The Gospel of Mel Gibson - And Other Self-Righteous Christianists

It seems that most of the homophobic types who malign and slander LGBT citizens fall into a couple of categories: (1) closeted self-loathing gays like Ted Haggard, Robert Knight and George Rekers, et. al, or (2) lazy and/or simple minded individuals who fear having to make independent moral analysis and judgment and cling to whatever dogma is preached to them. In a column in the New York Times aimed at Mel Gibson, David Brooks seems to have found another category which, on reflection appears to sum up folks like James Dobson, Tony Perkins (pictured here), Pat Robertson and a host of other professional Christians: the modern narcissist. Brooks conjectures that their moral certainty and utter lack of empathy for others derives from their overall tempestuous love affairs with themselves and their love of hearing themselves pontificate. For some, I also suspect that there's a deep love for money which they fleece from the sheeple who mindlessly heed their snake oil pitch and hand over lots of money. Here are some column highlights:
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The narcissistic person is marked by a grandiose self-image, a constant need for admiration, and a general lack of empathy for others. He is the keeper of a sacred flame, which is the flame he holds to celebrate himself.
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His self-love is his most precious possession. It is the holy center of all that is sacred and right. He is hypersensitive about anybody who might splatter or disregard his greatness. If someone treats him slightingly, he perceives that as a deliberate and heinous attack. If someone threatens his reputation, he regards this as an act of blasphemy. He feels justified in punishing the attacker for this moral outrage.
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And because he plays by different rules, and because so much is at stake, he can be uninhibited in response. Everyone gets angry when they feel their self-worth is threatened, but for the narcissist, revenge is a holy cause and a moral obligation, demanding overwhelming force.
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And the sad fact is that Gibson is not alone. There can’t be many people at once who live in a celebrity environment so perfectly designed to inflate self-love. Even so, a surprising number of people share the trait. A study conducted at the National Institutes of Health suggested that 6.2 percent of Americans had suffered from Narcissistic Personality Disorder, along with 9.4 percent of people in their 20s.
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Every week brings a new assignment in our study of self-love. And at the top of the heap, the Valentino of all self-lovers, there is the former Braveheart. If he really were that great, he’d have figured out that the lady probably owns a tape recorder.