Bryan Fischer, whose radio program is one of the most tedious, yet unintentionally hilarious ways to pass the time when you’re stopped in traffic for an hour and a half due to “road construction,” who throws anti-gay and racial hatred around in ways blatant and subtle — yesterday, he suggested that after a round of golf, Obama’s so tired he has to kick back with sweet tea, a dogwhistle if I’ve ever heard one — is probably the last person who should dare to invoke the name of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. But wingnuts don’t tend to be self-aware, and they also tend to believe that straight white Christian men are the greatest victims in our current society, so invoke him they do. So here’s Bryan, not only invoking King’s name, but in Jeremy’s estimation, calling people to arms against the gay community. He also continues to expound on his favorite theme of late, the idea that homosexuality cannot exist alongside religious liberty:
Bottom line: America must choose between homosexuality and liberty because we cannot have both. Every advance of the homosexual agenda comes at the expense of religious liberty. If gay marriage becomes the norm, it will be the end of the First Amendment. It will become a legal nullity.
As always, we must remind readers that Bryan Fischer’s notion of “religious liberty,” where wingnut fundamentalists are free to lord their beliefs over the more sane majority of Americans and force us to live by their un-American rulebook, up to and including the point where their words end up bullying gay children to death, does not exist under the US Constitution, and never has.
There will be no freedom of religion. If your religious values conflict with the precious agenda of advancing sexual deviancy, your religious values will mean nothing. In fact, you will punished, as Elaine Huguenin was, for holding them and and acting on them.
Freedom of speech – gone. You will not even be allowed to speak in defense of natural marriage and in opposition to the normalizing of homosexual behavior.
Yes, you will. Indeed, we quote the sick words of people like Bryan Fischer on a daily basis, verbatim. It helps our cause when people who are not culture war-watchers can see and hear just how hateful and unhinged they are. And indeed, we have never and will never fight to take anyone’s free speech rights away. We simply exercise our freedom of speech in return and mock, discredit and correct their words.
I have written before that not all discrimination is bad. Discrimination for the wrong reasons is bad, but discrimination for the right reasons is good. This is the standard Martin Luther King, Jr. set for us when he looked forward to the day his children would “live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
Martin Luther King, Jr. said that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Enough said. [Link is to my piece from The Advocate last week. Go read it if you haven’t yet.]
So even for Rev. King, discrimination on the basis of character is perfectly proper and consistent with the goals of the civil rights movement.
Sexual conduct is one of the expressions of the “content of character.”
Sexual conduct, perhaps, but not sexual orientation, which no grown-up American can argue with any semblance of connection to reality isn’t an inherent, unchangeable trait. So no, white wingnut, you cannot invoke King with credibility.
We must allow Americans – as individuals, in their churches, in their businesses, and yes, in their public policy – to discriminate on the basis of immoral sexual behavior. Since homosexual conduct is immoral sexual behavior – the standard legal term for it is “the infamous crime against nature” – it is an appropriate object of ethically proper discrimination. Americans must be allowed to discriminate on the basis of sexually aberrant behavior, or freedom itself will soon become just a distant memory.
Or we can use the reality-based definition of things and, instead of advocating hatred against a minority group, mind our own business, thus allowing the largest number of people to experience the greatest amount of “freedom,” with a full understanding of the fact that, though it may hurt the fee fees of entitled white wingnuts like Bryan Fischer, his claim to American citizenship is equal to that of every other American, even the ones Bryan doesn’t like. Why do I always feel like the solution to the “wingnut problem” would simply be for wingnuts to mature into grown adults?
Freedom of the press – gone. You will not be allowed to express criticism of homosexuality in print. It will be a hate crime and you will be silenced and worse for expressing a time-honored moral value.
Nope. Evil or stupid? Which one is he? It’s so hard to tell.
Freedom of association – gone. You will be told that you must do business with those who engage in sexually dangerous practices, you must use your time, talent and treasure to promote their agenda, and you will be punished if you refuse.
Nope. But everybody will have to abide by the same laws in business, just as bigoted white people who live in the South are no longer allowed to deny black people service. It really is that simple.
America, it’s homosexuality or liberty. In fact, it’s homosexuality or the Constitution. Take your pick. We can’t have both.
And yet we do. All the states which have legalized marriage equality are doing just fine on that front. It might upset Bryan Fischer, but the Constitution says absolutely nothing about Not Upsetting Bryan Fischer.
Anyway, this has been yet another installment of Why The American Family Association Is A Hate Group.
