Michael Brown is a radical cleric based in North Carolina who specializes in whipping fundie audiences into a lather using extreme militaristic language. Of course, according his own warped sense of self, he is a beacon of peace and enlightenment on par with the Buddha.
In my view, Brown is a menace that brings hordes of fundies to Charlotte Pride each year to intimidate people and make them extremely uncomfortable. For this reason I declared Brown a “monster.” For the record, I stand by these comments and believe he and his red-shirted army of thugs should stay the hell home and leave people alone so they can enjoy Pride without being scared or pestered. Brown is like an obnoxious guest who keeps showing up for parties he wasn’t invited to attend. If he had any sense of decency he’d stay home and BBQ next summer during Pride.
Given my spot-on criticism of Brown, he took an opportunity to attack me today on some crazy website called TownHall. According to Bombastic Brown:
In response, Besen wrote an article entitled, “Michael Brown Is an Anti-Gay Monster,” claiming that my “game is to try inciting followers to possible violence against LGBT people.” He stated, “I do strongly believe to my core that Brown’s ultimate goal is to create the conditions for a nasty physical clash,” claiming that, “The madman fully understands that he only has to create a hostile climate to inflame the most unstable of his thugs and they will eventually provoke the type of confrontation that this pathological monster deeply desires.”
What effect do such vitriolic, ugly, and hate-filled words have on an unstable gay reader? And how would that person recognize that there is not a grain of truth in Besen’s inflammatory words?
Not surprisingly, on the very web page featuring Besen’s excellent statement condemning the FRC shooting, he allowed comments like these to stand: “Have the hypocrites started their screams yet?” And, “You can only push people so far in oppression before they react. Shooting is NOT a way to dialogue. FRC will use this to beg and plead for more money to fight the ‘radical homosexual agenda.’ Thankfully the guard was only wounded, but the deeper wounding has been happening for over twenty years on the part of FRC.”
So, the shooter was guilty, but the FRC bears the greater guilt. As another commenter on the Truth Wins Out site opined, the shooting “was Lady Karma finally come a-calling on the FRC.
Let me get this straight. Brown thought our statement was “excellent.” Yet, he scrapes the bottom of the barrel and tries to tie us to our commenters?
First, we get a lot of comments and don’t read every comment. If Brown had the web-traffic we do he might understand.
Second, we have a fairly open policy where anyone can comment. We frequently have those with whom we disagree opining on our site. We do this because readers tend to enjoy the openness of our forum and the robust debates that are sparked by this policy. And Brown should know this because he has offered his opinion in the comments section several times and so have his followers.
I guess if the commenters on our site reflect our views, then Michael Brown and I must be of the same mind because he has commented.
Michael Brown’s piece in Townhall was a cheap shot that reveals more about his character than it does about the opinions expressed by Truth Wins Out.
