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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Rightwing Homophobes Going the Way of the Dinosaurs

If you were to ask any homophobic Christian right nutjob, the US Senate is Gaytopia. As the Employee Non-Discrimination Act, it faced almost no vocal opposition on the chamber floor. Sure, most Republicans voted against ENDA -- only ten finally voted to pass the bill -- but only one, Dan Coats, gave a floor speech trying to whip up votes against it. There was virtually no active opposition from Senators.

Needless to say, the religious right isn't taking this very well.

Buzzfeed: The silence from the Senate Republican caucus stunned social conservatives, who have been arguing that the legislation, which provides workplace protections for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender employees, will undermine religious liberty.

“I’m mystified and deeply disappointed, because there are profound constitutional issues at stake here,” said the American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer. “The entire First Amendment is being put up for auction by this bill and it’s inexcusable that no Republican senators are willing to stand up and defend the Constitution.”

“I believe they have been intimidated into silence by the bullies and bigots of Big Gay,” Fischer added. “They know if they speak out … they will be the target of vitriol, the target of animosity, and very likely, the target of hate."

There's plenty more where that came from, if you really want to wallow through the piece, but suffice it to say that the anti-gay hate industry would very much like to know why Senate Republicans can't be more like their brethren in the House, where ENDA is likely headed to die.

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The GOP's Religious Fanatic Problem

It wouldn't be an easy case to make to claim that the religious right is not one of the Republican Party's biggest problems right now. The best example of this would be Todd Akin, who basically threw away a senate race by offering bizarre theories about rape. It's easy to forget that he had no shortage of defenders. And he had those defenders because those theories weren't something he'd cooked up on his own, but are part of a huge steaming pile of medical misinformation about abortion coming from Christian conservatives. Among the more common lies are that abortion causes breast cancer, that it leads to depression and suicide, and that abortion is a medically dangerous procedure. For such supposedly strict adherents to Christianity, abortion opponents tend to be shameless liars.

And it's not just limited to abortion. Pretty much all of the Republican Party's War on Women moves have been religiously motivated. And they're falling behind the mainstream on other issues as well, such as support for the LGBT community and marriage equality. As our nation becomes more and more diverse, it becomes more and more tolerant by necessity. It also becomes less and less Christian -- specifically, less of a very specific, deeply intolerant, and deep pocketed strain of Christianity.

And the Republican Party establishment may be beginning to notice that.

Buzzfeed:

Some leaders of the religious right are openly worried this week after a sprawling 98-page report released by the Republican National Committee on how the party can rebuild after its 2012 implosion made no mention of the GOP's historic alliance with grassroots Christian "value voters."

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Politics of Hate is a Loser

Right now, the Republican Party is a sinking ship on a national level. Which makes this story of conservative diehards seem a little... well, insane.

Yahoo! News:

As Republican House Speaker John Boehner is negotiating with President Barack Obama on a deal to avoid sending the country over the "fiscal cliff" come Jan. 1, conservative leaders are publicly urging Republicans in Congress to resist pressure to compromise.

An open letter circulated on Wednesday and signed by more than 100 conservatives never explicitly addresses the "fiscal cliff" talks but warns Republicans that they are "entering into a period of testing." It says they have "a mandate to fight for conservative principles" because they maintained firm control of the House on Election Day.

Among the signers are Al Cardenas, chairman of the American Conservative Union; Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas; Foster Friess, a Wyoming businessman who helped bankroll a super PAC supporting Rick Santorum's presidential bid; and longtime conservative activists Richard Viguerie and Phyllis Schlafly.

The reasoning behind this is pretty much nonexistent. Instead, the argument rests on baseless optimism. "If Republicans provide a consistent, conservative alternative, the time will come, probably sooner than later, when most Americans will become fed up with the left's failed agenda and be ready for a change to 'throw the bums out' and restore limited, Constitutional government," the letter says. In other words, keep doing what everyone's hating and everyone will come around -- because shut up, that's why.

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Which Abortion Position Will Romney Finally Settle On?

Party platforms are mostly BS. They've become a way for political parties to throw the base a bone. The GOP had a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage nationally as a plank, for example, but this never became a serious effort. They took on the "problem" state by state, in a way that attempted to maximize GOP voter turnout.

So it's tempting to dismiss reports of a certain plank in the GOP's 2012 platform as red meat for the chumps. We''ll call it "the Todd Akin plank."

