.
At least, up until now. Triumphant after last November, once again they see themselves loosing ground to an enemy they can’t seem to get an edge up on no matter how much they do, no matter how many political victories they score. When all you have are lies to win the war with, then the war is lost. But you go into battle with what you have. And as I said, the saving grace of all this is that the more they loose, the more vehement they become. And then people start to notice something.
People like Glenn Sacks. Sacks, a columnist whose focus is on men’s and fathers’ issues, specifically on the father’s rights movement, but also on men’s rights in general, took issue recently with Christian Newswire’s giving LaBarbera a forum to dump his poison into the political dialogue…
Mercifully, most opponents of gay marriage are not anti-gay bigots like LaBarbera. I have no problem with gay marriage and gay rights, but however one feels about gay marriage, it has nothing to do with the decline of the American family. The real threat to American families is not gay marriage but instead divorce and a family law system which separates millions of children from the fathers they love and need.
Sacks provided his readers with a handy link they could use to tell Christian Newswire what they thought of LaBarbera’s bigotry. Naturally, LaBarbera couldn’t take that laying down. As Sacks reported in a follow up post, LaBarbera responded in his own characteristically measured and thoughtful way…
Are you a homosexual, Glenn?
More of that exchange Here. Here’s where it get’s interesting. LaBarbera sent an alarm out to dozens of religious right groups, calling Sack’s post arrogant and harmful to the movement. You get the sense from Sacks’ follow-up post that he expected better from the movement’s leaders then he got. But almost any gay American citizen could have told him what to expect…
In a letter to me cc’d to dozens of Christian leaders, LaBarbera called my post "arrogant and harmful" and sent a follow-up letter asking "Are you a homosexual, Glenn?" A lively debate ensued, in which many Christian leaders wrote to me.
What I expected was that many of them would say something along the lines of "We agree that Peter LaBarbera’s views are extreme and we don’t support them, but we do believe that gay marriage is harmful." While I don’t believe that gay marriage is harmful, I do not now nor have I ever believed that all who oppose gay marriage are anti-gay.
I taught in Christian high-schools for several years and the religious leaders always told me that the Christian teaching on gays is to "Love the sinner, hate the sin." If Christians want to have credibility on opposing gay marriage, they must also oppose anti-gay bigotry, and I expected that many of them would.
Instead, I’ve been disappointed and at times floored by the unreserved support some have shown LaBarbera, including many letters with the subject line "I Stand with Peter."
Many of these are major figures. For example, Janet M. LaRue, Chief Counsel for Concerned for America, wrote:
"Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!"…I know Pete LaBarbera. Pete LaBarbera is a friend of mine.
Christian radio host/author Janet Folger Porter wrote:
Peter LaBarbera is the best example of what Christians should be doing…Peter’s comments have been nothing but honest, loving, and courageous.
Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel and Scott Lively, president of Defend the Family, signed on to the "I Stand with Peter" letter. Lively, apparently referring to me, wrote:
Who is this uncircumcised Philistine who challenges the army of the Living God?
Lively adds
You obviously don’t have a clue about the role of the homosexual movement in the disintegration of the natural family model in America. Without the "gays’" largely hidden but relentless anti-family social-engineering campaign since the 1940s, there wouldn’t be a fathers’ rights crisis in our land.
Hetersoexual divorce and out-of-wedlock births are the fault of gays? Lively is right–I certainly missed that one.
Townhall columnist Robert Knight of Coral Ridge Ministries writes:
Peter LaBarbera is a courageous, talented and honest advocate for the truth who will not back down in the face of vicious attacks or smear campaigns. He has said nothing that is not backed by voluminous evidence…
He has exposed the relentless and reckless promotion of behavior that is documentably dangerous and soul-destroying. That’s the face of real compassion, not the ersatz concern of people who pat homosexuals on the head, watch them go off a cliff into disease, drugs, alcohol, and suicide, and then blame others for not going along with the fictions that homosexuality is harmless and inevitable.
Ingrid Schlueter of the VCY America Radio Network writes:
Peter, unlike most evangelicals today, has the testosterone to challenge those who pervert Scripture, pervert sexuality, and insist that everyone accept it as normal. He has my absolute support…
Phil Burress, Chairman of Equal Rights not Special Rights, writes:
Peter LaBarbera is my friend and I want to be named alongside him the next time you attack him for telling the truth.
It goes on and on…with Sacks just staring dumbfounded…
Peter Sprigg, Senior Director of Culture Studies of the Family Research Council, did give an answer to my question "If Peter LaBarbera’s statement isn’t bigoted, what is?", writing:
Fred Phelps, who says "God hates f-gs," is bigoted. Peter LaBarbera is not.
Both Phelps and LaBarbera are bigoted, but I would agree with Sprigg that Phelps is far worse.
Alan Chambers, president of Exodus International and author of Leaving Homosexuality, defended LaBarbera, writing:
Peter may not always say the right thing, but who one of us does? As Christians I think we ought to go to our brother or sister when we think they have missed the mark before we do a blog post on it…
I’m fully aware that people sometimes don’t always express themselves the way they would like to, and I’ve certainly said things on TV and the radio that I could have phrased better. But Peter’s views that I criticized are ones that he has written on many occasions–it’s fair to characterize them as his views and criticize them.
Chambers also states that he is "unalterably convinced that Peter indeed loves sinners and cares about their eternities more than the policies he fights for." All I can say is that if this is true, Peter is uncharacteristically shy about letting the public know about it.
That Chambers would be quick to come to LaBarbera’s defense is interesting for the controversy that’s been actively reported on over at Box Turtle Bulletin, concerning Exodus participation in a Ugandian conference on homosexuality. Holocaust revisionist Scott Lively was a speaker and once again ginned up anti-gay passions in a land torn by genocide, by claiming that genocide is the work of homosexuals, while Exodus board member Don Schmierer sat and smiled. Jim Burroway and Timothy Kincaid have been asking Exodus to repudiate board member Don Schmierer’s participation in the conference, which included calls for wholesale witchhunting and imprisoning of gay people in Uganda. To date, other then a squalid bit of both-sides-of-the-mouth boilerplate PR, Exodus has remained silent. Gay people are killed time and again in the venomous hostility created by hatemongers like LaBarbera and Lively, and Exodus, which laughably claims to be a non-political faith group that only seeks to heal unwanted "same sex attractions" acknowledges with President Alan Chamber’s defense of LaBarbera, that the blood of all those innocents is on its hands too. As Christians Alan, you ought to consider whether your words bring peace to the world, or inflame passions. But then, your Christianity is as thin as your ersatz love for those gay poeple who had more courage and stronger inner resources of character then you could ever muster in your own life, isn’t it Alan?
