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June 10, 2006

The Gloves Are Off

I was recently introduced to The Liberal Girl Next Door via my friendships with bloggers from Washington State.

LGND has thrown down the gauntlet against extremist rightwing Christians:

We have worked long and hard in this country to overcome our fears and bigotry and have even taken great steps, like amending our constitution, to better reflect our values as an open, free and fair democracy. To paraphrase Maya Angelou, when we knew better, we did better. We righted the wrong of slavery, we righted the wrong of excluding blacks and women from voting, we even tried to help desegregation along by bussing students and providing guidelines for college admissions and hiring practices. Now, because Christians were unable to stop this progress all along the way, they have found in George W. Bush an ally that will help them turn back time and roll back the hard fought progress we’ve made.

Make no mistake, it was Christians that killed “witches” in Salem, it was Christians that walked around in white robes and hoods while they lynched black men and burned down their homes, it is Christians that are willing to kill abortion doctors in an effort to get the rest of us under their God’s thumb and it is Christians that are continuing every day to promote homophobia that contributes to the violence toward, and discrimination of, gay people. Perhaps religious tolerance has outlived its usefulness in this country.

I take exception to the general terms in which this section is phrased. Obviously all Christians aren't properly characterized by these sentiments. I think she's going after the hard righty Christians who are our own version of the Taliban, and uses somewhat poor phrasing in doing so.

I also disagree strongly with the idea that religious tolerance may have outlived its usefulness. I say we continue to let these folks speak out and live with the repercussions of their words. Ann Coulter certainly had to do that this week--to her detriment.

The other threads of the points she's making have merit, however. Roadblocks to societal progress have been created, in many cases, by those who use the Bible as a bludgeon of tyranny. Certainly its been used to justify the subjugation of women and blacks. The current "cachet bigotry" of homophobia has its only Biblical bludgeon stemming from Leviticus and Paul of the New Testament.

As a society, we're under no obligation to tolerate bigotry when its used to physically or emotionally harm others. Rightwing Christians are entitled to their beliefs--as ugly or offensive as some of us may find them to be. But we can not and should not allow these bigoted individuals to create laws and set policy for our nation.

Intolerance means we don't allow extremist Christians to practice their beliefs. They're welcome to it. But in no way should they be allowed to foist those beliefs on the rest of us.

That's what I believe most everyone who speaks out against these folks are trying to get across.

Posted by Carla at June 10, 2006 12:38 PM