The noose has tightened around the necks of Christians to keep them from speaking out on certain moral issues. And it all was embodied in something called the Hate crimes bill that President Obama said was a major victory for America. I'm not sure if America was the beneficiary. [...] We have voted into office a group of people who are opposed to many of the fundamental Christian beliefs of our nation. And they hold to radical ideology, and they are beginning put people sharing their points of view into high office. And not only that, they not only have control of both houses of Congress.
OK, so perhaps I wasn't the most attentive student in the Sunday School classes my parents forced me to attend at the local Lutheran church. Even so, I did pay attention long enough to learn that, at it's most basic, Christianity was about love, charity, and tolerance. This is why I find myself wondering about what I see being done in the name of a perfectly good religion. How it is that so many Christians these days feel that they have the perfect right to engage in any behavior, no matter how egregious, violent, and/or hateful, in order to "protect" their despicable, narrow-minded, hatred-fueled agenda? A case in point would be Pat Robertson's reaction to President Obama signing the Matthew Shephard Hate Crimes Prevention Act. The bill merely extends hate crimes protection to the gay and transgendered community...not exactly a cabal of One-world Satanists bent on total world domination.
I certainly understand the Fundamentalist opposition to homosexuality. In the minds of folks who think as they do, homosexuality is a sin against God. Fair enough. Then again, this really isn't what this argument is all about, is it? What it's really about is the self-perceived right of Fundamentalist "Christians" to marginalize and oppress a community whose beliefs and lifestyle they despise as abominations. Fundamentalists like Robertson want- and claim- the absolute right to exact their version of justice upon whomever they see as apostates living in clear violation of their definition of God's law.
If the haters had their way, America would be a functional theocracy, and "One Nation Under God" would mean exactly that. The Bible would be the ultimate and final authority, and those deemed to be living in contravention of God's law would be well-deserving of the ultimate penalty. That this functional theocracy would in reality be little more the same religious tyranny the founders of this country fled from in England seems lost on zealots who care little for history.
There is no noose tightening around the throats of Christians. The legislation signed by President Obama is in no way official, legal recognition of the primacy of the "gay agenda". It doesn't mean that our children will be given lessons about gay sex in our public schools. All it does is extend the protections of hate crimes laws to a community sorely in need of it...and what is so horribly "anti-Christian" about protecting God's children?
Hatred is not a Christian value. That much I do remember from my Sunday School lessons. Would that Robertson and his drooling sycophants crack their Bibles now and again in order to be reminded of this reality. Then again, their minds have been hermetically sealed for so long that the idea of "Christian charity" probably sounds like a synonym for "Socialism". In reality, their version of Christianity is really designed only to provide divine sanction for their brand of hatred, ignorance, and zealotry. Hey, if we can kill abortionists, why not homosexuals?
Somewhere warm and breezy, Jesus weeps in his Corona....