Sacks ends the exchange with this…
In conclusion, I’m surprised and rather disappointed. Is Peter LaBarbera really representative of modern Christian thought? I don’t believe that–I believe Christians are much better than that. I have a very hard time imagining the many hard-working, devoted religious faculties I once worked with holding LaBarbera’s views. But in general this recent exchange doesn’t do much to support my optimism.
LaBarbera isn’t representative of modern Christian thought. He’s merely and utterly representative of a certain kind of American culture warrior…the kook pews…the ones who are still arguing that giving women and non-property owners the vote is what ruined America. And no doubt the darkies too. There is a good deal more to Christianity then this little corner of the human gutter. You thought they were better then this. A lot of people do. Welcome to the other side of the public face…the side that has been spitting in the faces of your gay and lesbian neighbors for decades now.
Yes…it’s pretty awful. But you needed to see this. Just remember what Nietzsche said about staring into an abyss. You have to keep reminding yourself that there is more to humanity, let alone to Christianity, then this.
The Cluelessness Of Bigots, And The People Who Wonder What Makes Them Tick
Andrew Sullivan and Damon Linker wonder what makes Rod Dreher so fixated on gays…
Damon Linker challenges Dreher’s fixation with gays:
Why, given the myriad ways that our society and culture diverge from the long list of archaic norms, practices, and beliefs upheld in the Bible, does homosexuality inspire such anxiety, even panic? What are you afraid of?
It’s a good question.
Well here’s a simple answer: he’s a bigot. I know…I know…saying someone is a bigot is supposed to be nothing more then ad hominim name calling designed to shut down debate. Kinda like the way calling someone a Nazi invokes Goodwin’s Law and the argument is over. But the problem with Goodwin’s law is that it makes it impossible to identify facisim when its staring you in the face, and the same goes for this notion that ‘bigot’ is merely the equivalent of a grade school taunt. It isn’t. It’s a good old fashioned English word and it has a real meaning. People like Dreher fall into that meaning exactly. Why? Because his mindset when it comes to gay people springs from a deeply rooted animus that will not suffer examination or question. He cannot see the people for the homosexuals.
That animus will reliably outrank any higher consciousness the man has, assuming he still has any left. Case in point: his recent brouhaha about that family in East Texas who were killed in a violent home invasion. Dreher, you may recall, was shocked, shocked, not at the deaths, but at one offhanded statement by the grieving father, that bisexuality was ‘hip’ in his little East Texas town…
UPDATE: To clarify: I’m not saying that the teenage culture of bisexuality is worse morally than murder, for heaven’s sake. Obviously murder — and murder of one’s own family — is about the worst thing imaginable.. I’m simply saying that I was more shocked by this tidbit about the decadent teenage culture in a tiny Texas town than I was by the foul crime itself. Big difference.
He really believes there is a "big difference" there. He just doesn’t notice, is not capable of noticing, the wildly disproportionate response to the vicious murder of an entire family, verses one offhanded statement by a father probably crazy with grief that bisexuality is cool among the teenagers in his town. Dreher sees nothing unusual in his own shocked response to the idea of bisexuality in an East Texas town, verses his offhanded notice of the killings. Yes, yes…they were all killed…but OhMyGod bisexuality is becoming cool in East Texas!!!
He doesn’t see the problem here. He can’t. He’s a bigot. The homosexual will always loom larger in his consciousness, then any brutal crime of violence, because his animus sees nothing other then The Homosexual. The Homosexual is the burr under his saddle. The Homosexual is the devil in the darkness. The Homosexual is the monster knocking on the door. Never mind the man’s family was butchered, just look at what kids are saying about bisexuality in East Texas! This is how bigots think.
Linker, like a lot of people, simply cannot believe that is all there is to it…
I find this especially perplexing in Rod’s case because he denies so strenuously that his views flow from anti-gay animus. As he puts it in a recent post,
Gay-rights supporters typically believe people like me hold to our opposition to gay marriage and so forth because of some animosity towards gays. I know that it’s true for a lot of conservatives, but in my case — and in the case of most people I know who share my views — it’s not an emotional matter. We have gay friends, are comfortable around gay people, and simply don’t share that visceral reaction that used to be commonplace in American life, and (regrettably) still is in many quarters.
Yet the visceral reaction was there for all to see when he posted about the murders in East Texas…er…sorry…the Bisexuality in East Texas. And we know, and acknowledge in the law, that murder can be hot blooded or cold blooded. Yet cold blooded bigotry seems to completely baffle people. Why, some of my best friends are… after all. I quit one job I held years ago, when I overheard the owner state flatly that he’d hire a black man, but only if he shinned his shoes and called him Massah. And it wasn’t with any rage or passion he said it. He was simply stating a fact. Like the weather, or the time of day. If Dreher has any gay friends, it’s because they shine his shoes and call him Massah.
Linker asks Dreher a few questions in a desperate attempt to find something, anything, rational at the bottom of Dreher’s little corner of the human gutter…
Why, given the myriad ways that our society and culture diverge from the long list of archaic norms, practices, and beliefs upheld in the Bible, does homosexuality inspire such anxiety, even panic? What are you afraid of? Is it that you fear that if orthodox religious communities stop denouncing gay marriage (to the faces of married gays, which seems to be what you’d like them to do) the human race will stop reproducing itself? Or is it that you worry that if your children aren’t taught in church that homosexuality is an abomination they’ll shack up with same-sex partners when they grow up? But isn’t the decision to do something like that far more a product of nature than culture? I don’t know about you, but no amount of pro-gay propaganda could tempt me to sleep with a man — because I’m by nature sexually attracted to women. Some of what you write about homosexuality leads me to believe you worry that naturally straight men and women will be seduced into being gay by watching too many episodes of Project Runway. But you can’t seriously believe that. Can you?
Here’s the problem. For Dreher, and bigots like him, this isn’t about what they believe. It’s a knee that jerks first and justifies itself later. Any excuse will do, even if it is transparently self serving and utterly unconvincing. He doesn’t have to convince you of anything Linker, he just has to dig in his heels and not be moved. If you can’t make him admit that his prejudices are irrational he wins the argument. It really is that simple.