CNN:

The Republican Party is once again set to enshrine into its official platform support for "a human life amendment" to the Constitution that would outlaw abortion without making explicit exemptions for rape or incest, according to draft language of the platform obtained exclusively by CNN late Monday.

"Faithful to the 'self-evident' truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed," the draft platform declares. "We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment's protections apply to unborn children."

This runs counter to Mitt Romney's supposed position that abortion should be legal in instances of rape -- I say "supposed position" because Romney swaps policy stances as often as he changes his socks.

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An Astonishingly Poor Opinion of Women

Tell me if this sounds achingly familiar to you.

ThinkProgress:

When a woman in Alabama seeks an abortion procedure, she already has to sign [pdf] that her doctor has performed an ultrasound and that she either viewed the ultrasound image or rejected seeing it. But state Sen. Clay Scofield (R) is pushing SB 12, a bill in the Alabama legislature that would mandate the physician “to perform an ultrasound [pdf], provide verbal explanation of the ultrasound, and display the images to the pregnant woman before performing an abortion.” The physician could also require the woman to submit to a transvaginal ultrasound — “in which a probe is inserted into the vagina, and then moved around until an ultrasound image is produced” — if she or he determines it necessary.

A Senate committee voted 4-1 on Friday to approve the measure, and the state Senate is expected to vote on it early this week. Even though studies have proven that viewing an ultrasound does not lead women to not have abortions, the bill’s sponsor says he hopes it will...

After Virginia Republicans were forced to remove the transvaginal ultrasound measure from their pointless bill, Alabama's going to go ahead and give it a shot. Identical bills in two states? Like the so-called "life amendment," his has ALEC written all over it. So much for "local control"; Washington lobbyists now write state laws and local legislative puppets just introduce and vote for them.

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Republicans Worship a Constitution They Don't Understand

Imagine a group of self-proclaimed "Shakespeare experts" who claim to know everything that's not in the play The Tempest. They go on at length, explaining how this isn't in it and that isn't in it, giving everyone the impression that their knowledge of things not in the play in all-encompassing and complete. Logic would dictate that, since they know everything that is not in The Tempest, they would know everything that is. Even if only by the process of elimination, they should be able to recognize the text.

Now imagine these scholars set up a big exposition where they would read Shakespeare's work so that everyone would be clear on what is and isn't in there -- apparently, there's been some confusion about this recently and it's important to clear it up. Further, imagine they read the whole thing, but accidentally skip Act II, scene II. And imagine that none of this panel of experts notices the omission. They roll right on, completely unaware that the audience is wondering who the hell this Caliban guy is and where he came from.

Might you conclude that maybe, just maybe, these "experts" weren't quite so expert as advertised? Welcome to the 112th Congress in the House of Representatives.

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Conservatives are Politically Correct Robots

Over the years, conservatism has undergone a sort of metamorphosis. And it's a strange metamorphosis because, in true conservative fashion, it involves changing back into something it once was. Where it was once about conformity and "right-thinking," it briefly became about independent thought and the potential of the individual. Ronald Reagan appealed to what was called the "self-actualized person"; a sort of existentialist self-help idea popular at the time that held that your responsibility is to define yourself and concentrate on your own potential, rather than that of the group. In Reagan's world, society was holding you back, you needed freedom to pursue your own ideas, and the state was both that society holding you back and a check on freedom. Take that or leave it for what it was, but the core of Reaganism was a focus on individualism.

Now, here's conservatism today:

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Let's not concentrate on what an obvious fool Michael Steele is. Let's concentrate on how many "individuals" we see here. I'm counting zero. Grover Norquist's questions have the flavor of a pop quiz. He's not interested in any ideas they may have, he's interested in a litmus test, which Republican Party voters can then use to check a candidate for the RNC chair against a scale of ideological purity. For example, they're asked to make a case for "the defense of marriage between one man and one woman." The idea that there would be a dissenter who believes in marriage equality is unthinkable and obviously disallowed. Conservatives are back to mindless conformity and "right-thinking."

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Military Equality Achieved. Now on to Marriage Equality

After yesterday's victory in the Senate, a bill repealing the discriminatory "don't ask, don't tell" military policy is being sent to the president's desk. It's a step in the right direction toward the equality of gays and lesbians, but of course it's not the final one. Most states don't enjoy marriage equality and many states are arguing whether gays and lesbians should even be allowed to adopt. It's a long road, but we just passed a mile marker.

