Saturday, April 25, 2015

The Anti-Gay Far Right Can't Run Forever From Its History of Bigotry

As noted in the previous post, Bruce Jenner's coming out will likely prompt more spittle flecked rage from the Christofascists.   Hate is the one constant with the Christian Right - these people hate virtually everyone who doesn't look like them and cling to the same sick, perverted version of Bronze Age and 1st century myths.  And if one inspects the current "family values" organizations, most have antecedents in white supremacy groups that have fanned racism and often sought to marginalize anyone they deem as "other."  Scratch the surface of The Family Foundation here in Virginia, and you find the descendants of those who supported Massive Resistance who closed down the public schools rather than allow black children attend.  Many of the christian schools that are part of TFF's network of hate trace back to Massive resistance.  Simply put, these folks are not nice or decent people and their history needs to be exposed.  Blogger friend Alvin McEwen has piece in Huffington Post that reminds of that these people need to be held accountable for their history of hate and bigotry.  Here are excerpts:
There is a brazenly dishonest new tactic emanating from the anti-gay right which must be called out on a larger scale. That lie is the idea that somehow the progression of marriage equality and popularity of the LGBT community is suddenly making them isolated and derided for supposedly simply stating their opinions. Suddenly the LGBT community is being portrayed as bullies seeking to shut anti-gay figures down and deride them for speaking against marriage equality and LGBT equality. It's a skilled talking point helped along by think tank finances, intellectuals paid by these finances and a "news" network which mistakes omitted information, one-sided interviews and sloppy (probably in some cases deliberately sloppy) journalism as conservative opinion and ideology.

Almost weekly, we read or hear about anecdotal incidents drudged up by Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council, Ryan T. Anderson and the Heritage Foundation or Fox News personality Todd Starnes about supposed innocent Christians who are besieged by aggressive gays. 

The anti-gay right seem to be painting a portrait of victimhood in anticipation of further progress by the LGBT community and the goal is most likely to stop this progress.

But I have one question. How in the hell can anyone forget how we got to this point? I mean really.
For decades, anti-gay organizations and their supporters have portrayed the LGBT community as child molesting, diseased, sexually aggressive miscreants whose sole desire is to cause chaos before being sent to the lower pits of hell after we die for our supposed sins. Through lies, distortions and bad science, anti-gay groups made it difficult for laws to be passed to protect our interests, health and families. They created and repeated ad nauseam the false mantra that we are a "public health hazard" and our lives are fraught with pain, sadness, loneliness and early death.

But suddenly, . . . . anti-gay groups are attempting to rewrite the so-called culture war. . . . .  They want the world to forget all of the ignorance they exploited, the lies they told and the tactics they undertook to dehumanize the LGBT community.

They want us to forget the times when folks like Anita Bryant accused LGBTs of "recruiting" children to "refreshen" our ranks.

They want us to forget the officials in the Reagan Administration who kept the president from adequately addressing the AIDS crisis in its early days.

They want us to forget the names and faces of people whose lives were destroyed via homophobic violence or suicide most likely spurred on by the nods of societal homophobia.

Sorry guys, you are not victims. You never were. . . . . you can't erase your history of being bullies.

LGBTs don't forget and we don't let others forget, either.
For but one example of the lies Alvin is call out, look no farther than Mike Huckabee - a detestable individual in my view who would happily be another Himmler if he could to implement a "final solution" for gays and non-whites.  This from The New Civil Rights Movement:
The likely 2016 Republican presidential candidate who has spent a large portion of his time since his term as Arkansas' governor ended attacking the LGBT community, on Thursday spoke on a conference call organized by Tony Perkins' anti-gay hate group, the Family Research Council.

“Christian convictions are under attack as never before,” Huckabee old listeners. “Not just in our lifetime, but ever before in the history of this great republic. We are moving rapidly toward the criminalization of Christianity.”
Huckabee and those like him deserve to be social outcasts and pariahs.  They are a blight on decent society.  

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Please remember when they say things like "Christianity is being criminalized" or "How long until they roll out the box cars" the truth is that is what they desire to do to us.

Michael-in-Norfolk said...

You are 100% - they are describing what they want to do to us.