And not only can you not make a bigot admit their prejudices are irrational, you can’t make them take responsibility for them either. It’s not his fault that he has to go on the warpath against gay people…it’s the gay’s fault. They’re Making him do it, every time they Flaunt themselves in his face thereby provoking him to act. If we stop denouncing homosexuality then the entire human race will cease reproducing and become extinct. Yes, it’s a staggeringly irrational argument. But understand this if you understand nothing else about it: the point isn’t that it’s a good argument, the point is that it puts the blame on gay people for his hostile behavior toward them. Homosexuality is a threat to our very survival…I Have to do this to them…I am Forced to confront the Homosexual Menace…
Homosexuals molest children. Homosexuals spread disease. Homosexuals have caused the fall of every great civilization… The Homosexual is a threat we must confront… Homosexuals are tortured souls…sexually addicted…unable to function normally in society…desperate to be freed from the bondage of their homosexuality…We Must Help Them…We Must Save Them From Themselves… The Homosexual needs our salvation… These aren’t arguments that withstand the slightest critical glance. But they don’t have to be. They’re not offered as reasons…they’re excuses. Excuses to blame gay people, for the bigot’s hostile behavior toward them.
And if Dreher can’t blame gay people for his cheapshit bar stool prejudices, he has one other trump card he can play: he can blame God…
I suspect that Rod’s first instinct will be to respond that the issue isn’t really homosexuality at all. It’s "authority." Rod, after all, believes
that you simply can’t discard a teaching on which the Bible — in both testaments — and (for Catholics and Orthodox) authoritative church tradition could not be more clear, simply because it doesn’t suit contemporary mores.
And that’s all well and good until Linker comes to the obvious point that Dreher, like every other bigot making this argument, picks and chooses his religious beliefs to suit himself. God is not the reason. God is the excuse.
Does Rod have any non-question-begging answer to this question? An answer that doesn’t just amount to saying, "because the church says so"?
Two 22-year-old men who left a campfire to walk along the beach in Seaside were beaten unconscious in what appears to have been a hate crime, according to police.
The man disembarked the bus moments later, followed by Idris and an associate. Police say Idris again approached him, telling the man that homosexuality violates his religion.
Kafagolis and Kirkwood reportedly inveighed against the victim, screaming anti-gay epithets as they punched and kicked him, knocking him to the ground.
…they were returning to their car parked near Raymond Boulevard and Broad Street from the Prudential Center at approximately 11 p.m. when a group of 15 to 20 teenage girls and boys approached them from the opposite direction and then punched and kicked them as they yelled an anti-gay slur.
In the post Scott mentioned earlier, Dreher insists that the jarring juxtaposition that occasioned many readers to question his values and priorities, has been the subject of a significant misinterpretation. It’s the surprisingness of the "bisexuality is cool" claim that motivated his post, not it’s relative wrongness.
Many commenters remain, understandably, unpersuaded by his effort to explain his bizarre post. But it’s necessary to take Dreher at his word to fully grasp the depravity of his position. So let’s grant him: a) that a remark by one (horribly traumatized) parent is sufficient evidence to to grant that bisexuality is indeed "cool" in the high school culture of one East Texas town, and b) that while this doesn’t rise to the level of parricide in an index of moral wrongs, it is a disturbing and troubling trend that suggests something that was once right with the world has gone wrong.
The nature of the typical experience of non-heterosexual adolescents in our schools and our society is hardly a secret. The ostracization and bullying of those suspected to be non-heterosexual takes an enormous psychological toll, and has life and death consequences, as evidenced higher rates of depression and suicide amongst non-heterosexual youth. They typically live in fear: fear that something is horribly wrong with them, fear of being rejected by their friends and family, and fear of violence. But: in one small town, at least for some non-heterosexual youth, there’s a chance this status quo might be changing. For anyone whose moral worldview contains any compassion, changes to this horrific status quo are a sign of hope. For Dreher, it’s the precise opposite.
Dreher was adamant in that post that he was "so keeping his kids away" from modern American culture, if that meant a toleration of bisexuality…let alone one supposes homosexuality. But what if one of those poor kids is gay themselves?
Tens of thousands of gay kid come of age in that hostile environment every generation and many of them don’t make it to adulthood alive. And it’s a fact that many of their parents would actually rather they killed themselves, or were killed, then grew up to be happy, contented gay adults. It doesn’t take much to imagine where Dreher fits in. He reads a horrific news article about a home invasion massacre, and instead of grieving for the dead kids, their mother, and the father who has to now carry those horrible memories to his grave, he goes on a rant about something the father said offhandedly about how cool bisexuality was in his town. I read something like this and I can’t get out of my head how horrible their last moments must have been (which is why I avoid crime stories in the newspapers). Dreher, reads it and is just stunned by the fact that bisexuals in one small East Texas town aren’t hated.
This is eminently typical of what hate does to a person’s conscience. This is the conscience of the culture warriors. Look at it if you have the stomach for it. There is the Pit, grinning back at you. The grotesque indifference to human life in that crime story, and in Dreher’s callow, superficial response to it, are of a single piece. What is more shocking then the murder of a man’s entire family? Why…bisexuality of course.
Don’t look for too long. Nietzsche was right about the dangers of staring into an Abyss.
BOULDER, Colo. — A 24-year-old ski lift operator who fatally shot the general manager of the Eldora ski area was determined to kill co-workers who weren’t Christian, according to court records obtained Thursday.
The documents, filed Wednesday in Boulder District Court, said witnesses told authorities that Derik Bonestroo walked into a building at work, fired a gun into the ceiling and said: "If you’re not Christian, you’re going to die."
General manager Brian Mahon was shot and killed Dec. 30 at the ski area west of Nederland, Colo., in Boulder County.
Witnesses said when Bonestroo asked Mahon’s religion, Mahon said "Catholic" and Bonestroo shot him twice: in the chest and head.
I guess that was the wrong answer. I suppose Mormon wouldn’t have been a good answer either. Or Unitarian I suppose. The other employees fled out the back door and into the woods. Boonestroo left in his car and was chased down by a local deputy who, fortunately, was also a SWAT team member. When Boonestroo opened fire the deputy shot back and that was that for one little hammer of god.
He was found to be wearing the usual para military gear and armed to the teeth. Oh…and this…
Among the list of items confiscated from Bonestroo’s apartment were medication and a dead cat that was stabbed several times, Pelle said. The cat was believed to be Bonestroo’s pet.
This is how the culture war staggers onward…with religious right megachurch gasbags calling down God’s wrath on Americans, knowing prefectly well that they are raising the temperature higher and higher and before long someone, some crazy someone, some massively stressed out to the point of breaking someone, will take their words and turn them into blood.