One thing that's striking here is the lack of influence the religious right now has in Washington. Predictably, the lunatic God Squad is going into a full-blown Holy rage right now, but no one seems to care. With the rise of the Tea Party -- who mostly agree with the religious right, strangely enough -- an archaic religious fundamentalism has been pushed to the background. On the other hand, a monument to an archaic economic fundamentalism has been erected in its place, so no real win there. And reliably pro-'bagger voices have been reliably insane -- while others have been quietly sanguine -- on this issue as well. Fighting the advance of the Homosexual Menace is still an issue with the right, but it's been prioritized down a notch or two. Priority number one is an economic policy designed to help only the wealthy, while destroying the middle class, because that's LIBERTY! At least, that's what middle class chumps in the Tea Party have been conned into believing, anyway.

In other words, despite being on the verge of having a bigot-controlled House of Representatives, gays and lesbians see a window of opportunity here. And they're taking advantage of it.

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The GOP's DADT Problem

Before we get started, I just want to say that Texas GOP Rep. Louie Gohmert has distinguished himself as the dumbest goddam person in either chamber of congress. Considering that this title is competitive -- he beats Michele Bachmann, Steve King, and Joe Wilson -- we can assume that Louie has a real talent for idiocy. It was Louie who warned us of terror babies, after all. So he's really on the ball.

Still, I think he's better off in congress. Gohmert used to be a Court of Appeals judge, where he could probably cause a lot more damage. Here, he's just one vote out of 435. Sure, he still has more power than a man of his limited intelligence should safely have, but if America has to be saddled with a Louie Gohmert, this is probably the safest place to keep him. Here's the great man himself on repealing "don't ask, don't tell":

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Let the GOP Infighting Begin

The internal battle over earmarks in the GOP seems to be all but over. Republicans have decided to unilaterally disarm. There are still a few holdouts, but with Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell caving on the issue, things are swinging the anti-earmark way. As a purple state resident, I see (a selfish) reason to cheer here. See, the bluer the state, the more money it pays to the feds in tax money. And the redder the state, the more money it takes out. I've written about it before; "In terms of federal taxes spent in their states, Mississippi gets 202% of every dollar they pay, West Virginia get 176%, Arkansas gets 141%, South Carolina gets 135%, and Kentucky gets 151%. The only state in the five wealthiest that receives more than they pay out is Maryland, at 130%." If you ban earmarks, then red states are going to see a lot less money heading their way and they're going to have to start living in the real world, where their screwy economic flateartherism is no longer subsidized by states with wiser policies. Have fun with that, guys. Enjoy funding your own projects with happy thoughts and good intentions.

Meanwhile, earmarks don't mean crap to the deficit. Earmarks make up less that 2% of federal spending, so eliminating them solves almost nothing. I hate to say it, but Mitch McConnell was right; banning earmarks is dumb -- especially for Republicans. Sure, projects like the "bridge to nowhere" are wasteful, but don't blame the process, blame the corrupt congress members gaming the process. Like a balanced budget amendment, this is a "stop us before we spend again!" measure. It's like putting the blame for running a red light on the lack of one of those railroad crossing gates at the intersection.

But hey, it's a free country. If they want to exercise their Second Amendment rights by shooting themselves in the foot, I'm not very interested in stopping them. As I said, it works out great for me. I should be seeing more Wisconsin tax money coming back to Wisconsin, for a change. States like Mississippi or Kentucky, you're on your own. The free ride is apparently over. Make sure to thank your various elected officials for that.

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The White Party

Way back in August of 2008, with presidential campaign in full swing, then DNC chair Howard Dean accidentally told an interviewer at NPR what he really thought. "If you look at folks of color, even women, they're more successful in the Democratic Party than they are in the white, uh, excuse me, in the Republican Party," he said, "because we just give more opportunity to folks who are hard-working people who are immigrants and come from members of minority groups." Of course, calling Republicans the "white party" was the worst thing ever.

"Howard Dean's comments on race and gender today are disappointing and wrong," responded Dean's GOP counterpart, Mike Duncan. "His efforts to divide Americans are an insult to all our nation's citizens and have absolutely no place in the national dialogue."

