If being attacked by Sullivan friend and Gay journalist Chris Crain on his blog for being a Christian-ist (FYI - I don't even attend church) is being Gay bashed, then I guess that's what I've been. But what Crain actually demonstrates is how instep is the Left with Rosie (fear the Christians) O'Donnell and how little the Left and even now Sullivan truly still appreciate the secular conservative view at all. As far as "hate," who hates whom in this debate is what I'm left to ponder. Not a dog in the fight, but the Gay community sure seems to hate organized religion more than it allegedly "hates" them.
Riehl World needs to step in to the real world. First of all, it's silly to suggest hate crime laws are useless because we were gay bashed. So I guess that means murder laws are useless, since homicides are a daily occurrence? What's more, Andrew's comparison works because "Christianists" pose an indirect threat to gay Americans in a way very similar to "Islamists" in Europe.
The seven Moroccan 20-somethings who spat on us and beat us up for holding hands weren't "radical Islamists." They weren't hanging out on the streets of Amsterdam at 2 a.m. on Queen's Day because they were headed to the mosque for prayer. They were the Islamic equivalent of our own rednecks: macho thugs who have absorbed the prejudices of their culture, which persist in large part because their own conservative religious leaders dress up the bigotry and legitimize it.
I'm not surprised to see conservative Christians freak out at the comparison with their hated Islamic foes. But when they regularly advocate the imposition of their own religious views in the law, the connection is more than well deserved.
I'd wager I've probably had as about as much "indoctrination," snark to any formalized religion as Crain himself, very little, I assume; though I have come to a personal comfort level with my own interpretation and relationship with a higher power I choose to call God through my life experience. Hell, there was a time when, in America, it could well have been me and some friends who kicked some guy's ass at 2 AM, not because he was or wasn't Gay, but because we were wasted and it was something to do.
I wasn't saved! I grew up! I came to appreciate that there is decency in having a broad appreciation for morals and values, family or otherwise, which, I'm sorry, America just happens to have plagiarized mostly from Judeo-Christian doctrine. THAT isn't anyone's fault. And it is the unending attempt by the Left to strip away morality, values, and a healthy respect for life as upheld in classic Judeo-Christian belief, that is running this country into the ground.
I didn't require a preacher, priest, or rabbi, or have to go to a church to figure that out - I figured it out from watching the evening news.
Hate Crimes laws are useless, as they are nothing more than proof that your society is not adequately addressing the actual physical assault (crime) which is taking place, whether one hates someone else, or not. They are the adding of purely cosmetic band aides, which do nothing to truly address the wound, with the added benefit, for the Left, of elevating some newly discovered, or now more vocal minority group to the growing list of endangered now sub-species, the conservative prefers to view as one: mankind. Crain has his hate crimes legislation in the Netherlands. It did him no good, as the underlying society is so increasingly morally corrupt. That's what beat you up, Crain - the very thing for which you campaign, you dope.
Crain, and the Left, cite thug-ism and waywardness as one root of evil, blame that on Religion - WITH ABSOLUTELY NO PROOF AT ALL - because they either fear or detest religion, it's as simple as that. Yet, a not formally religious-ized conservative like myself sees the very values religion engenders as the only effective way to combat thug-ish-ness and waywardness in modern man, because I have observed it happen, time after time.
I have seen drunks plucked up from the street and criminals pulled out of prison and lifted up, not by social welfare programs, but with a spiritual growth-spurt encouraging them to come to some sense of themselves through an understanding of their own God. But the Left would prefer to take any sense of that value, that belief out of society, most directly through our schools, and replace it with metal detectors instead.
Apparently Crain, as Sullivan has become, is a one trick pony unable to view the world through anything but their special prism, commonly called being Gay, because they have embraced a fundamental tenet of neo-liberalism ... our group's so special, look at us! In that sense, those individuals really care only about themselves. I care about our society itself.
I could care less if Sullivan and Crain want to bugger about. But from their own fear and loathing they have come to view Christianity (really Judeo-Christian faith) as the single most powerful force in the world telling them they shouldn't be doing what they do. Deal with it, fellows. I, regrettably, still smoke. There are people who tell me I shouldn't. I don't really go on and on trying to paint them as fascists, religious or otherwise, with a broad brush.
The only explanation for their view on this issue is some personal psychological or family issue through which they came to resent religion. Too damned bad. Buck up. It provides a moral foundation we very much need in America. Stop trying to kill it off because you hurt.
Stop thinking you are so damned special and realize you are just one of us!
Stop trying to strip away every moral compunction, or life celebrating value in this world because it just happens to be rooted in Judeo-Christian thought, which, for personal reasons of which I care not, you obviously have come to detest.
Were the Left and its now affiliated minority groups to expend half the energy it does in shouting Look at me, I'm a fag, or a Black, or I'm fat! and direct that energy into constructive dialog around how to foster and retain the morals and values we require as a society to survive, I suspect, given time, the assorted members of your too many to here name special interest groups wouldn't find themselves being beat up on the streets at night.
And I doubt very much that's it's really happening at the hands of genuine church goin' folk now, Crain. It was 2 AM. I suspect for the most part, they were home in bed. Just curious, were you by any chance out catting about in what some might call a decadent slice of Netherlands night life you no doubt rejoiced in helping to bring about? Perhaps not, and I'm not suggesting it excuses the crime, though it might help to explain it.
Be careful what you wish for, Crain. One tremendous irony I have discovered in life, is that, when you get it, it can come back to kick your ass.
And, finally, I am not whatever it is you and Andy call a Christian-ist - just an average guy who sleeps too late for church, but at least possesses a modicum of common sense and concern for all aspects of the world outside, not just some self-identified make me special group. It's called political conservatism and has nothing directly to do with religion - read up on it if you are going to continue to call yourself one. The religionists are a lobby, just like you. How quaint and utterly ironic, don't you think?