The Indigestible

The spoiled infant wailing from the Einsatzgruppen-ÜberKristians is going into overdrive mode, as Pam discovered to be the case with the Traditional Values Coalition. Their chairman, Lou Sheldon, is in a foaming frenzy about things that are … well, better to show than tell.

He titles his article thusly:

Pro-Homosexual Democrats To Push Anti-Christian ‘Hate Crime’ Legislation

There’s so much wrong with the opening salvo that it’s almost too rich to contemplate (for instance, given recent GOP behavior, I don’t think Sheldon needs to be dunning Dems on sexual orientation issues), but I’m gonna get out my biggest skewer and put it right to ’im anyway.

For starters, let’s leave aside for the moment whether hatecrime legislation is actually necessary. I’m inclined to think not, provided current laws are enforced properly, particularly since heinousness tends to be a factor in bigotry-driven crimes, and brutality of the crime is one of the things judges have to consider (or at least ought to consider) when passing sentence.

But since when did the idea of a hatecrime — particularly the concept that criminals who perpetrate them should be punished — become anti-Christian?

Sheldon anticipates me and and goes on to explain in the opening sentence.

With the Democrats taking control of both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives this January, we can expect the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and its pro-homosexual surrogates newly elected to Congress, to begin an aggressive push for passage of a “hate crimes” bill designed to provide federally protected status to the behavior of homosexuality.

It’s interesting how he semantically associates the concept of human rights with homosexuals and Democrats, particularly since he’s so willing to tar Dems as being anti-Christian. What does this suggest about Sheldon’s ideas regarding human rights?

When did human rights become an anti-Christian value?

Further, he simply lies when he suggests that hatecrime legislation is trying to protect the “behavior of homosexuality” — the idea is to go after those who kill gays.

The legislation isn’t about protecting cocksucking; it’s about punishing first-degree murder.

You don’t have to get on board with the idea of hatecrime legislation to see just how slanted Sheldon’s words are.

The question, I think, is how much he buys into his own rhetoric. Does he really believe in this himself, or is he simply demagoguing? It’s very hard to tell.

The homosexual goal is to create protected minority status for homosexuality as though it were equal to such immutable characteristics as race.

Actually, this should be a goal for anyone with a sense of compassion. It’s interesting how he anticipates the parallels with black struggles, by the way — and wasn’t that once called a human rights campaign as well?

There may or may not be reason to think homosexuality is behavioral as opposed to inhereited; sexual behavior in humans is so ludicrously complex that untangling nature and nurture here isn’t feasible given our current state of technology.

Leaving that aside, though, what difference does it really make if Adam prefers Eve or Steve? (Or, as in my case, both?) Whose business is it?

Certainly not Sheldon’s, but he doesn’t care.

The side-effect of this effort will be to criminalize criticism of homosexual conduct and to violate religious freedom and freedom of conscience.

He strung these two thoughts together to make them harder to strip down. Let’s rip him a new one — twice.

“…criminalize criticism of homosexual conduct” — wrong. Hatecrime legislation isn’t about criminalizing criticism, you religious nitwit. It’s about, as I believe I mentioned already, dealing more harshly with certain types of crime, such as what happened to Matt Shephard, for instance. I guess the men who beat him and left him to die in the Wyoming outback were just “criticizing” him, huh, Lou?

“…violate religious freedom and freedom of conscience” — wrong. It’s not part of Christian religious freedom to kill gays. (Maybe it’s part of Pauline freedom, though.) And it’s certainly not an expression of freedom of conscience to kill gays.

He’s also got his knickers in a wad over transsexuals, worried they’ll “be a protected minority” — I suppose in Sheldon’s world, it’s better to have them vulnerable and bashable.

With both the Senate and House now under control of Democrats and dozens of pro-homosexual lawmakers, all Americans must be prepared to endure serious threats to their freedom of speech, their right to make employment decisions as business owners, and their religious freedom in the business world.

Now, of course, he’s throwing a sop to money interests, which isn’t a surprise. God and Mammon aren’t separate under Sheldon’s rules — or, more accurately, if he can use his rhetoric to get the attention of bullies with cash, he’s perfectly willing to do so. Whose right to speech, freedom and expression is really under attack here?

And oh, the rhetoric doth fly thick. Consider this fine pearl.

We tried to warn voters what would happen should liberals gain control of Congress in January. We fear our predictions will be correct—and religious freedom and free speech will die by a thousand cuts—beginning in 2007.

Religious freedom on the outs? How, exactly, is that possible? Consider the diverse nature of both the Democratic party and the American middle voter bloc, which is what put the Dems in power. These people aren’t Sheldon’s flavor of insane (only about 30% of Americans are, but even that is probably a dangerous number) — some are atheists, some are Jews, some are Muslim; or Hindu, Taoist, Buddhist and maybe even Shinto. Some adhere to Bob, others to the FSM.

How likely is it, do you imagine, that this disparate population is going to reduce religious diversity in the US?

And as to free speech — remember that it’s Cheney and Bush who have been threatening users of that specific right. Wasn’t it Bush who said it was unacceptable to think in certain ways? Hasn’t the White House been complaining bitterly about the honesty of “the media” in reporting the bad news from Iraq?

Sheldon is trying to equate murder and assault with free speech; that’s not a right. But he refuses to see that.

With Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House and Harry Reid as Senate Majority leader, God help us.

Yeah — there’s nothing more horrifying than the possibility of a diverse and liberal mindset … unless, of course, one is Christian, since Christians ideally thrive under diverse and liberal societies. (Such as China isn’t. Or Iran. Or North Korea.)

But then, Sheldon isn’t really a Christian, now is he?

On a slightly different tack, PZ Myers points to a blog post from creationist Ken Ham of the “Creation Museum”, which is dedicated to promulgating the twaddle known as … you guessed it, creationism.

On the site, Ham proudly displays his K-9 “officer” training.

These are dogs, trained to attack on command, and Ham has this to say of them.

Our K-9 officers and their partners continually train and we are glad they are a part of the ministry.

These attack dogs are part of his ministry.

I’d say that sums up his attitude well — and I wonder when he and Sheldon will get in touch, if they haven’t already. Imagine how Pastor Lou would use his freedom of expression if he had a German shepherd that could go for the throat on command.

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* Yeah, that’s right, Paul; most of the right-wing fanatics are actually adherents to the gospel of Paul, not any of the gospels of Jesus. (And they hate it when you point it out.)