I just had a ROTFLMFAO moment and I needed to share.
You see, on occasion, I like to get my shots, don my HAZMAT suit, and wade into the toxic muck of the far right of the blogosphere. Those views are particularly illuminating on days like this when the left actually wins on a policy debate. It reminds me why I rejected right-wing thinking a long time ago and never looked back.
Aside: I argue that we were actually .500 today after losing on the DREAM Act. It is a really low person who would argue against a long, expensive and grueling path to citizenship for undocumented folks brought here as kids. But I digress for the moment.
So what did I find when I went to our frienemies' site, Free Republic?
This -----> If you support the homosexual agenda you are anti-Constitution and you'll get the zot from FR!
Now I'm not saying that Head Freeper in Charge Jim Robinson's cavalier dismissing of civil rights is funny. It's definitely not. It's pathetic and Robinson and his minions are guttersnipes for being overt homophobes.
What I am laughing at is this:
I don't want it on FR and won't have it on FR.
Like abortion, if you support the homosexual agenda on FR, your account here will be zotted!
Don't like it? Tough frickin Shinola! Get the hell OFF this conservative site!!
Psst. Jim. This is the internet. You are allowed to say "Tough fucking shit" right before you write "Get the hell OFF this conservative site."
What is really amusing, though, is the pathetic attempt to shut down debate. Read the comment threads sometime. Most are nothing but a bunch of mega-dittos, "prayers" for the country, insults against President Obama and his family, Islamophobia and lame attempts at tighty-righty humor.
And granted. The overwhelming majority of the posters on the internet's biggest sewer this side of Stormfront are (probably closeted) homophobes. And they tend to do a masterful job of using a handful (12 actually) of quotes from bible -- none of which Jesus personally said -- to justify their blatant bigotry. While I have no proof, I suspect that in most cases, these people just find homosexuality to be "icky" and hide behind their twisted versions of religion to make their manufactured revulsion seem mainstream...
...kinda like racists continue hide behind scripture.
But the point is that Free Republic -- one of the few right wing sites that allows significant user input -- has found something so offensive, so detestable, so at odds with their version of reality that it results in an instant perma-ban. It says a lot about the character -- or lack thereof -- of a person who is able to dish out hateful rhetoric but too thin-skinned and insecure to allow dissent.
It seems as though some RWNJs take that "drown the government in a bathtub" rhetoric to its logical end and argue that sexuality is a personal decision and government has no business interfering with Americans' bedroom activities. Or maybe some of them actually read that report about how dropping DADT will not affect military readiness.
Sadly bigotry in all of its ugly forms is easy but still horribly intellectually dishonest. These Freepers are the same people who recoil at bigotry that is inherent in sharia law. They fail to see that the only difference between themselves as Christian extremists and Muslim extremists is the groups they are hating on.
And by quashing all dissent, they fail to face this duplicity of opinion. As it turns out, there are conservative arguments for gay marriage, for example.
To use the power of government to enforce a moral code or force someone into a moral life is a violation of consevative (sic) principles and erodes the bedrock of liberty. Moral and aesthetic arguments are therefore useless when attempting to preserve the Western tradition of marriage as a social contract between a man and a woman. The last argument, that the contract of marriage serves a vital role in building the family as the basic unit of American society for raising the next generation, fails to demonstrate where non-standard unions are either grossly inadequate to the same task, or harmful to these other unions by their existence.
In stark contrast, here on the Great Orange Satan, the only real auto-ban is nonsense 9/11 conspiracy theories, which are demonstrably false anyway. What else is unwelcome? From the FAQ:
Threats of violence
Outing
Stalking
Failure to disclose paid positions with campaigns or advocacy organizations
Tag abuse
GBCW
Repeated right-wing talking points
Bigotry in all forms, including against white Christians
Take at look at that list. The first four are standard stuff for blogs. The next two are rather unique to Daily Kos in response to specific issues here. The last two define who we are as a community. Even the talking points rule is a high bar to reach. I have personally advocated for tax cuts for the wealthy with certain strings attached -- a position I adopted from Tom Ridge's economic development policies -- and I'm still here. We have a gun owners group. I have seen people take pro-life but not anti-abortion stances. We have religious communities. We had spirited discussion about the health care bill provisions. I've even seen posts supporting Republicans who are more progressive than Democratic opponents. (NY-23 anyone?)
In short, the left is a big tent and we have policy disagreements. And that's a good thing. The other side is a shrinking tent willing to boot people for questioning bigoted policy positions even if they are crazy right-wingers on every other issue.
Hell, Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins are among the real heroes of the DADT repeal.
Now the Freepers are likely to find this little diary and argue that we are just as bad for shutting down posts that are anti-gay, anti-racist anti-Islam, anti-sexists, and anti-ableist. In short, we are anti-bigotry and the bigots cling to homosexuality (along with bigotry against Latinos disguised as immigration hysteria) as the last somewhat publicly acceptable forms of bigotry. Therefore, they argue that it is okay codify such ugliness.
My answer is that bigotry is 1) never okay and 2) against the egalitarian ideals behind the Constitution. Robinson and his ilk argue that homosexuality is a choice (it is not) and therefore should be a protected class (it has to be for now).
Here's a hint, assholes: Stop treating LGBTQ folks like second class citizens and progressives will not have to fight for equality.
Not that the Freepers care to address that reality. They are narrow-minded bigots with nothing but contempt for people who are different then themselves.
I don't want to conclude this on a downer note, so here is an excerpt from a column by The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, the first openly gay Episcopal Bishop.
What does the Bible really say about homosexuality? Reading "texts of terror"
We have come to understand certain things as acceptable in the Biblical culture and time, but not in our own - among other things, polygamy and slavery - which few Christians would promote despite their acceptability in Biblical times. As we approach the Biblical texts about homosexuality, we must not conveniently change our stance to one of asserting that every word of scripture is inerrantly true and universally binding on all people for all time.
Disclosure: Rev. Robinson is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, where I intern. He said hi to me in the office a few weeks ago, which was the coolest thing ever.