In April last year, I published a diary detailing a long list of examples of how religious conservatives think that they are the victims of intolerance who are having their rights denied whenever their stupidity, insanity, bigotry and hatred get called out in the form of a backlash. We're seeing such a reaction again from the religious right in the wake of the passage and signing of Indiana's license to discriminate bill.
Here's a round up of everything taking place.
Gov. Mike Pence
We got our first hint that the Governor was taken aback by the backlash when he told the Indianapolis Star:
I just can't account for the hostility that's been directed at our state.
Then, on
This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Gov. Pence made the following statements:
The issue here is: Is tolerance a two-way street or not? I mean - you know - there's a lot of talk about tolerance in this country today, having to do with people on the Left. And - but here, Indiana steps forward, to protect the constitutional rights and privileges of freedom of religion for people of faith and families of faith in our state. And this avalanche of intolerance that's been poured on our state is just outrageous.
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We've suffered under this avalanche, for the last several days, of condemnation, and it's completely baseless.
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From people who preach tolerance every day, we've been under an avalanche of intolerance, and I'm not going to take it lying down.
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I mean, frankly, some of the media coverage of this has been shameless, and reckless, and the online attacks against the people of our state, I'm just not going to stand for it.
Illinois Family Institue
In a post on the IFI's blog titled "RFRA: Hoosiers vs. Imperious Illiberals", the IFI's Laurie Higgins makes these claims:
It’s Hoosier David versus rainbow-clad Goliath.
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In the wake of Governor Pence’s courageous act, he and Indiana have been the recipients of blistering attacks, both verbal and fiscal.
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But opposition to this law include marauding bands of hate-mongering homosexual activists, arrogant Hollywood lemmings, and feckless captains of industry.
Homosexual activists, fancying themselves the heir apparent to the great civil rights leaders, are in the vanguard of the assault on the Hoosier state.
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We are witnessing courage through the heroic actions of Mike Pence and every Hoosier who defends him and this law with unwavering steadfastness in the face of withering assaults.
American Family Association
The AFA said this in a press release commenting on Angie's List reaction to the law:
Angie's List is a bully, plain and simple. They have chosen to bully the city of Indianapolis, the state of Indiana and Christians everywhere by financial intimidation and threats.
Bryan Fischer
wrote this on the AFA's blog:
The homosexual lobby has reacted with a spectacular display of hatred and vitriol in the wake of the passage of Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).
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Businesses such as Angie’s List are already canceling multi-million dollar projects in Indiana, conventions are being canceled, mayors in cities such as San Francisco have banned any taxpayer-funded travel to the state, Apple CEO Tim Cook is writing scathing editorials, Charles Barkley is condemning Indiana, and the NCAA and the NFL are rattling their sabers about punishing the Hoosier state for the crime of protecting the free exercise of religion.
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We’re closer than most people think to our own Kristallnacht, in which Christian businesses could be trashed, vandalized and burned by radical anti-Christian bigots.
A look at Indiana governor Mike Pence’s Facebook page reveals one snarky, hate-filled comment after another. All of this represents a bewildering, irrational and mindless venom that is alarming and disturbing to behold.
The only hate in Indiana is coming from pro-homosexual zealots. Haters gonna hate, and they’re working overtime in Indiana right now.
He also went on an insane Twitter rant:
CatholicVote
The conservative Catholic blog had this to say about Apple and Tim Cook:
The LGBT backlash is now in full throttle. Corporations like Apple, Yelp, Salesforce, PayPal and others are threatening to stop doing business in the state unless they repeal the law.
Apple CEO Tim Cook essentially said: unless Indiana law allows discrimination against people of faith, he and his Silicon Valley bullies will destroy them by pulling out of the state.
National Organization for Marriage
NOM has come out with literally the most hysterical headline I have ever seen:
Some of the accompanying text is as follows:
DON'T LET THEM DO TO ARKANSAS WHAT THEY DID TO INDIANA!
Minutes ago Arkansas passed a religious freedom bill. We know the other side is going to try to bully and intimidate Governor Hutchinson out of signing this bill.
Additionally, on a
debate about the law with Rev. Graylan Hagler of the Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ on WJLA, the ABC affiliate in Mayland, Virginia and D.C., Brian Brown said this (11:18 in the video):
You're hearing first hand the sort of bullying and the attempts to bully Gov. Pence.
Family Research Council
The FRC put out this statement in response to Gov. Pence's attempt to clarify the law:
Indiana has been the target of misinformation, and bullying in both the media and online, simply for joining 19 other states in aligning themselves with federal religious freedom law.
