'Hate speech, Republican style'
Wednesday, April 30 @ 09:54:58 EDT
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By Rich Procter
In 1995, the Southern Baptist Convention apologized to the world for its complicity in slavery, and for using the Bible to justify the racist oppression of African-Americans in the South. How long will it be before the Republican Party has to apologize for demonizing gay people? How long will it take them to issue this statement:
"(Ahem), ahhhhh - we deeply regret all that nonsense we churned out about gay men and women - calling them evil and immoral, subjecting them to ridicule, and implying that they so enraged God that "He" allowed the 9-11 terror attacks to occur. Perhaps the most egregious and therefore most regrettable example of this horror was a Republican Senator named Rick Santorum. We can now clearly see that he was an ignorant yahoo - a bilious toxic cloud of prejudice pushing an empty suit through the air. We now recognize that our gay brothers and sisters are perfect children of God, and welcome in the "Big Tent" of what's left of the Republican Party."
How long will it them to make this apology? Ten years? Twenty? Fifty? A hundred? It's bad enough that Santorum is essentially endorsing the notion of a police mini-cam embedded in the smoke detector of every bedroom in America, lest (HORRORS!) consenting adults manufacture whoopee in the manner of their choosing. What's far worse is the immoral, reprehensible, cowardly silence from other Republicans, including President Compassionate Conservatism himself. After Santorum's gratuitous bazooka round at gays, Mr. Bush issued a statement informing us that Santorum was "inclusive." Nice word, that. I assume what he means is that the esteemed Junior Senator from Pennsylvania wants to make that Republican tent big enough for every American...as long as they aren't some kind of deviated pervert. Or Muslim. Or some hue other than alabaster. Or Buddhist. Or a female working outside the home. Or (shudder) poor.
The most potent spike of venom in Santorum's spew of bile is equating gay people having consensual sex with incest and bestiality. Look. People. The verbal hairball Santorum coughed up isn't about the right to privacy. It's about the gratuitous smearing of tax-paying, law-abiding, patriotic Americans for the political purpose of injecting a great big poison speedball into the body politic. Gotta keep them Limbaugh listeners riled and ready to do battle, doncha know.
Can it be any simpler, Senator Santorum? When gay men and women have sex, it's an act of love, and nobody's business but theirs. When that same bedroom is used for an act of incest, that's a violent felony committed by a heartless criminal against a helpless victim. It's evil. It's soul-theft, and it deserves to be punished without mercy.
Santorum also mentioned polygamy. I'll let him hash that one out with Orrin Hatch. Oh, and bestiality? "Man on dog"? That's strictly between Santorum and that weird guy he meets behind the Petco every weekend - right before he hands the animal over to Bill Frist for more of his, ah, "experiments."
I am greatly blessed to have many gay friends. They are the kindest, smartest, most loving, most generous, most spiritual people I know. I always guffaw when I hear some wingnut pinhead call homosexuality a "lifestyle choice" made by people who connive to wheedle "favored treatment" out of gullible bureaucrats. Like any sane person would choose a life-style that would put him/her in the crosshairs of the glassy-eyed, spittle-flecked, gun-toting crazies (i.e. the Republican "base") out to serve as instruments of God's righteous wrath.
Just for the record - Mentions of homosexuality by Jesus in the Bible: Zero. Mentions of adulterers: Two (Whoops! Newt, keep it in your Dockers, would ya?)
In 2000, George Bush demonstrated he was willing to play the "hate card" in South Carolina when his followers handed out leaflets, sent e-mails and made phone calls alerting voters to McCain's "black child" (an adopted daughter from Bangladesh). Operation Us Versus Them 2004 has now begun. Of course, Bush and Rove have ordered the party faithful to shut up about Santorum. They've sent a great big juicy T-bone to the red-meat eaters on the far right of the party, and now they want the whole thing to go away before it can scare the soccer moms.
The fact that Santorum's bizarre screed is an vile lie likely to produce hate crimes doesn't seem to concern Bush & Co. Demonizing minorities - the ultimate wedge issue! So it's antithetical to real Christian love and compassion - if it works, who cares? |