Scott Lively, author of the revisionist Pink Swastika, is in Uganda. Lively has previously traveled to eastern Europe, and the former Soviet block, to tell the people there that the Nazis who massacred millions of Slavs during World War II were homosexuals. Here’s what I wrote about it a year ago January…
Alex Shevchenko has been arraigned for a hate crime tied to the assault and eventual death of Satender Singh in July. According to prosecutors, Mr. Shevchenko and Andrey Vusik taunted Mr. Singh in a park because they thought he was gay. Mr. Vusik eventually threw a punch that toppled Singh, dashing his head, they charge.
Gay leaders in Sacramento say the incident followed several years of escalating tensions with some Slavic immigrants.
"The gut feeling of the [gay] community is that preaching among the local Russian evangelical community is breeding hate and that something would happen. And Satender was the something that happened," says Ed Bennett, a gay Democratic activist.
While Slavic leaders say their community is being unfairly scapegoated for legitimate political protests and deeply held religious beliefs, some monitors warn that an emerging group called the Watchmen on the Walls may be fomenting a dangerous atmosphere within the ranks of Slavic immigrants here.
I’ll say it’s dangerous. Scott Lively, one of the group’s founders, is also the author of The Pink Triangle…a Holocaust revisionist book that argues that the Nazis were basically a homosexual movement and that rather then being among the victims of the Holocaust, homosexuals were the primary instigators of it. Consider that Lively is now preaching this message to Slavs in what was the eastern Soviet bloc at one time…a people who suffered a staggering loss of life at the hands of the Nazis during world war two…
Videos of Watchmen conferences abroad suggest some leaders are less modulated, and their audience less against violence. One video shows Lively giving a version of Singh’s killing different from reported facts, including the notion that Singh was undressing in front of children. The audience cheered twice as Lively recounted the punch and the death of Singh – a reaction Lively rebuked, saying: "We don’t want homosexuals to be killed. We want them to be saved."
The camera was on and Lively knew it. There is no way on God’s green earth Lively doesn’t know the impact his message that the Nazis were homosexuals and homosexuals are all basically Nazis has on this particular group of people. He knows Exactly what he’s doing. He has never publicly condemned the killing of Satender Singh by a group of young Slav men in Sacramento. There’s a reason for that.
Eastern Europe taken care of, and sufficiently incited to murder, Lively has now traveled to Africa, with basically the same message: African genocide is caused by homosexuals…it is the homosexuals who are killing Africans… Jim Burroway reports…
According to anonymous blogger GayUganda — as we said, Ugandan gay bloggers need to remain anonymous for their own safety — American Holocaust revisionist Scott Lively provided the much-anticipated red meat on day three of the anti-gay conference taking place in Kampala.
On Saturday, Lively repeated his discredited historical revisionist theory in which he claims that the cornerstone of Germany’s Nazi lies firmly in the gay movement, and that the gay movement today, if left unchecked, will result in a similarly murderous fascism wherever it goes. In Kampala, he went further by expanding his examples of what he calls homosexuals’ murderous impulse by blaming the 1994 Rwanda genocide on gay men.
Now consider the environment Lively is pouring his gasoline into…
Lively was asked about the current state of Ugandan law, which provides for a life sentence for homosexuality. Lively reportedly approved of the existing law, and endorsed adding a provision mandating forcing convicted gay men and women into ex-gay therapy. Conference speakers had called for such a law on the second day of the conference. Adding more fuel to the fire, GayUganda had earlier noticed that this apparent press release was posted on The Earth Times:
Kampala Anti-gay activists in Uganda Saturday formed a pressure group to discourage homosexuality, following a two-day conference of religious leaders, teachers and social workers in the capital Kampala.
The group, to be called the Anti-Gay Task Force, is intended to “fight against the spread of homosexuality and lesbianism in the country,” spokesman for the group Stephen Langa told reporters. Same sex-relationships and marriages are illegal in Uganda, and human rights groups have criticized the government for harassing homosexuals.
The task-force said that it would one day “wipe out” gay practices in the African state.
The threat to “‘wipe out’ gay practices” is not an idle threat in a nation that provides a life sentence for those convicted of homosexuality. Further, Uganda witnessed at least three seperate campaigns of government sanctioned and media-led vigilantism between 2005 and 2007. The last spate of violence was sparked by a press conference of LGBT leaders calling on the nation to simply allow gays and lesbians to live in peace. The LGBT leaders at the conference wore face masks out of fear of being identified.
This conference poses a very dangerous development in a country with such a volatile history in how it treats gays and lesbians.
Which is precisely what Lively went there to accomplish. Is there any doubt now that this man wants to rise the mob against gay people, in order to enact his final solution? This is deliberate incitement to violence. There is just no mistaking it for anything else. Like so many other Culture Warriors, Lively wants gay people dead. But unlike most of the others, he has a plan to accomplish it. Step one: Go to nation that has suffered genocide. Step Two: Teach the people of that nation that the ones who killed their kinfolk were homosexuals. Step Three …
Satendar Singh was a native of Fiji. At age 19 he immigrated to the USA and lived with relatives in the Sacramento, California area. He worked at an AT&T call center. He was well liked by both his co-workers and friends.
On Sunday afternoon July 1, 2007 he and 6 friends, reportedly 3 couples of Indian and Fijian descent, were partying at a California State park at Lake Natoma, east of Sacramento. Trouble broke out between Singh’s group and another group, reportedly Russian speaking and of Russian descent. Verbal assaults were traded between the groups. The Russian group allegedly made racist and homophobic comments to Singh’s group and singled him out for homophobic comments.
About 8pm that evening as Singh’s group was leaving, the men of the Russian group confronted Singh’s group in the parking lot. During the confrontation one man punched Satendar Singh in the face and Singh fell backward hitting his head. Singh slipped into a coma never to regain consciousness. Four days later on July 5, 2007, family removed Satendar Singh from life support and he died.
Gay marriage is banned in France. But about a decade ago, France’s Socialist government created a compromise — a civil solidarity pact, known by its French acronym PACS — as a form of quasi-marriage for homosexual couples.
This is France’s equivalent to the so-called "civil unions" that exist in some U.S. states. And naturally, France’s right wingers denounced it as a cheapening of marriage. But it was a cheapening they’d had a hand in creating, by their dogged resistance to letting same sex couples simply marry. PACS were seen to be a compromise, just as they are here in the United States, between the needs of gay couples and the hatred of homophobes.