Yeah, about those "efforts to divide Americans":

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GOP Ties to Terrorism, FOX's Hypocrisy, and The Daily Show

It's tempting to use it as an example of just how blowful our media has become. I've said for some time that Comedy Central's The Daily Show offers some of the best media criticism out there. Sure, there's Media Matters for America and Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (where I'm sure TDS gets a lot of their ideas), but no one seems able to explain the problems quite so neatly and understandably.

But, in this case at least, it's not that most of the media is so bad, but that Stewart and his writers are so good. Comedy is the perfect outlet to deal with subjects like hypocrisy or corruption, since these subjects lead to outrage. The outrageous is the absurd is the funny. People can suffer from outrage fatigue, but no one ever gets tired of laughing at morons. As a result, the staff at The Daily Show can keep our attention when other media outlets have us reaching for the remote. At the same time, they can draw revealing parallels that are not only instructive, but are the payoff to the setup -- the lede becomes the punchline.

For example, earlier this week, TDS looked at FOX News' coverage of the US Chamber of Commerce's foreign funding scandal and compared it to their coverage of funding for the proposed Muslim community center in Manhattan.

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The Right Thing To Do is Nothing

It's a situation where the most consequential move may be doing nothing. Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips issued an injunction barring the enforcement of the military's policy of "don't ask, don't tell." As a result, that policy is -- for all intents and purposes -- dead. It can't be enforced here, it can't be enforced overseas, and -- one would assume -- it can't be applied to astronauts in space. We now live in a universe where the US policy of DADT cannot be applied. Not surprisingly, some are having trouble accepting this new reality.

Associated Press:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday that abruptly ending the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy as a federal judge has ordered would have enormous consequences.

A day after a judge in California ordered the Pentagon to cease enforcement of its policy barring gays from openly serving in the military, Gates told reporters that the question of whether to repeal the law should be decided by Congress, and done only after the Pentagon completes its study on the issue.

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Making Every GOP Candidate Choke on Their Tea

Toward the end of last month, I wrote that everyone was nationalizing the craziest teabagger candidates -- that is, everyone but the Democratic Party. If dems put Republicans on the spot with positions held by out-of-state nutjobs, those Republicans would be forced to either reject Tea Party orthodoxy or embrace craziness. The last thing a candidate wants to do is spend a lot of time explaining that they're not Christine O'Donnell -- for more than one reason. My argument went like this:

The only avenue left to dig Democrats out of the hole is to point out the obvious and the undeniable -- a lot of these people are crazy. And not the fun-at-a-party kind of crazy, the bad kind. Put Republicans on the spot, make them defend these lunatics or cut them loose. Are you with Rand Paul on the Civil Rights Act? Do you agree with Alaska senatorial candidate Joe Miller that federal unemployment benefits are unconstitutional? Do you agree with Sharron Angle that Social Security should be phased out and the Department of Education shut down -- or that rape can be a blessing in disguise? Give Republican candidates a choice: appeal to the teabagger base or to the rest of the electorate. It's a situation most won't benefit from. Advantage becomes predicament, since most of that GOP enthusiasm comes from the feverish base. And that's not enough in all cases.

It seemed like a no-brainer to me. And now it seems that the Democratic Party has come to the same conclusion. Run against the crazies, no matter what race you're in.

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Fanaticism Disguised as Skepticism

If you've got a question about religion, ask an atheist. That's the short version of the findings of a Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life poll. Pew polled 3,400 Americans and asked questions about broad religious knowledge. Of 32 factual questions, the average atheist was able to answer 20.9. Meanwhile, the talk-about-God-all-the-damned-time people -- white evangelical protestants -- managed to get only 17.6 correct. If you want to know about religion, don't ask the religious -- they don't know crap.

This is one of those "man bites dog" stories that isn't as surprising as you'd think. Most atheists become atheist after being born into some faith tradition. Atheism isn't really a religious belief (disbelief can't logically be belief), so much as it's a conclusion. And it's a conclusion reached after investigation.

I'm not posting this to blow my own atheist horn. Rather, I'm making a point about skepticism. Atheists come to their disbelief for a reason. And we do it in spite of a culture that makes faith a virtue. It's the end of a process; we look at all the facts and come to a conclusion. You can't say that an atheist wants to believe in atheism, because most religions promise a lot better things than atheism does. "You get to be worm food!" isn't the best sales pitch in the world. Atheism is what you're left with after you've eliminated all the other possibilities.

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Honor or Hatred for Heroes?