Indiana Family Institute
The other IFI's president, Curt Smith, seemed to suggest that merely staging a rally is automatically intolerant. From the Indianapolis Star:
Curt Smith, president of the Indiana Family Institute, said that threat of public ridicule has affected some — but not all — believers.
"I think a lot of people have been bullied into silence," he said, "But there are others who are stepping up. I see both: some people who are afraid to step up and yet I also see a smaller group that is more willing."
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"Why would you want to engage a bunch of hateful people," Smith asked. "We're always accused of being bigots. Who had the signs (Thursday)? Who was yelling? I have that conviction so I can carry that into places. But most people don't think like that."
Glenn Beck
Well, you can pretty much guess what he said:
Declaring that "gay activists will boycott, will make it uncomfortable, they'll smear them, they'll just ratchet up the hate" against any business owner who refuses to provide services to a same-sex wedding in an attempt to drive them out of business, Beck insisted that everyone just has to "heal our hearts" and realize that religious business owners are not motivated by hate but rather by their faith.
"Let's stop forcing each other to do things," Beck begged. "You don't change anything. That ends up in concentration camps. You just start grinding and grinding and grinding away until you're in separate worlds and nobody talks to each other and then, whoever has the power, round 'em up and kill 'em because those guys are the problem."
John Zmirak
This conservative columnist argued something similar, but went a little further:
Sample the hate that has been spewed at the state of Indiana in the past week, and faithful Christians in recent years, by gay activists and their allies. We are “bigots,” “Neanderthals” and “haters,” whose views must be ritually rejected by anyone hoping to keep a job in today’s America — even in a Catholic high school. Where will this end? Is there a logical stopping point for this aggression, where Christians are left in peace?
History teaches that mass vilification rarely stops short of spilling blood. The French Jacobins who spent the 1780s slandering the clergy in pornographic pamphlets went on in the 1790s to slaughter Christians by the hundreds of thousands. The Turks paved the way for killing a million Armenian Christians with a wave of propaganda. The Bolsheviks followed their “anti-God” crusade of the 1920s with starvation camps and firing squads. The Communist governments of Eastern Europe obeyed the same script, as scholar Anne Applebaum documents in her sobering study The Iron Curtain. The Hutu government of Rwanda prepared for its assault on the once-powerful Tutsis by incessantly describing them as “cockroaches” on radio broadcasts, which triggered a genocide.
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If Indiana caves and guts its religious freedom law — as Gov. Mike Pence has already promised — it will prove an equal triumph for those who are so enraged at Christian teaching that they are willing to persecute Christians.
If these zealots succeed, they will tear up the civil peace in this country, forcing millions of Americans to choose between church and state. If laws or government policies beggar Christian businesses, close Christian colleges and schools and force faithful Christians into third-class citizenship — making us virtual dhimmis, like the Christian Copts in Egypt — what should we do? What should be our response now that we know what they want to do, and are overplaying their hand, but before they complete their coup d’etat?
Now, some notes to the right-wing victim complex Christian conservative crybabies:
1. No state or business has a right to have customers do business with it. Instead, they have the responsibility to demonstrate to their potential customers why they should do their business with them. They have to offer incentives. Similarly, disincentives may deter people from doing business with them. If a business sends a message that a customers finds abhorrent, then the customer can not do business there. Indiana has a right to pass this law. But they do not have a right to keep business in the state once they have done so.
2. Criticism, no matter how intense and fierce, even if it is overblown and irrational, is not intolerance. One only crosses the line into intolerance when they become coercive, when they coerce their target into doing what they want. This means that the target is no longer left with a choice about what to do. Mere speech never (or very, very rarely) constitues intolerance, bcause mere speech can never (or very, very rarely) stop someone from doing what they want to do. If all that is being directed at Indiana is speech, then they have not been restrained from doing anything. Speech doesn't have the power to abridge anyone's freedom to act. I'm written posts here that have not always been well received, and I would never claim that my critics have been intolerant.
3. Pressure on legislators to vote a certain way, and pressure on governors to sign or veto, is not harassment, bullying or intimidation. These politicians are in office with the express purpose of receiving that pressure. They are there to hear what the public has to say about legislation, and on the back of that, to decide whether or not to pass it. The public's voice will always constitute pressure on them. They're used to it. They get it all the time. It's an inextricable part of their job.
I hope you now understand why I don't take your opinions on these matters seriously.