Then, as Hinkle puts it, a funny thing happened. Large numbers of straight couples started opting for PACS, too…
MARRIAGE IN France has been on the skids for years. The French marriage rate has fallen more than 30 percent in the past generation. Marriage has been declining in other European countries as well, but in France the slope has been steeper. By 2005, 59 percent of all first-born children in France were born out of wedlock. More and more French couples live in "free unions," or what Americans might think of as nonbinding common-law marriages. They simply shack up, often for life.
Now France’s experience with PACS helps clarify a very muddled point in the debate over gay marriage here in America. Social conservatives commonly argue against gay marriage for a multiplicity of (often dubious) reasons, from the necessity to protect children to the importance of subsidizing procreation. But perhaps the most often cited reason is that gay unions threaten the "institution" of marriage.
How, precisely, they do so is not intuitively clear. No one seriously argues that a marriage between John and Steve somehow undermines the bonds of affection that keep Ted and Amy together. Nor is it clear how encouraging homosexuals, who sometimes are condemned for libertine promiscuity, to enter a contract requiring lifelong fidelity weakens the appeal of lifelong fidelity.
So opponents of gay marriage fall back on the idea that letting gay people marry somehow cheapens the currency — as though a marriage between Ted and Amy weighs less in the cosmic scales because John and Steve have entered into a similar contract. That is akin to the argument that letting gay people open bank accounts weakens the institution of banking.
FRANCE’S EXPERIENCE teaches a different lesson. It is not gay marriage, but the attempt to deny gays the chance to participate in marriage, that has cheapened the currency and further imperiled the institution. By creating a second-class — call it a "subprime" — form of marriage, France gave both gays and straights a watered-down option that let people enjoy all the privileges with none of the obligations…
…and then, he puts his finger on the heart of it:
And that points to the real issue at the heart of the argument about marriage as an institution. To say that letting gay people marry cheapens the currency of marriage holds true only if gay people have less intrinsic worth than straight people — just as the argument against interracial marriage, that it would lead to the "mongrelization of the human race," made sense only to those who saw blacks as less than human.
To let gay people enter into sacred matrimony, then, requires recognizing something sacred within them…
There’s the problem. How do you recognize it when from nearly every pulpit in America gay people are called abominations in the eyes of God? How do you recognize it when in one statehouse after another gay people are called a bigger threat to America then terrorists?
You can’t. You don’t. You are incapable. They are not human beings. They are some strange, alien, dangerous, evil other. There is nothing at all sacred in them. You are not putting a knife in their hearts, because they have no human heart. Only degenerate lust. You are defending the dignity and the honor of your love, against the animal passions of sub-humans that threaten to devour it.
There can be no dialogue as long as we are not human. There just can’t. Only war. We have seen time and time again how we appeal to our common humanity and we get slammed in return with one filthy lie after another, after another after another. We hold out our hand in fellowship and our enemies jump at us like a pack of pit bulls. As long as we are not human, they will continue to put their knifes into our hearts and put their wreaking balls to the lives we try to make for ourselves, and call it self defense. And we, because we are human, will continue to fight back. Because we must. Because the only alternative is to live with the knife and the wreaking ball. And it will never end. Until the day comes that they can finally look at us, and see human beings.
How to make that day come, I honestly don’t know. Large swaths of the U.S. still cannot look at a black man and see a human being either. Or a red one. Or a brown one. Or a yellow one. Too many U.S. males still seem to think that the female half of the human race is sub-human…good only for making babies and cooking dinner. How do you fight that? Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. once said that a bigot’s mind is like an eye…the more light you shine on it the tighter it closes. But for the sake of our common future, our survival as a species, those eyes have to open.
I have no idea how to make that happen. But I know this full well: until they do, this fight will never end. It will only grow more bitter, more damaging, more violent. The word people are choking on in the fight isn’t "marriage". It’s "homosexual". And we are not only being preventing from marrying because of it. We are targets…
"A 4-pound stone, one of several door stops hurled at patrons in a bar that includes gay people among its clientele, left one man with 12 staples in the back of his head and two brothers and an acquaintance accused of a hate crime. Marc Bosaw, 57, said Monday he has little recollection of the Sunday night attack, in which police said one suspect held open the door to Robert’s Lafitte bar while two others launched an assault shortly after 8 p.m. Bosaw sat at the corner of the bar at 2501 Ave. Q just a few feet from one of two entryway doors. ‘I thought I had just been slapped, and the second rock hit me here,’ Bosaw said of the mark on his hand. ‘Everything went white in my mind, and I thought that was it. I even said ‘goodbye.’’ The barrage also hit another patron, James Nickelson, 39, who police listed as a Houston resident, but bar patrons said Monday they believed he had recently moved to the island."
Other bar patrons reportedly struggled to keep Bosaw conscious before he was transported to a regional medical center.
The Houston Chronicle reports: "The three men fled, but were apprehended by police about 10 blocks from the bar, Alvarez said. They were then brought back to the bar, where witnessses identified them. One of the men arrested told police they targeted the establishment because it was a gay bar, Alvarez said. All three men were charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon along with hate crime charges. They are being held on a combined bond of $120,000."According to the Galveston News, "Bonds for Lawrence Henry Lewis III, 20, Lawrneil Henry Lewis, 18, and Alejandro Sam Gray, 17, all of Galveston, were set at $120,000 each on two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon with the enhancement of a hate crime, said Lt. D.J. Alvarez, a Galveston police spokesman."
KOMO news reports: "The latest attack came a week ago near 13th Avenue and Columbia Street, about a block from the Seattle University campus. Forty-one-year-old Jerry Knight was on his way home when two men confronted him. And now he says the horror of that weekend might always haunt him. ‘I remember being hit hard, where I fell and my hands were bruised falling directly on the ground,’ he said Saturday in an interview. He acknowledges it could have been worse.’I am grateful,’ he says. ‘I am grateful I did not wake up in the hospital. I am grateful I am not in a coffin. I know that, and honor that.’ He says he was attacked by two men as he walked home alone in the early morning hours. The assault was first reported online by The Stranger newspaper."
In March 2007, Skipper’s body was found by the side of a rural road in central Florida with more than 20 stab wounds. His car and laptop had been stolen. The car was abandoned and recovered by authorites, who reported that the assailants had attempted to set it on fire but did not succeed. They had also cut out a seat belt because it was so bloody they couldn’t clean it. Bearden, then 21, and William David Brown Jr., then 20, were later arrested and indicted for the killing. A witness brought in by authorities at the time told police that Brown had killed Skipper because he was gay.
Bearden’s co-defendant, William Brown, is to be tried at a later date on charges of first-degree murder and robbery.
