* Large organized protests designed to disrupt places of worship;
* Public calls to investigate and “dig up dirt” on Americans of a particular faith who donated to a political cause;
* An outrageous television ad campaign crudely and deliberately designed to incite fear and hatred of a minority religious community.
Now, if in fact there were an actual large, orchestrated, well-funded, powerful, and/or coordinated campaign of "hate and intimidation" being "waged" against any group, even a bigoted religious one, I would oppose it. There are civil ways of dealing with disagreements, after all. Since virtually every "marriage defender" has shouted it from the rooftops at every chance they've gotten, we all know that some LGBT rights advocates have committed some less-than-honorable actions in the wake of Proposition 8's passing. I, like most people, condemn illegal and/or violent activities. At the same time, though, "marriage defenders" need to be really clear about what they're saying, not saying, and implying. For, by their omissions, certain histrionic "marriage defenders" imply that our entire "powerful, well-funded" LGBT rights movement is violent, bigoted, and hateful.
Unfortunately, the Above the Hate campaign indicts the entire LGBT community. Notably, nowhere does the National Organization for Marriage make it clear that these behaviors are discrete actions of individuals and are not representative of most LGBT persons and gay rights advocates. Instead, the National Organization for Marriage lumps all LGBT rights activists into one group of sinister "powerful, well-funded political forces" and makes no distinction between those who are hateful and those who are not. This omission is silent but deadly. For, in this silence, those who have no interaction with the many upstanding members of the LGBT community deduce that LGBT people and our allies are nothing but hateful religious bigots. That, without a doubt, is the most despicable mistake with respect to this latest "marriage defense" campaign.
This campaign is, actually, just the newest incarnation of the Orwellian message that it is not gay people who are hated, it is gay people who are the haters. You know, just because Average Christian doesn't hate and fear the homosexuals enough as it is. In fact, if you do a quick "Above the Hate" Google Blog search, you'll quickly discover that conservative Christians and other "marriage defenders" throughout the blogosphere have nicely incorporated this myth into their broader Christian Persecution Complex perspective on life.
For instance, Michelle Malkin has been getting down with her bad self via her own "Anti-Prop 8 Mob Watch." Overstating her case, she accuses the peaceful grassroots Join the Impact organization of being "the same-sex marriage mob" and refers to the rest of us Wild N' Crazy equal rights advocates of having "insane rage." Continuing the theme, Pam's House Blend has reported that a "religious freedom" organization is set to run an ad in The New York Times blaming gays for a "Campaign of Violence" against religion in the wake of Prop 8.
Hoo boy.
To put it simply, these people are being so very dramatic about all this that I'm starting to wonder if they live secret lives as thespians. I mean really. Most conservatives, who have almost every societal privilege going for them, wouldn't know "powerful, and well-funded" intolerance if it jumped out of their pop-up Bible books and pinched their cherubic cheeks. I can't speak for all gay people, but I think it's pretty obvious that the same-sex marriage "mob" is not targeting Mormons because we hate their religion or because we hate Mormons. 45% of all donations to the ProtectMarriage movement were donated by out-of-state Mormons in Utah precisely because the Mormon leadership urged its flock to support the cause. And thus, the Mormon church is being criticized because it was instrumental in the passage of Proposition 8, a proposition that has hurt many of us deeply. It really is that simple. Besides, for me personally, when it comes to bigoted religious folks, I love the bigot. It's the bigotry that I hate.
Now that that's all clear, click on over to Fannie's Room for a dissection of the National Organization for Marriage's propaganda.
More BS below the fold.No Mob Veto, a project of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, was launched today (Dec. 5, 2008) with a full-page advertisement in the New York Times.
The ad deplored "The violence and intimidation being directed against the LDS or 'Mormon' church, and other religious organizations-and even against individual believers-simply because they supported Proposition 8," California's ballot initiative defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman.
The full ad can be viewed at www.NoMobVeto.org.