Yesterday, a user going by the nick "moifaux" posted the following photo to Reddit, under the title, "Which is the gay one?":



My point in reposting it here, along with the contextual question, is that some people responded to the failure to repeal the military's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy by recognizing that duty and sacrifice don't have a lot to do with sexual orientation. Gays, lesbians, and bisexuals have fought and died for this country. This is a fact.

But others have responded to the continued existence of DADT with triumphalism and hate. While that Reddit user was making a thoughtful point, someone was making a thoughtless ass of themselves elsewhere.

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The Terrorists Among Us

America is under attack from violent religious extremists with no respect for human life. They hate our freedoms and stand against liberty. They do not respect our laws and would dismantle our Constitution. They commit crimes against Americans regularly, speak out against our system of law daily, and spread their hatred through internet chatter every minute of every day. They seek nothing less than the takeover of our nation, so they can force us all the live under the oppression of their religious laws.

Damned Christians.

Look, I'm willing to accept that there are moderate Christians. Good people who just want to live their lives the way they want. But it's hard to believe that the extremists don't speak for them when they're all so silent on their brethren's crimes. Our wake-up call actually came back in May, when a mosque in Jacksonville, Florida was firebombed by radical Christian extremists. It was overlooked -- called an isolated incident -- and we all moved on, foolishly believing that it wouldn't happen again. We aren't some backwater third world nation, we thought, surely our Christian population is civilized.

Then came the cowardly attack on a Muslim cabbie, the desecration of a mosque with urine, a suspected case of arson, and shots fired near those picking through the wreckage of that arson. Not enough? David Gibson has more:

A brick was thrown through the window of a California mosque last week and a few days earlier signs were left at the mosque that read, "No temple for the god of terrorism at Ground Zero." Earlier this month, a plastic pig inscribed with messages such as "Remember 9-11" and "MO HAM MED the Pig" was stuffed into the mailbox of another Islamic center in California. (Like Jews, Muslims have a prohibition on eating pork.)

Clearly, they hate our First Amendment freedoms. So far, I've come across one prominent Christian leader willing to speak out against this hate-wave, but even then, the condemnation was conditional.

"The First Amendment guarantees people the right to worship where they live," [Southern Baptist leader Richard Land] said. "I am calling for all people of faith and good will to stand up for the rights of our Muslim fellow citizens."

Land has criticized plans to build a mosque near the site of the World Trade Center in New York City, saying it was too close to the site of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

"This is different," he said. "There's no Ground Zero in Murfreesboro."

The message is clear. The jihad against the mosque in Murfreesboro is getting too much attention, so cool it off for a bit. But the fatwa against a Muslim community center in Manhattan still stands. Incredibly, this terrorist leader was allowed to go free and remains at large. Already, fellow Christians openly discuss carrying out terrorist attacks on their extremist websites.

Some Christians may find being tied to the extremists in their midst offensive, but I'd just point out that I'm only applying the unassailable logic of the Christian right to the Christian right. For example, toward the middle of August, jihadi talk show host Bill O'Reilly ran with the familiar theme. In defense of building Christian and Jewish houses of worship, Bill said, "Nobody would be complaining because Christians and Jews weren't involved in the 9/11 attack. Radical Muslims were. And you may remember the Muslim world largely did not condemn the al Qaeda action, while most Christians and Jews did."

But the Muslim world did condemn the 9/11 attacks. They did it right away. So I can only assume that the condemnation must either be universal or come from the leaders of his choosing before O'Reilly would accept it. We must also assume that these leaders have to actively seek out O'Reilly to make those condemnations in person, since it's clear that he couldn't be bothered to actually look for them in news stories. So I'm just holding O'Reilly to the same standard; I've chosen you, Bill. Come over to my house and condemn Christian terrorism or I'll be forced to assume you're a jihadist yourself. Really, it's the only safe assumption I could make. We can't be too careful in these dangerous times. The only wise thing to do is assume a Christian is terrorist until it's proven otherwise.

Think I'm overreacting? Consider this chilling passage from their holy book, "The Bible":

Suppose you hear in one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you that some worthless rabble among you have led their fellow citizens astray by encouraging them to worship foreign gods. In such cases, you must examine the facts carefully. If you find it is true and can prove that such a detestable act has occurred among you, you must attack that town and completely destroy all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock. Then you must pile all the plunder in the middle of the street and burn it. Put the entire town to the torch as a burnt offering to the LORD your God. That town must remain a ruin forever; it may never be rebuilt. Keep none of the plunder that has been set apart for destruction. Then the LORD will turn from his fierce anger and be merciful to you. He will have compassion on you and make you a great nation, just as he solemnly promised your ancestors. "The LORD your God will be merciful only if you obey him and keep all the commands I am giving you today, doing what is pleasing to him."