Blabbeando: "27 year old Isaac Ali Dani Peréz Triviño was born in Spain. 32 year old Julio Anderson Luciano was born in Brazil. They lived together in the Spanish province of Vigo and were planning to get married. Both were stabbed to death by Jacobo Piñeiro Rial in their apartment in the early morning of January 13th, 2006. The bodies showed a total of 57 stab wounds, according to forensics. After killing them, Piñeiro took a shower and cleaned himself up. He filled a suitcase with some of their belongings to make it look like a robbery and then spilled clothing all over the place. He poured alcohol over everything, including his victims’ bodies, turned on the gas spigot on the stove, and set everything on fire. The local fire department said that little evidence would have survived if it wasn’t for their prompt response to the 5-alarm fire"
The jury bought the killer’s ‘gay panic’ defense…
This fight isn’t about marriage. It was never about marriage. It has always been about our human status. The sacred is within us too. But you have to want to see it. That is the problem. That is the only problem.
Consider this a follow-up post to my They’d Be Crazy To Start A Second American Civil War post below. From Pam’s House Blend…a first hand account of how they love the sinner but hate the sin in the Aloha State…
…You know, it gets really tiresome to be called diseased and a pedophile and a rapist and an abomination and a threat to America three dozen times in one day. It infuriates me to hear that yes, heterosexuals have special rights (at least they admitted it finally!) and that is how it should be because The Big Book of Bronze Age Fairy Tales says so. To hear little old ladies screaming that they would rather see their grandchildren commit suicide than "be part of that disgusting, filthy, evil lifestyle", isn’t even remotely amusing anymore.
Even better is to, due to the concussion headache beginning to blind me, forget to take off my little green and gold "equality" sticker on the way out of the building, and be followed to the bus stop by a bunch of red shirts with signs. Three 6’5", 200 pound Islander guys with signs saying "Gay marriage is wrong" and "John 3:16" followed the lone little white girl with her laptop case across the street, yelling at me, "Repent!", calling me a bitch and a whore, telling me, "You just need a real man to fuck you straight." Nothing I haven’t heard before.
Then one of them said, "We know who you are now, and what you drive. We saw you last Thursday. You better watch yourself, fucking haole bitch." Not one of the 20 people standing around the bus stop said anything to them.
I got on the first bus that came along, got off three stops down the street, and caught my right bus a few minutes later. I rode home all alone, with my headphones on, praying no one bothered me.
I don’t actually believe there is going to be anything like a second American civil war coming out of cowardly louts like these. But the republican noise machine is deliberately egging them on and it’s an open question as to whether or not they understand the forces they’re witlessly playing with. What I expect is to see more Timothy McVeighs and Eric Rudolphs…more godly men like this one…
Progressives around the country can breathe a little easier today: James Adkisson has been sentenced to life behind bars for the deaths of Greg McKendry and Linda Kraeger, the Unitarian Universalist martyrs who died during his assault on their church in Knoxville, TN last July.
Many of us intuited at the time that Adkisson’s rampage was exactly the kind of rancid fruit that would inevitably take root in an American countryside thickly composted with two decades of hate radio bullshit, freshly turned and watered with growing middle-class frustration over the failing economy. That suspicion that was verified in the days that followed, when police searched Adkisson’s apartment and found it filled with books and newsletters penned by Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, and other right-wing hate talkers.
But Monday, Adkisson told us himself — in his own words — just how central right-wing eliminationism was in driving him to his shooting spree. Shortly after he was sentenced Monday, he released a four-page handwritten "manifesto" — which he’d intended to be his suicide note — to the Knoxville News (the full .pdf can be downloaded here). In it, he unleashes the full measure of his hatred for liberals — and encourages other would-be right-wing warriors to take up arms and follow him into battle.
Some choice excerpts:
"Know this if nothing else: This was a hate crime. I hate the damn left-wing liberals. There is a vast left-wing conspiracy in this country & these liberals are working together to attack every decent & honorable institution in the nation, trying to turn this country into a communist state. Shame on them….
"This was a symbolic killing. Who I wanted to kill was every Democrat in the Senate & House, the 100 people in Bernard Goldberg’s book. I’d like to kill everyone in the mainstream media. But I know those people were inaccessible to me. I couldn’t get to the generals & high ranking officers of the Marxist movement so I went after the foot soldiers, the chickenshit liberals that vote in these traitorous people. Someone had to get the ball rolling. I volunteered. I hope others do the same. It’s the only way we can rid America of this cancerous pestilence."
"I thought I’d do something good for this Country Kill Democrats til the cops kill me….Liberals are a pest like termites. Millions of them Each little bite contributes to the downfall of this great nation. The only way we can rid ourselves of this evil is to kill them in the streets. Kill them where they gather. I’d like to encourage other like minded people to do what I’ve done. If life aint worth living anymore don’t just kill yourself. do something for your Country before you go. Go Kill Liberals.
No doubt this manifesto is being blogged, mailed, twittered, and otherwise littered across the far-right infosphere today, and Adkisson will likely emerge from this as a new hero of the extreme right wing. (He’s obviously articulate and literate, which means we may expect more of these bilious rants coming out of his cell in the years ahead.) It also seems likely that, probably sooner rather than later, other victims of our curdled economy will accept his charge, pick up their guns, and attempt to follow him into battle.
I have a feeling I know who is going to play the role that Jews played once upon a time when Germany was having its own little bout with economic chaos, and vitriolic class hatreds…
…After first establishing that God created Eve to be Adam’s “helper,” [Colorado State Senator] Renfroe explained why he opposed extending health care benefits to gay and lesbian partners of state employees:
Homosexuality is seen as a violation of this natural, created order and it is an offense to God, the Creator, who created men and women, male and female, for procreation.
Then came some passages from the Bible:
Leviticus 18:22 says, “You shall not lie with a man as one lies with a female, it is an abomination.”
and
Leviticus 20:13 says, “If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act and they shall surely be put to death. Their blood guiltiness is upon them.”
You just need a real man to fuck you straight. We know who you are now, and what you drive.
If I had my way, that would be his name, as far as any rational person was concerned. (As in: “I was in my car listening to Crazy Glenn Beck …”) Because Crazy Glenn Beck has carved out his own niche in the talk radio/Fox News spectrum, and it is the Crazy niche. And these aren’t exactly venues known for their non-craziness to begin with.
Glenn Greenwald has a rundown of Crazy Glenn Beck’s latest lunacy — “war gaming” the, uh, coming civil war.
