Rick Scarborough declares gay marriage a Satanic plot for "the complete destruction of the church of the Lord Jesus". RedState announces "the roadmap to drive Christianity from the public square". Sandy Rios has called on Christians to "prepare for martyrdom". An Iowa state rep declares that Bible preaching "just became a hate crime" and "can now be prosecuted". CWA says the ruling "opened the door to the criminalization of Christianity" and other Godhatesfagsian religions. Mike Huckabee has used similar language. An abundance of such examples can easily be found.
All this talk of persecution has a certain masturbative quality. There's no self-image the religious fanatic loves to adopt more than that of the persecuted martyr, suffering for his loyalty to God at the hands of a sinful and fallen world, simply oozing righteousness and virtue despite the worst the depraved can throw at him. In any religion, martyrs who suffered and died for the faith are among the most revered figures, and the seemingly inexorable advance of the Rainbow Legions of Hell gives today's Bible-thumping pests a not-to-be-missed opportunity to strut and preen on the national stage in the glorious plumage of that exalted status.
But behind it all, I think, is a certain fear. No, not fear of real persecution -- there are places where that happens, but not here. Churches, for example, will not be forced to perform gay weddings even though they're now legal. A church can still refuse to marry an interfaith couple, a couple where one person is divorced, an interracial couple, or anything else they object to, even though such marriages have been legal for decades. Civil law defines which marriages are recognized by the government -- churches are free to operate by whatever taboos they embrace.
No, what the fundies really fear is something much worse. We're not going to persecute them. We're going to ignore them.
At least where the issue of gay marriage is concerned, the debate is now settled. There's no longer much point in even debunking these nuts any more. Oh, they'll keep trying. They'll still stand there on the sidelines, waving their Bibles and jumping up and down and screeching about sin and Leviticus and abominations and God's plan and God's wrath and what have you, and we'll just go about our business and not bother to pay them any attention. Why should we? This particular battle is over and they lost. At most, we may laugh at them.
That's what they truly dread -- not persecution, but irrelevance.
I find it curious that the white right wing Christians ignore this sort of thing while whining about being persecuted. AFAIK, I haven't seen anything on the right wing blogs reporting on this.
ReplyDeleteThey seem to be very selective in what constitutes their persecution, and it's mostly people rejecting their fear-based/sex-based warnings about how god will punish the U.S.A. for not following their holy books' writings.
Geeeezz ... I'll admit Infidel, it was difficult for me to get through reading this posting ... not because of your writing or quality of such, but because of the issue. Living in Texas I hear about on local news of folks like down in Granbury/ Hood County (a small town southwest of Fort Worth) County Clerk Katie Lang refusing to issue licenses based on her faith, bible, etc, etc ... why did I know this was coming? ... well, as my last comments to you on my blog, because I know Texas as well as others, they have a cult following to do this, I just am looking forward for folks to get over this, etc. move on to our real issues. The sad thing is ... no one is asking folks to go against their religious belief's, but these folks want to say that they are or as you are accurately describing in your posting here. If Ms.Lang for instance wont issue licenses, thats fine, and in my opinion, she should go find another job, she dont HAVE to receive Satan's(peoples taxes) paycheck, I certainly would not violate anyones right to belief or practice of their faith ... have at it, but it also a form of discrimination. But ... like you said ... you will alwayz have those folks standing on the sidelines waving their bibles as usual. I just WISH ... that some of these folks, especially those receiving tax funded paychecks, would try to spend some time doing something of value for our state and communities besides quoting ancient verses from middle eastern cultures, and saying we should abide by it, etc ... and perhaps try to be a lil more American and fitting to our times and issues that need addressing. Later Infidel
ReplyDeleteShaw: They only notice black church attacks when they're trying to draw attention away from racism. As to how they define persecution, the last word is this.
ReplyDeleteRanch: I wish those people receiving tax-funded paychecks would do the damn jobs that they're getting those paychecks for. When you sign up to be a civil servant, you have to serve everybody; anybody who has a problem with that should look for a different kind of job.
Shaw -- The Religious Right tries to recruit Christians of color for its campaigns against abortion, LGBTQ equality, etc., but it isn't necessarily concerned about racial justice.
ReplyDeleteThe New Apostolic Reformation is a great example. Lou Engle and Cindy Jacobs have spouted rhetoric about racial reconciliation, but upon closer inspection, they just want to recruit new demographics to their cause. Engle and Jacobs have made some offensive statements about people of color in the past, which should tell you that they haven't educated themselves about race issues. It's naked opportunism.