Being the quintessential liberal (and this being my first diary) you should know that I'm a huge fan of Bill Maher's "New Rules" segment. Now, I don't have HBO but I try to catch them when I can on YouTube or wherever I happen to get lucky enough to see them. Anyway, I've decided to set up my own "New Rule" for all those "professional moralists" out there that have recently started calling for gay marriage opponents to "go on strike" or say that legalizing it will lead to a new Civil War: You have to get a real job. Let me explain below the little squiggly thing they use as a demarcation line around here.
Recently, a right wing radio host called on "ten million productive" Christians to go "on strike" to protest the acceptance of gay marriage in society. You can read about it here. Supposedly this would be to show how society can't function without them. This call stuck out in my mind because it highlights everything wrong with the religious right. Namely, they don't understand how the outside world works. I don't just mean that they don't realize they are in the minority now on this issue; I suspect most of them do or at least see they will lose sooner rather then later, what I mean is, they don't understand what it's like to have a real job. Because they don't. Being a talk radio host isn't the most strenuous job in the world. You go on the radio and give everyone your opinion. It's like being a sports writer or a porn star. Fun, but the world can more or less function without you.
Not to downgrade either sports writers or porn stars, or even radio hosts for that matter. But most of them aren't calling for others to make sacrifices they themselves don't or wouldn't make. Most of these guys calling for these sacrifices also wouldn't lose very much if they lost their "jobs" tomorrow. Now, my job isn't much. It doesn't pay all that well and it isn't very glamorous. It's tedious and gets boring a lot of the time but it's at least somewhat useful to where I work. If I quit tomorrow, they would probably find someone else to fill the position relatively quickly but it would still be filled because it serves a vital purpose. Tony Perkins, however, can't say that. Neither can Maggie Gallagher. Or Gary Bauer or the numerous other clowns that are jumping on this "everyone give up your lively hood for our cause" bandwagon.
Because, you see, the religious right don't have jobs. They are con artists. Creating "problems" for themselves to solve. All the while asking others to be the foot soldiers in their self-created "war". The problem is, all those people you're asking to make that sacrifice? They DO have real jobs. They can't afford to fake a sick day for some publicity stunt over an issue that doesn't affect them. They don't have a multimillion gold parachute to cover them when they retire. In fact, most of them took up gay bashing in the first place precisely because it didn't require any sacrifice on their part.
It's real easy to ask others to start a revolution when you aren't the ones picking up the rifle.
At some point in the (hopefully) near future, Rush Limbaugh will go off the air. When that happens, he will spend the rest of his life lounging by his solid gold swimming pool, or whatever his pool is made of, and all those tow truck drivers and construction workers and what have you that fell for his nonsense over the years will still be putting up a second mortgage to pay for their last physical because they believed Rush when he told them they didn't need universal healthcare. That's why I call the right wing media industry parasites. They not only don't contribute anything of value to society, they actively make it worse. The world has no need for the right wing pundits that tell people they don't need basic services, or that your neighbor is your enemy, or to walk off your job one day over some issue that doesn't even affect you. Pitting people against each other may be fun, but those of us who actually contribute something to society, or at the very least, don't actively make it worse, are left to clean up the mess.
I think we all need to remember the Hippocratic oath: First do no harm. It is literally the very least we can do.