Michelle Malkin’s Hot Air blog links to Crazy Glenn Beck’s discussion of the coming civil war, but even there, the writer feels compelled to note:
There’s something “off” about Beck in a way that’s not true of other chat-show hosts, although that’s not necessarily a criticism: O’Reilly and Hannity can be tiresome in more than small doses but this guy I find watchable even at a stretch. Partly it’s the sheer bravado of the performance, partly it’s the challenge of trying to figure out what’s going on in his head to make him the way he is.
When a right winger is so crazy that one of Michelle Malkin’s bloggers finds it necessary to post a disclaimer, however mild — that’s some serious crazy!
Crazy Glenn Beck had a health incident a couple of Christmasses ago — somehow things went awry with his health care provider and he had at least one incredibly rough night, which he later described to his listeners as consisting of terrible visions, such as — I’m not making this up but I am paraphrasing from memory — children’s faces being chewed off by dogs.
I was listening that morning and I remember thinking, “Wow! Discussing visions of children’s faces being chewed off by dogs on a nationally syndicated morning radio program? That’s crazy, even for Crazy Glenn Beck!”
So to answer the Hot Air blogger’s question, I’ll tell you what’s going on in Crazy Glenn Beck’s head: he’s trying not to react to the invisible people shouting at him, the ones that only he can see and hear, because he knows he’s on camera and he has to hold it together. He’s trying not to let the demons crawl right out of his skin while he’s in front of the microphone, because his livelihood depends on walking up to the crazy line but not crossing over, and mostly he succeeds, but clearly the strain is taking its toll. Bill O’Reilly used to be my leading candidate for right wing blowhard most likely to have an on air meltdown, but since Fox gave him a live tv show, Crazy Glenn Beck has pulled way into the lead.
(Crazy Glenn Beck’s bizarre post-surgery YouTube video is here. And here — at about the fifty second mark — Crazy Glenn Beck “jokes” about specific and graphic ways he would like to kill Michael Moore. Ha ha ha.)
Bill Clinton’s election in 1992 gave rise to the American "militia movement": hordes of overwhelmingly white, middle-aged men from suburban and rural areas who convinced themselves they were defending the American way of life from the "liberals" and "leftists" running the country by dressing up in military costumes on weekends, wobbling around together with guns, and play-acting the role of patriot-warriors. Those theater groups — the cultural precursor to George Bush’s prancing 2003 performance dressed in a fighter pilot outfit on Mission Accomplished Day — spawned the decade of the so-called "Angry White Male," the movement behind the 1994 takeover of the U.S. Congress by Newt Gingrich and his band of federal-government-cursing, pseudo-revolutionary, play-acting tough guys.
What was most remarkable about this allegedly "anti-government" movement was that — with some isolated and principled exceptions — it completely vanished upon the election of Republican George Bush, and it stayed invisible even as Bush presided over the most extreme and invasive expansion of federal government power in memory. Even as Bush seized and used all of the powers which that movement claimed in the 1990s to find so tyrannical and unconstitutional — limitless, unchecked surveillance activities, detention powers with no oversight, expanding federal police powers, secret prison camps, even massively exploding and debt-financed domestic spending — they meekly submitted to all of it, even enthusiastically cheered it all on.
They’re the same people who embraced and justified full-scale, impenetrable federal government secrecy and comprehensive domestic spying databases conducted in the dark and against the law when perpetrated by a Republican President — but have spent the last week flamboyantly pretending to be scandalized and outraged by the snooping which Bill Moyers did 45 years ago (literally) as part of a Democratic administration. They’re the people who relentlessly opposed and impugned Clinton’s military deployments and then turned around and insisted that only those who are anti-American would question or oppose Bush’s decision to start wars.
They’re the same people who believed that Bill Clinton’s use of the FISA court to obtain warrants to eavesdrop on Americans was a grave threat to liberty, but believed that George Bush’s warrantless eavesdropping on Americans in violation of the law was a profound defense of freedom. In sum, they dressed up in warrior clothing to fight against Bill Clinton’s supposed tyranny, and then underwent a major costume change on January 20, 2001, thereafter dressing up in cheerleader costumes to glorify George Bush’s far more extreme acquisitions of federal power.
In doing so, they revealed themselves as motivated by no ideological principles or political values of any kind. It was a purely tribalistic movement motivated by fear of losing its cultural and demographic supremacy. In that sense — the only sense that mattered — George Bush was one of them, even though, with his actions, he did everything they long claimed to fear and despise. Nonetheless, his mere occupancy of the White House was sufficient to pacify them and convert them almost overnight from limited-government militants into foot soldiers supporting the endless expansion of federal government power.
But now, only four weeks into the presidency of Barack Obama, they are back — angrier and more chest-beating than ever. Actually, the mere threat of an Obama presidency was enough to revitalize them from their eight-year slumber, awaken them from their camouflaged, well-armed suburban caves. The disturbingly ugly atmosphere that marked virtually every Sarah Palin rally had its roots in this cultural resentment, which is why her fear-mongering cultural warnings about Obama’s exotic, threatening otherness — he’s a Muslim-loving, Terrorist-embracing, Rev.-Wright-following Marxist: who is the real Barack Obama? — resonated so stingingly with the rabid lynch mobs that cheered her on.
With Obama now actually in the Oval Office — and a financial crisis in full force that is generating the exact type of widespread, intense anxiety that typically inflames these cultural resentments — their mask is dropping, has dropped, and they’ve suddenly re-discovered their righteous "principles." The week-long CNBC Revolt of the Traders led by McCain voter Rick Santelli and the fledgling little Tea Party movement promoted by the Michelle Malkins of the world are obvious outgrowths of this 1990s mentality, now fortified by the most powerful fuel: deep economic fear. But as feisty and fire-breathing as those outbursts are, nothing can match — for pure, illustrative derangement — the discussion below from Glenn Beck’s new Fox show this week, in which he and an array of ex-military and CIA guests ponder (and plot and plan) "war games" for the coming Civil War against Obama-led tyranny. It really has to be seen to be believed.
…
That’s the context for this Glenn Beck "War Games" show on Fox News this week — one promoted, with some mild and obligatory caveats, by Michelle Malkin’s Hot Air. In the segment below, he convened a panel that includes former CIA officer Michael Scheuer and Ret. U.S. Army Sgt. Major Tim Strong. They discuss a coming "civil war" led by American "Bubba" militias — Beck says he "believes we’re on this road" — and they contemplate whether the U.S. military would follow the President’s orders to subdue civil unrest or would instead join with "the people" in defense of their Constitutional rights against the Government (they agree that the U.S. military would be with "the people")…
He called the gay-rights movement "probably the greatest threat to America," likened gay activists to Muslim radicals and dubbed same-sex relationships "abominations."
