American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property - Update

Over the weekend I posted about the self-styled, Catholic Church affirming "American Society for the defense of Tradition, Family and Property" which took out full page ad in three major newspapers last week attacking gay marriage and homosexuality in general and espousing a Christianist view of how government should impose the organization's religious beliefs on the country. Bob Felton at Civil Commotion has picked up on the story and will be doing some posts as he reviews in detail the propaganda set out in the ad. While Bob and I do not agree on everything, we are in full agreement as to the danger to the nation and the world by fundamentalist religions be they allegedly Christian or something else. Here's a few highlights from Bob's post today that discusses why confronting and defeating these religious fanatics is so important:

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The language of the advertisement is so overwrought that I doubt it will have much influence beyond the oddities who dug into their pockets to pay for it, but it needs remark anyway because it points to some continuing and worsening problems we have in this country. First, the rise of radical Christianity and, second, our snippet-based mass communications prize the quick, cheap insult more than careful discussion of ideas.

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And ideas matter — a lot. Behind every statement or action there is an idea, a worldview, a set of assumptions about reality. I mean to spend the next few days parsing this advertisement because it reveals much about the ideas of radical Christianity, about the worldview that drives it, and it will be defeated by only a comprehensive refutation of its ideas. We must, for our own well-being and persistence as a nation, understand these ideas and be able to say plainly, and confidently, why they are wrong.

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The thing to notice here is the rhetorical tricksterism: You are a Christian, grounded in reality, or you are out-of-touch with reality and serve the forces of evil. And make no mistake, that is how radical Christianity views the world.