Obviously, their holy book calls for the destruction of all infidels, as well as their cities and buildings. The arsonist in Murfreesboro was only obeying his insane god's edict. Unless people like Bill O'Reilly renounce this passage, we can only assume he supports it as well -- as all observant Christians must. Again, it's right there in their holy writings. They cannot deny it.

We mustn't let down our guard, even for a moment. Because if we do, the Christian jihadists will surely see it as a sign of weakness. We are at war with terror, no matter what form that terror takes. If we ignore the fact that we're the target of Christian terrorism, Christians will take advantage of it. It's the logic their leaders apply to the War on Terror, so it only makes sense that we apply it to them as well.

-Wisco


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If You Liked "Fahrenheit 9/11," You're a Terrorist

The so-called "Ground Zero mosque" (which isn't actually a mosque and isn't at Ground Zero) is a mere distraction from the larger issues of unemployment, wars, and the economy. It is but a trifle and beneath the notice of intelligent people. It's a blip on the national radar screen that frivolous people have decided to make the fad of the moment. So say the Serious People in Ties. This argument tells us that congress isn't in session, the election campaigns are firing up, so we're entering the "silly season" of American politics, when demagoguery and grandstanding rear their less-than-serious heads and this isn't something we should really pay a lot of attention to. But this line of reasoning ignores the months of hysteria-whipping by the likes of Newt Gingrich and lunatic blogger Pam Geller. This has been brewing for some time and the idea that it's only now gotten the attention of the Serious People in Ties is laughable. They've watched it unfold, reported on it, and now they want to pretend it spontaneously ignited sometime last week. Apparently, the Serious People in Ties have grown weary of this particular story. Time to move on.

Salon's Glenn Greenwald noticed this "it's a distraction" trend in punditry and, as he often does, took the contrary position. According to Greenwald, the issue of Cordoba House at Park51 isn't some momentary outbreak of stupidity. Rather, it underlines a deep and growing misunderstanding of what America is all about and gives us the opportunity to ask ourselves if we like where we're headed.

[The "distraction" meme is] an artificially narrow and misguided way of understanding what this dispute is about.  The intense animosity toward Muslims driving this campaign extends far beyond Ground Zero, and manifests in all sorts of significant and dangerous ways.  In June, The New York Times reported on a vicious opposition campaign against a proposed mosque in Staten Island.  Earlier this month, Associated Press documented that "Muslims trying to build houses of worship in the nation's heartland, far from the heated fight in New York over plans for a mosque near ground zero, are running into opponents even more hostile and aggressive."  And today, The Washington Post examines anti-mosque campaigns from communities around the nation and concludes that "the intense feelings driving that debate have surfaced in communities from California to Florida in recent months, raising questions about whether public attitudes toward Muslims have shifted."

To belittle this issue as though it's the equivalent of the media's August fixation on shark attacks or Chandra Levy -- or, worse, to want to ignore it because it's harmful to the Democrats' chances in November -- is profoundly irresponsible.  The Park51 conflict is driven by, and reflective of, a pervasive animosity toward a religious minority -- one that has serious implications for how we conduct ourselves both domestically and internationally...

Case in point: the Wall Street Journal reports that "Islamic radicals are seizing on protests against a planned Islamic community center near Manhattan's Ground Zero and anti-Muslim rhetoric elsewhere as a propaganda opportunity and are stepping up anti-U.S. chatter and threats on their websites." For a mere "distraction," this seems to have serious ramifications. According to that report, "One jihadist site vowed to conduct suicide bombings in Florida to avenge a threatened Koran burning, while others predicted an increase in terrorist recruits as a result of such actions." It's obvious that this extends beyond even constitutional issues like the freedoms of speech and religion. As important as those are, there are concerns less abstract and more concrete.

But what is this doing to our rhetorical landscape? The aforementioned Pam Geller posted some quotes from one of the organizers of the Cordoba House project, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, "proving" he's some sort of Islamic radical bent on destroying Israel and promoting terrorism in the United States. Among the evidence: Rauf likes Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, a film customers give 3-and-a-half stars on Amazon.com. Who knew there were so many terrorist sympathizers in the United States?

