Falsely Aggrieved Christian Soldiers

Burning of two sodomites at the stake outside Zürich, 1482, by Spiezer Schilling

In addition to attacking gays and gay supportive Republicans as noted in a prior post, the Christianists have shifted into hysterical high gear shrieking and lamenting that it is they who are now being persecuted.  The phenomenon would be laughable but for the fact that far too many sheeple will stupidly - there really is no other word applicable - believe the rants and lies of the professional Christian crowd and hate groups like Family Research Council, the National Organization for Marriage and a host of other similarly foul and dishonest groups.   A piece at Shakesville looks at the ridiculousness of the Christianist whining and false claims of persecution.  Here are highlights:

Over at The American Prospect, Paul Waldman documents the outpouring of self-pitying aggrievement from a number of conservative Christian commentators who are lamenting their "second-class citizenship" because they support the "traditional definition of marriage."

Here's CBN's David Brody lamenting the sorrows of Kirk Cameron and Tim Tebow. Here's Red State's Erik Erikson predicting the coming pogrom ("Within a year or two we will see Christian schools attacked for refusing to admit students whose parents are gay. We will see churches suffer the loss of their tax exempt status for refusing to hold gay weddings. We will see private businesses shut down because they refuse to treat as legitimate that which perverts God's own established plan."). Here's Fox News commentator Todd Starnes on the oppression that has already begun ("it's as if we're second-class citizens now because we support the traditional, Biblical definition of marriage").

And here's Pat Robertson (of course) warning that "the foundation of our society since the founding of our great Republic is under attack" by "a few people [who] want to have their way doing of sex affirmed by everyone else." Solid commentary as always from the biggest bozo in the hate biz.

It is execrable that there are conservative Christians—whose paternalistic, retrofuck, unscientific, indefensible views on reproductive rights and women's agency are currently being legislated all over the nation with nary a peep from the office-holding pro-choice president—who have the temerity to whine about how oppressed they are simply for having their undiluted right to legislate how every other person should be allowed to use their bodies and live their lives minimally eroded via marriage equality.

Losing the capacity to oppress is not oppression.  And there's no equivalence, none, between a position that wants to reserve marriage for some and deny it to others, and a position that wants to extend marriage to all, for anyone who wants to take part in whatever way they wish, with no one compelled to participate.

It's a theme I have touched on before although I may noy have enunciated it so well.  The real grievance of the Christofascist is that they are losing their ability to  persecute others at will and without restriction.  If you want to see what true persecution looks like, Andrew Sullivan has a post that looks at what the "godly Christian" folk have done to gays over the centuries.   Here are highlights:

There’s a dangerous tendency to believe that somehow, this was the first time in human history that gay people had sought marriage, or deemed themselves worthy of it. That’s not true – and my anthology finds examples from 14th century China to Native American culture to African matriarchies. Here is Montaigne, writing in the late 16th Century, of an incident he had heard of:

On my return from Saint Peter’s I met a man who informed me humorously of two things: that the Portuguese made their obeisance in Passion week; and then, that on this same day the station was at San Giovanna Porta Latina, in which church a few years before certain Portuguese had entered into a strange brotherhood.

They married one another, male to male, at Mass, with the same ceremonies with which we perform our marriages, read the same marriage Gospel service, and then went to bed and lived together. The Roman wits said that because in the other conjunction, of male and female, this circumstance of marriage alone makes it legitimate, it had seemed to these sharp folk that this other action would become equally legitimate if they authorized it with ceremonies and mysteries of the Church.

Eight or nine Portuguese of this fine sect were burned.

“This fine sect”… “these sharp folk”. Montaigne was one of the first supporters of marriage equality. But he had to tell us in code. As we congratulate ourselves, let us recall the profound pain this stigmatization caused for so many throughout history, and the brutal repression they had to endure – even being burned alive for seizing their own destiny and declaring the church their own.

I continue to believe that if one added up all the good Christianity has done(mainly through relief services for the poor and medical assistance) and weighed it against all the evils that have been done and all the lives lost as a result of wars of religion and the persecution of non-believers, the net result would be that the world would have been a better place had Christianity never existed.  Yes, this assessment is harsh and unfair to those who actually practice the Gospel message.  Unfortunately, their good deeds are far outweighed by the evil done under the Christian banner.   Sadly, today's Christianists continue the tradition of hatred, persecution of others and evil deeds.