I received the following in a daily digest today:
Intolerance and hatred on raw display
"Anybody catch "Wife Swap" last night? I'm enerally no fan of reality TV, but I have enjoyed watching this ABC show the last couple of months because it provides a fascinating look into the nitty-gritty of how people conduct their family lives.
The gist is that two married women with children change places and live out the others' ives for two weeks (there's no sexual swapping, despite the teaser title).
Anyway, last night's episode switched an totally uptight, repressed Texas fundie wife with a liberal lesbian mom from Arizona.
I knew we were in for trouble with the fundie (a black woman married to an extremely successful white man) started out the show with a big speech about how "some Christians are intolerant and hateful and try to force their views on other people, but we're not like THAT!" Uh-huh.
It was pretty interesting to watch what happened over the 2 weeks. The fundies were fairly good sports to a certain extent, but when the two couples got together to discuss what they'd learned at the end of the swap, the fundie woman REALLY let loose with this horrid, nasty diatribe against the lesbians, their lifestyle, their family life and told them they were weird, depraved, and disgusting.
By this time, the audience had come to know the lesbian who did the swap and (I think) figured out that she's a sweet, bright, good-hearted, responsible person who came off very likeable.
To see this "Christian" just take her down emotionally and reduce her to tears by completely disrespecting her (she even said she was worried
about her 13-year-old daughter being molested by this lesbian during the swap!) was incredible.
Even my husband - still a fundie - was aghast at how hateful the Christian was, and I have a feeling a lot of the audience reacted the same way, even the Christians who oppose homosexuality. I can't help but think that this kind of display will do the fundie cause a LOT of damage the more we start to see their true lack of respect and tolerance displayed publicly, rather than being hidden behind the Scriptural cover phrases of their leadership."
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You know ... maybe we should just sit back, keep quiet and give them enough rope.