It is signed by over a dozen religious leaders, lawyers, civil rights activists, and theologians, spanning religious and political lines:
· Kevin J. "Seamus" Hasson - The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
· Nathan J. Diament - Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America
· Rick Cizik - National Association of Evangelicals
· Ronald J. Sider - Evangelicals for Social Action
· Chuck Colson - Prison Fellowship
· Chris Seiple - Institute for Global Engagement
· Dr. Alveda King - civil rights activist
· William J. Donohue - Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights
· Robert Seiple - Former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom
· Douglas Laycock - University of Michigan Law School
· Marvin Olasky - The King's College, New York City
· Roger Scruton - writer and philosopher
· Armando Valladares - former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Human Rights CommissionDescribing this group, the ad notes, "We're a disagreeable lot. We differ about a great many important things. Most, but not all of us, are religious believers. We likewise differ on important moral and legal questions, including the wisdom and justice of California's Proposition 8, banning same-sex marriage."
But, the ad continues, "When thugs...terrorize any place of worship, especially those of a religious minority, responsible voices need to speak clearly: Religious wars are wrong; they are also dangerous. Those who fail to condemn or seem to condone that intimidation are at fault as well."I guess The Peter and Bam Bam didn't make the cut. Andy at Towleroad has more.The ad solicits signatures from readers who believe that religious people have the right and duty to participate in the electoral process without fear and intimidation from anti-religious bigotry.
"This is a lesson America had to learn the hard way, overcoming bigotry against Jews, Catholics, and other religious minorities," said Becket Fund founder Kevin "Seamus" Hasson, "and we are committed to not letting the country forget it."
The ad makes clear that although anti-religious propaganda is not illegal, it is wrong: "Religious groups can't claim some sort of special immunity from criticism," but "violence and intimidation are always wrong, whether the victims are believers, gay people, or anyone else."
The Washington-based Becket Fund for Religious Liberty is a nonpartisan, interfaith, public-interest law firm dedicated to protecting the free expression of all religious traditions.
Nonfarm payroll employment fell sharply (-533,000) in November, and the unemployment rate rose from 6.5 to 6.7 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. November's drop in payroll employment followed declines of 403,000 in September and 320,000 in October, as revised. Job losses were large and widespread across the major industry sectors in November.Just think, only a couple of months ago, Bush and John McCain were saying the fundamentals of the economy were strong. Well, no thinking Americans bought that load of crap. In fact, consumer confidence is plummeting....The unemployment rates for adult men (6.5 percent) and adult women (5.5 percent) continued to trend up in November. The unemployment rates for teenagers (20.4 percent), whites (6.1 percent), blacks (11.2 percent), and Hispanics (8.6 percent) showed little change over the month. The jobless rate for Asians was 4.8 percent in November, not seasonally adjusted.
Among the unemployed, the number of persons who lost their job and did not expect to be recalled to work increased by 298,000 to 4.7 million in November. Over the past 12 months, the size of this group has increased by 2.0 million.
The decline, the largest one-month loss since December 1974, was fresh evidence that the economic contraction accelerated in November, promising to make the current recession, already 12 months old, the longest since the Great Depression. The previous record was 16 months, in the severe recessions of the mid-1970s and early 1980s.Q of the day -- how bad is the economy in your neck of the woods? What kind of businesses are floundering, how bad are layoffs or slowdowns locally? I've seen at least one large car dealership go under where I am. Business at restaurants is slowing down. I do see crowds at the malls, but I don't know how many of these folks are window shopping or actually throwing down the $$$."We have recorded the largest decline in consumer confidence in our history," said Richard T. Curtin, director of the Reuters/University of Michigan Survey of Consumers, which started its polling in the 1950s. "It is being driven down by a host of factors: falling home and stock prices, fewer work hours, smaller bonuses, less overtime and disappearing jobs."
Heaven help Barack Obama. I don't know how he's going to fix this, or even get things on the right track with both the GOP and the short-attention span MSM and public breathing down his back to assign blame for not pulling an economic rabbit out of a hat.
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