One of Rauf's statements that Geller finds outrageous is the following:

We tend to forget, in the West, that the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al Qaida has on its hands of innocent non Muslims. You may remember that the US-led sanctions against Iraq led to the death of over half a million Iraqi children. This has been documented by the United Nations. And when Madeleine Albright, who has become a friend of mine over the last couple of years, when she was Secretary of State and was asked whether this was worth it, said it was worth it.

Apparently, math hates America. What Rauf says here is undeniably true; more people died because of Iraq sanctions than have from terrorist attacks in the west. In 1999, the BBC reported, "Unicef estimates that at least 500,000 children have died, who ordinarily would have lived." Madeline Albright may have thought those deaths were worth it, but it doesn't strike me as incredibly unreasonable to disagree -- especially considering the fact that I do disagree. Again, by Geller's reasoning, this "proves" I'm a terrorist sympathizer or an Islamic extremist.

Another "radical" quote has Rauf saying, "The West needs to begin to see themselves through the eyes of the Arab and Muslim world, and when you do you will see the predicament that exists within the Muslim community." Because putting yourself in someone else's shoes is fundamentally un-American or something.

Another: "So men will say: women, you know, they're emotional, ..... whatever, whatever, and women will say: men, they're brutes, insensitive, etcetera [sic], and you have the beginning of a gender conflict. If gender is not what distinguishes us we'll look at skin colouring and say: n#####s or whities, or whatever." This one proves he's... I don't know, racist I guess. Seriously, you have to actively try to read these as offensive. Geller provides zero context (there's a surprise), so anything you try to read into it comes from your own head. And even taken out of context, nothing here seems especially bad. He talks about a one-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, which would necessitate Israel becoming a secular nation, like the US. Geller casts this as Rauf arguing that Muslims -- and I quote -- "must destroy the tiny Jewish state." Needless to say, Rauf says nothing remotely like that, it's just Geller's ham-handed attempt at spin.

I don't doubt that Geller and her crowd aren't big fans of a one-state solution or Michael Moore, but do we really need to elevate these disagreements to the level of some sort of hate speech? Is saying that a lot of people died needlessly because of the sanctions on Iraq really some sort of verbal terrorism? Is it really necessary to equate everyone who watched Fahrenheit 9/11 with Islamic extremists?

Here's the problem in a nutshell: if there's one thing I've noticed about the right over the years, it's that they never let anything go. If something is declared politically incorrect by the right, it remains verboten for decades. So, if it becomes accepted on the right that Michael Moore and criticism of US foreign policy equates to Islamic extremism, then the left can expect to be accused of it until 2020, at least. Probably longer. Republicans started accusing Democrats of socialism after FDR -- look how long it's taking them to let that one go. Similarly, Sarah Palin came just short of accusing Barack Obama of being a terrorist in the '08 presidential campaign. Notice that one fading into the background?

Now, being Muslim is becoming politically incorrect in itself. People like Geller spend tremendous amounts of energy trying to convince people that every Muslim is a terrorist and that there's no such thing as progressive or moderate Islam. If Democrats are still called socialist after WWII, imagine how long Muslims will remain terrorists. And imagine how long it'll be before it's politically correct to criticize belligerence in American foreign policy again.

So no, the focus on Park51 is not a part of the "silly season." It's a struggle for the future of America and what little sanity remains in our national discourse. Far from a distraction and beyond even questions of fundamental fairness and constitutional law, it's essential. It's the answer to a very simple question: will a new McCarthyism rise in this country, to remain a facet of our politics for decades, or will we nip this idiocy and hatred in the bud?

I know which answer I'm rooting for.

-Wisco


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Westboro Hate Cult Wins Big, Rightwingers Too Busy With Their Own Hate to Notice

Hate won big yesterday as a court in Missouri declared a state ban on protests at military unconstitutional. The decision clears the way for a small Kansas cult to march around at funerals with signs that read "GOD HATES AMERICA!" and "THANK GOD FOR DEAD SOLDIERS!" Why does God hate America, you might ask? Because we don't hate gay people nearly enough. Cult leader Fred Phelps says that our war dead are God's punishment for allowing gays to exist in America, which explains the additional "GOD HATES FAGS!" and "AIDS CURES FAGS!" signs. Of course, the thought of people dishonoring the memory of dead heroes (and they will do it, the ban was in reaction to previous protests) has the nation up in arms, with politicians of all stripes elbowing each other out of the way to to denounce the cult in question, Westboro Baptist Church.