…
Buttars’ latest remarks come from an interview with documentary filmmaker Reed Cowan that aired on ABC 4 this week. Buttars told Cowan the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community doesn’t want "equality, they want superiority."
"It’s the beginning of the end," the West Jordan Republican said. "Oh, it’s worse than that. Sure. Sodom and Gomorrah was localized. This is worldwide
The state Senate passed SB 88 — sponsored by the Legislature’s two openly gay members, Sen. Jennifer Veiga and Rep. Mark Ferrandino, both Denver Democrats — on a voice vote after Renfroe spoke, and then gave final approval to the bill Tuesday morning by a margin of 22-12, with Republican Sens. Ken Kester and Al White joining Democrats voting in favor. The bill moves on to the House for consideration.
The bill, which also came under fire from Focus on the Family in an advertising campaign last week, roused Renfroe to pull out a Bible and thump it during debate Monday. After first establishing that God created Eve to be Adam’s “helper,” Renfroe explained why he opposed extending health care benefits to gay and lesbian partners of state employees:
Homosexuality is seen as a violation of this natural, created order and it is an offense to God, the Creator, who created men and women, male and female, for procreation.
Then came some passages from the Bible:
Leviticus 18:22 says, “You shall not lie with a man as one lies with a female, it is an abomination.”
and
Leviticus 20:13 says, “If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act and they shall surely be put to death. Their blood guiltiness is upon them.”
And I still can’t get this dream out of my head…
In this dream I’m driving to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to visit some gay friends.
From Baltimore, Gettysburg is not all that far away. This is a day trip I’m taking, and I have three gay friends with me…a full car. We chat easily as I drive with the windows down and the moon roof open through some very lovely Maryland, and then Pennsylvania countryside. It is a beautiful day. Perfect actually. Not too hot, not too cold. The air smells sweet and crisp and clear. The sky is a perfect blue, with just a few fluffy clouds in it here and there…just enough to make it beautiful, but not so many as to block the sun. A perfect day. My companions and I are feeling as sunny and cheerful as the weather. Peace and contentment and companionship. A perfect day.
Eventually we get to a small and cozy old cottage house in Gettysburg. Somehow I know it is not far from the battlefield nearby…somewhere over the rolling hills of grass and trees. But the sight of such a charming little house puts all thoughts of that terrible war out of my mind. It is so cozy and peaceful to look at. Like something out of a Currier and Ives print. There is a large plot of land around it, with a very nice stone walled garden on one side of the house. Inside we meet more friends, There is a table of lovely snacks and wine. Delicious. I chat with a few of the folks inside, get a few snacks from the table and a small crystal glass of wine, and walk out into the garden…back out into the perfect day.
I don’t recognize any of these people. But somehow in my dream I know that they are all gay friends of mine. We chat about this and that in the beautiful garden. The couple who owns the house has clearly done years of careful loving work on both house and garden. The garden is surrounded by a low stone walls that I think must date back hundreds of years. Inside the wall are so many beautiful bushes and flowers it just takes your breath away. A little paradise.
It is a very peaceful, tranquil setting, and I feel a warm, serene ease being there, and being in the company of these other gay folks. I don’t know any of them, yet I feel that we are all compatriots…comrades somehow. Kindred. I am sitting on one of the low stone walls. A guy about my age is sitting beside me on my right. Several other guys are standing in front of me. We are chatting easily about this and that.
As we chat, about a dozen bright yellow birds, American Goldfinches, land on the wall near us. We watch as they fly a short distance to one of the garden’s Azalea bushes, now in full rosy bloom. Yellow birds hopping around in a rose red bush, looking for some food I suppose. The sight is lovely. One of my companions remarks on how colorful they are, and I agree.
The goldfinches fly off, and almost immediately about a dozen or so starlings land on the stone wall a short distance away from us. My companions ignore them. Some people don’t like starlings, they’re not very pretty birds, but I like and even admire them in some ways. They can find homes in the most amazing of places in and around humankind’s structures. Their flocks make these spectacular air formations, that weave and turn and undulate in the sky as if the entire flock had a single mind. I’m told it’s behavior they evolved over time in their European homelands, to confuse and evade hawks and other air predators. And starlings make this cheerful, goofy song that sounds to my ear like the squeaky wheel noise of the old fax signals I used to hear on my shortwave radio when I was a kid. No other bird makes a song quite like a starling’s. It’s bizarre and goofy and cheerful and just brings a smile to my face whenever I hear it. But starlings are not welcome in most places because their flocks can get Huge and they make a lot of mess.
My companions ignore the small flock of starlings. As I watch it, one of the birds starts walking awkwardly over to me.
As it gets closer, I can see its feathers are unkempt…ruffled…disordered. Some look broken. It’s little pointy yellow beak is broken and bent in the middle. It comes closer, awkwardly waddling on little stubby bird legs. I can see eyes are just two black holes in its head…empty sockets in its little bird skull.
It walks over the stones to me, then it stops, fixes those empty socket eyes on mine, and in a little dry, gravelly voice, begins singing The Battle Hymn of the Republic to me.
Mine eyes have seen the glory
of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage
where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning
of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.
The anti-gay American Family Association is calling now, for a boycott of Pepsi. Seems they’re none too happy that Pepsi treats its gay customers like something other then human garbage. Here’s their email alert to the faithful…
Dear ****,
Pepsi has produced another TV ad not only promoting Pepsi but also promoting the gay lifestyle. Click here to see the ad.
Pepsi had released a similar ad before. The ads serve two purposes for Pepsi: to sell Pepsi and to promote the homosexual lifestyle. AFA asked Pepsi to remain neutral in the culture war, but the company refused – choosing to support the homosexual activists.
Pepsi has made no effort to hide their support for the homosexual agenda:
Pepsi gave a total of $1,000,000 to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) to promote the homosexual lifestyle in the workplace.
Both HRC and PFLAG supported efforts in California to defeat Proposition 8 which defined marriage as being between a man and a woman. HRC, which received $500,000 from Pepsi, gave $2.3 million to defeat Proposition 8.
Pepsi forces employees to attend sexual orientation and gender diversity training where the employees are taught to accept homosexuality.
Pepsi is a member of the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce.
Take Action!
So you folks in the kook pews are going to drink…what…from now on? Coke? Coca Cola company gets a 100 Percent rating from the Human Rights Campaign. Hmmm. Well…you Could do 7-Up, which is owned by Dr Pepper/Snapple…but only here in the U.S. Elsewhere it’s owned by…Pepsi.
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