Wingnuts are getting more and more melodramatic. Joe brings us this tweet from Soledad O’Brien, reacting as a normal person reacts to wingnuts:
LOL indeed!
The quote comes from Bob Vander Plaats, head of the FAMiLY LEADER (that’s how they write) hate group in Iowa, who seems more nihilistic than usual these days:
All across the nation, Christians are being targeted by homosexual activists who’s agenda is clear: approve of my lifestyle or pay the consequences! At first, the cases were few and far between. Now the number of cases are building, and the collective threat is growing, with the goal of suffocating Christians’ vocal opposition to promoting a lifestyle which is not consistent with their faith.
He then gives the following laundry list of complaints, suggesting that fundamentalists like him are being “victimized”:
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In London, an American evangelist was arrested for saying homosexuality is a sin while he was doing some sidewalk preaching.
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In Australia, a new television ad campaign includes an ultra-sound technician telling a young couple, “Congratulations, you’re having a lesbian.”
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In California a bill was passed that allows boys to use the girls’ bathrooms/locker rooms, and vice versa.
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In Seattle, homosexual activists were captured on video brutally beating a Christian street preacher.
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Next year, the Disney Channel will feature a lesbian couple on one of its TV sitcoms aimed at youth.
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In New Mexico, a photographer’s refusal to service a gay wedding on religious grounds violated the New Mexico Human Rights Act.
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In Colorado, a baker faces up to a year in jail for refusing to make a wedding cake for a homosexual couple on religious conscience grounds, even though state law doesn’t recognize any union other than a marriage between a man and a woman.
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In Iowa, Betty and Dick Odgaard, owners of Görtz Haus Gallery in Grimes, are under attack after declining services to a same-sex “marriage.” And if you want to see what unfettered “love and compassion” look like from homosexual activists, just click on the link and read what kind of hate mail they received. Pretty ripe stuff coming from people who say their lifestyle is all about “loving someone.”
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Another example of homosexual activists going after businesses is Barilla Pasta.
Quickly:
1. The preacher was released without further charges.
2. Deal with it.
3. Deal with it, but Bob is reporting the law incorrectly. It’s about transgender children who, despite all the lamentations of the Christian Right, exist. Bob’s refusal to understand the science or the facts is not anyone’s fault but his own.
4. The person responsible for assaulting that street preacher is straight, and a multiple felon.
5. Deal with it.
6. When you do business, you agree to abide by the same laws as anyone else doing business in your state. It’s pitiful that some people’s faith is so tenuous that they feel violated when they’re asked to make money celebrating the joy of people they don’t like.
7. Same as #6, but I highly doubt anyone is going to jail.
8. The Odgaards own a public accomodation and they’re using it to discriminate against people. We’re not dealing with “religious freedom,” we’re dealing with a fundamental lack of maturity among fundamentalists.
9. Finally, the Barilla thing. It’s okay for fundamentalists to boycott corporations that are gay-friendly, but it’s wrong when we do it. Got it. Add “fundamental hyprocrisy” to the “fundamental lack of maturity” typical of fundamentalists.
Bob then ends with this:
What will you do? Will you give in to their agenda by saying and doing nothing? Or will you lead yourself, your family, your church, and your community? Our nation, our children need leadership. What you choose will impact generations to come.
To paraphrase a quote from Winston Churchill:
“If you do not fight when you have a chance of winning, you will eventually fight when you have no hope of winning, because it will be better to die than to live.”
Again, how melodramatic! One wonders if hate group leaders like Vander Plaats will ever wake up one day and realize the threats they’ve been fighting their entire lives are imaginary.
It’s doubtful, but it sure would make a lot of people’s lives better if they did.