Or so you'd hope. Our reality, however, is an entirely matter. Westboro's big win for hate was widely ignored, because another battle for hate was still being waged. That battle was much, much more important: some Muslims want to build a community center in the neighborhood of Ground Zero. This is apparently more outrageous than hate-cult zombies marching around the graves of veterans with signs that read "GOD BLEW UP THE TROOPS." Never mind that once Cordoba House is built (if it is built), you'll never hear about it again; we're all supposed to think that a mosque within walking distance of the former address of the World Trade Center is a bigger insult to the memories of heroes than people with signs actively trying to insult to the memories of heroes. If you need proof that political outrage is one of the few things still manufactured in America, I'd say the silence on Phelps and his hate-squad qualifies. No one on the right seems to care, despite the fact that the court's decision clears the way for a much greater insult to America and her defenders than anything that will ever come from a community center in a neighborhood most people will never even see.

But, of course, Phelps' hate is based in homophobia and there are more than a few on the right who are no less hateful toward gays, just more cautious in their approach. So Phelps presents a bit of a problem for the homophobic right; how to attack him without running to the defense of the dreaded Homosexual Menace? Better just to pretend he doesn't exist and attack the groups you hate in your own way and in your own time.





And the right has been wasting no time on that front. This has been called The Summer of Hate. As the Republican Party gets closer to election day, they become more and more insane. And the GOP has never -- not in my experience anyway -- been more of the nearly exclusively white Christian party that they are today. The Republican party holds an advantage in the generic ballot only in the south. And the people they've been attacking have either been insufficiently white or insufficiently Christian. Gays, Hispanics, blacks, and Muslims are all facing rightwing hatred these days, as the politics of hatred becomes the new wedge issue the Republican Party uses to divide the electorate. When Newt Gingrich compares an entire American demographic group to Nazis, you know you've left rationality far behind.

"If we had any sense, the fall elections would be about just one thing: the economy," writes Howard Fineman. "But we do not have any sense." What we have is just fear and hate.

...We are facing what Wall Street would call the "triple witching hour." Republicans have their finger on three social-demographic hot buttons. The first is illegal immigration (in proposing a review of the 14th Amendment), and the second is Islam in America (in objecting to the mosque at ground zero). They won't be able to avoid pushing the third, race, even if they wanted to, given that the two leading congressional Democrats facing ethics charges are African-American. The Democrats, in response, label the GOP xenophobic and intolerant -- and those are the nice words. If Barack Obama's inauguration -- could it have been only 19 months ago? -- was a moment of proud, blessed calm, we are now looking at a nasty, community-shredding season of fear.

I've mentioned before how cowardly the Republican base has become, so it shouldn't surprise anyone that the GOP have become fearmongers -- and that fearmongering leads to hatemongering. And our current crop of Democrats are such pansies that they won't stand up against it. Many Democrats say they were "blindsided" by President Obama's defense of the First Amendment. And they're complaining about it.

New York Daily News:

Several Democratic campaign operatives complained that without a heads-up, they did not have the time to war-game how to handle questions from the news media or GOP attacks.

"They did the right thing -- they just didn't do it the right way," lamented another Democratic source.

White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has spent three days on the phone doing damage control with angry Democrats and urging them not to go public against the President, Democratic sources said.

Yes, shame on the president for not assuming you were a bunch of wusses who couldn't be counted on to stand up for American principles. For his part, Senate majority leader Harry Reid completely fell apart on the news. I wish I could say I was surprised. The man has a spine of Silly Putty.

But the spinelessness of many Democrats is no excuse for Republicans. It isn't the other party's job to be their conscience. They are responsible for their own actions and their own words and they are responsible for the almost inevitable results of those actions and words.

So when the Westboro jerks start marching around at vets' funerals with their insulting signs, ask a rightwinger what they were doing the day that became possible. The odds are good they won't have any idea, since they completely ignored it. So go ahead and tell them -- they were busy hating everyone else. Then hand them a sign and tell them to join in.

Veterans will be the only people they have left to hate anyway, so why not just go all the way? Tell them to ahead and join Fred Phelps, the only person who's actually honest about his hatred.

-Wisco


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