For Religious Conservatives, the War Against Gay Rights is Already Lost

One of the more enjoyable aspects of the recent and rapid advance of gay rights over the past few years -- and the past few months in particular -- has been watching the Baghdad Bob-like insistence on the far-right that the battle against the Homosexual Menace can still be won. For those of you who might not remember, "Baghdad Bob" was a nickname given to Saddam Hussein's Information Minister Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf. He earned notoriety for being the worst propagandist anyone had ever seen, insisting that the defense of Iraq from the Dubya invasion was going great for Hussein -- at one point telling reporters there were no Americans in Baghdad while our tanks rolled around in the background.

The right's approach to the advance of gay rights and gay acceptance has been complete denial to a ludicrous degree. For people who talk about liberty and freedom a lot, they sure don't seem to have a lot of use for them.

At the head of all this stupid, you're generally going to find Michele Bachmann. Yesterday was no exception.

Raw Story: Appearing on CNN’s The Situation Room, and speaking before Arizona governor Jan Brewer vetoed SB 1062 which would have effectively legalized discrimination based on religious grounds, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) explained to Wolf Blitzer that a veto would “eviscerate” freedom of speech.

Asked by host Blitzer what she thinks Governor Jan Brewer should do with the bill sitting on her desk, Bachmann replied that we need to have “tolerance” for people on both sides of the issue.

“I think what we need to do is respect both sides. We need to respect both opinions,” Bachmann replied. “And just like we need to observe tolerance for the gay and lesbian community, we need to have tolerance for the community of people who hold sincerely held religious belief.”

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Let's get one thing straight right off the bat: the right to discriminate is not religious freedom. It's the opposite. When you give everyone the right to be as oppressive as their dark, hating hearts desire, the result is not more freedom, but more oppression. This is what Libertarians constantly fail to understand and this is why hate-filled intellectual lightweights like Bachmann love Libertarian arguments so much. They aren't pro-freedom, they're pro-oppression. It's the same with the Obamacare contraception coverage debate -- forcing your employees to abide by your religious beliefs is not religious freedom, it's state-sanctioned religious oppression.

So when a Bible-beating dope like Bachmann tells you something is about freedom or liberty, it's not. It's about the opposite. If Michele Bachmann gave a damn about religious liberty, she wouldn't be such a tireless fearmonger when it came to Muslims.

But the bigger and dumber argument is that we have to tolerate the intolerance of bigots like Bachmann and other SB1062 supporters -- or we are ourselves intolerant. This is an incredibly stupid argument specifically designed to turn logic on its head. It would make the people denouncing white supremacists or counter-protesters at a Westboro Baptist funeral protest the real bigots. This is not an argument that can survive in the wild. "Tolerate my intolerance, hater!" is just as stupid and illogical as it sounds

Meanwhile, similar pro-discrimination bills are dropping like flies all around the country. None made it as far as Arizona's, so they didn't get the same amount of coverage. And, as I spent yesterday pointing out, no challenge to a state same-sex marriage ban has failed since the Supreme Court's Windsor decision -- a fact that handed the Michele Bachmanns of the world yet another loss yesterday.

The tide in the right's fight against the Creeping Homosexual Menace isn't turning, it's turned. The war is all but over and the fierce denials from the homophobe chorus only serve to (barely) delay the inevitable. Those tanks behind the Baghdad Bob-like Michele Bachmann aren't from the Religious Conservatives' advance force -- they're flying rainbow flags.

And it's time for the dead-enders to wave white ones.

-Wisco

[photo via Wikimedia Commons]


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