How Sex, Sin and Power Bind Jihadists to the Radical Right

Nothing gets Christo-fascists more ticked off than being accurately compared to Islamic extremists. Yet the comparisons are only too appropriate and the term "Christian Taliban" aptly describes the Christianists in the USA who seek to force compliance with their religious views on all - just like the Taliban in Afghanistan and Islamic fundamentalists elsewhere. Both the Christianists and the Islamic extremists are obsessed with all things sexual, oppose modernity and knowledge, and want a theocracy with themselves in charge. Markos Moulitas, founder of the Daily Kos, has a good piece at Huffington Post that looks at the shared mentality and warped minds of the far right Christians and the Islamic extremists. The average American needs to wake up to the radical danger that religious extremists of all stripes pose to peace and civil democracy. Here are some highlights:
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For the past nine years, I've been told that I want the terrorists to win. That's funny. Why would I want the radical jihadists to win? Indeed, on issue after issue, there is no daylight between the views of radical jihadists and the American radical right. Fact is, I loathe jihadists for the exact same reasons I hate the modern conservative movement -- because whether it's their violent outlook, or their views on women and gays, or their hostility to knowledge and science, or their fear of pop culture, they are essentially cut from the same controlling, ideological cloth.
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[T]o the rational among us, the comparison is incontrovertible:
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1. Theocracy. Mixing missionary zeal with government is always combustible, threatening freedom of thought, of religion, and of association. Such repression is obvious and deplorable in much of the Islamic world, where centuries-old Buddha statutes get razed by the Taliban because it offends their sensibilities. Yet such intolerance is also a hallmark of the American Taliban . .
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2. Violence. . . . [B]oth the American and Islamic Talibans believe they are doing their god's work, thus all means are justified in their mad pursuit of power. . . . . Rather than distance themselves from the violent cranks on their side of the ideological divide, they embraced them.
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3. Sex. There's enough sexual repression here to cover a whole book, with both the American and Islamic Taliban's hang ups over homosexuality, teen sex, premarital sex, extramarital sex, and even birth control . . . . It's not that the American Taliban aren't having gay sex, or teen sex, or premarital sex, or extramarital sex, mind you -- it's that they think it's important to judge you for doing the same things they are doing. . . . In fact, the Bible Belt leads the nation in teen pregnancies, divorces, and gay online subscriptions.
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4. Women. The American Taliban may not slap burkas on our women, but they sure like to tell them how to dress ... and behave. As Jerry Falwell once said, "I listen to feminists and all these radical gals -- most of them are failures.
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5. Culture. . . . . If we were just like the American and Islamic Talibans wanted -- repressed, pious, and unrelentingly sexist, blind to science, then we'd all be friends and get along. Thankfully, the American Taliban isn't in power. And thankfully, the culture is progressing much faster than our political system, from gay and women equality, to greater openness on sexual matters, despite the best efforts from the Right to stifle that progress.
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6. Truth. What's the difference between Islamic madrasas and Jerry Falwell's Liberty University or Pat Robertson's Regent University? What about the Creation Museum, with its statues of people and dinosaurs, side by side? Both types of ideologues are quick to substitute their rigid theology over scientific fact and inquiry -- a tendency that might be merely quaint if they weren't fighting to impose their will on the broader populace. . . . Both Talibans consider learning, universities, and the educated elite as unwelcome challenges to their holy writs.
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Ultimately, the regressive American Taliban are little different in their social beliefs from the Islamic fundamentalists they claim to hate. Any differences between them are a matter of degree -- Islamic jihadists are guilty of far worse abuses, but that's only because just one of those Talibans is in power. Thankfully, the other, for now, is not.