Tag Archives: bigotry

Is Change Finally Coming?

Yesterday, the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce announced its opposition to HJR6, which would amend the Indiana Constitution to ban same-sex marriages. The Chamber  joined Eli Lilly & Company, Cummins, and a wide variety of others in opposition to a measure that would make Indiana a poster child for homophobia at a time the rest of the country is moving in a far more progressive direction on marriage equality.

What’s particularly heartening about the announcement is the cultural/political change it signals. Not so long ago, business interests and the so-called “country-club” Republicans would have simply gone along with the rabid right wing of the party. They might not have agreed, they might have muttered under their breath, but they wouldn’t have gone public with their disapproval.

Similar signs of revolt are emerging around the country, even in some pretty unlikely places.

This, for example, is a political ad from TEXAS, where crazy was invented and still thrives. (See: Ted Cruz, Louis Gohmert.) Where “good old boys” like Tom Delay  gerrymandered GOP dominance. Where you couldn’t be too far right.

TEXAS.

Maybe the tide IS turning….

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Creating God in Our Own Image

I am perpetually bemused by people who know exactly what God thinks–and are  immensely comforted by the discovery that God thinks just exactly the way they do. 

Wow–who’d have guessed!?

The most recent example I’ve stumbled upon comes from American Family Association’s Sandy Rios, who delivered this truly jaw-dropping diatribe on her radio program:

I would not want to be in the shoes of any of the left right now. I would not want to be in Barack Obama’s shoes. I would not want to be in the shoes of homosexual activists. I say that with humility and with fear for them because God will even the score, he will sort things out, he will be God and he will not be mocked. Whereas they think they are getting away with breaking all kinds of moral laws and mocking everyone in the process, they just don’t know God, they don’t know who they are up against and we do. And that should bring out some mercy in us because I wouldn’t want to be—what did that old evangelist say: ‘it’s a fearful thing to fall into the hands of an angry God.’
Unlike all us sinners, you see, Sandy Rios knows God. 
The monumental arrogance and self-delusion displayed by those who purport to know the mind of a deity they themselves describe as all-knowing and all-powerful is certainly mind-blowing.  But what really gets to me is the nature of the God these people have created in their own image: small-minded, vengeful and partisan. Hardly the sort of God worth worshipping.
I don’t mean to be snarky or dismissive, but if God exists, I’m pretty confident she will reward charity, inclusiveness and loving-kindness rather than prejudice and hate. But then,  I must hasten to say that I can’t really know.
Unlike Sandy Rios, I haven’t chatted with God lately.
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How Long Can This Continue?

The State, a newspaper in South Carolina, reports that Senator Lindsay Graham–the very right-wing South Carolina Senator who is coming up for re-election–has attracted a primary opponent. Because, you know, Graham is insufficiently insane.

State Sen. Lee Bright announced his candidacy Tuesday for the GOP nomination for the U.S. Senate, calling incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham “a community organizer for the Muslim Brotherhood.”

“During the (congressional) recess, when I would hope that he would be around folks in South Carolina, getting their feelings on so many issues that affect their lives, he has instead chosen to take his time to be a community organizer for the Muslim Brotherhood and that concerns me,” Bright told supporters in a conference call. “He needs to spend more time listening to what the brothers in South Carolina have to say.”

Increasingly, I feel as though I have fallen down the Rabbit Hole with Alice, or I’m living in one of those science fiction books I used to read, where the protagonist goes to sleep only to wake up in an alternate universe.

Mr. (not very) Bright uses all the dog whistle words: community organizer. Muslim. Next thing you know, he’ll be accusing Graham of having been civil to the President (although he’d be hard pressed to find an example of Graham actually voting for something the President proposed. At this point, if President Obama suggested we endorse the sun continuing to rise in the east, most Republicans would call the very idea “socialism” and oppose it.)

I know we Americans have gone through periods of hysteria and bigotry and self-destructive behaviors before. We just didn’t have the internet and Facebook and blogs to rub our faces in every paranoid utterance, every display of aggressive ignorance and racial animus. I want to believe that this, too, shall pass…..

But I’d feel so much better if someone could assure me that we will come to the end of this cycle of crazy before the harm done becomes irreparable.

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Apples and Trees

Several media outlets recently reported that the teenage son of Arizona Senator Jeff Flake, whose given name is Tanner, used the screen name “n1ggerkiller” in an online game; he also posted YouTube comments using the word “nigger” and calling Mexicans “the scum of the Earth.” His Twitter account was littered with the word faggot, and he called a friend a “Jew” for stealing a joke.

According to a story in Slate, Nevada Rep. Joe Heck’s son Joey “posted equally stomach-turning comments to his Twitter account. In addition to his repeated use of “faggot” and “nigga,” he made anti-gay and anti-Mexican remarks, saying NFL quarterback “[Mark] Sanchez can hop the border faster than he can throw the ball” and retweeted “There are gays everywhere. Maybe that’s gods way of thinning out the population because faggots can’t have babies.” Being a politically minded young lad, he also commented that ABC’s Martha Raddatz should not have been a presidential debate moderator because she’s a woman and that Mitt Romney made Barack Obama his “slave” in a presidential debate. Heck also said that Obama’s main accomplishments as president were promoting the sports of “spear chucking and rock skipping. The sports they do in his home country…”

Both politicians were quick to disavow the posts, offering weak “boys will be boys” explanations, but as the article detailed, both Flake and Heck come from the fever swamp precincts of the GOP.

The apples, as we used to say, don’t fall far from the tree. Those of us who are parents are aware–often painfully aware–of the myriad ways in which our attitudes and language shape our children.

As the old song from South Pacific put it, “You have to be taught to hate.”

We all know that there are people like Flake and Heck, filled with animus, and twisted in ways that are hard to fathom. There have always been such people, and I assume there always will be. The more troubling question is: how do they get elected? Are the donors and voters who support them oblivious to these attitudes? Or do they share them?

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The Mystery of Michelle

So Michelle Bachmann isn’t going to run again.

I won’t add my voice to the chorus of those speculating about the reasons for her decision to quit. I don’t really care whether it was poll results, one of the federal investigations, or a personal message from Jesus.

I’m also not going to join the chorus of those who will miss having Crazy Eyes around—who are bemoaning the loss of a perfect Tea Party specimen to whom they could point and laugh (albeit despairingly).

What I want to know is how this embodiment of everything that is ludicrous and embarrassing about American politics ever got elected in the first place.

The feminist part of me suspects looks had something to do with it. A friend of mine maintains that no one would ever have heard of Sarah Palin if she looked like Janet Reno, and that is probably true of Michelle as well. If you don’t look at the eyes, she’s very attractive.

But surely, at some point, voters actually listened to her.

What did those voters think about her charge that Congress was filled with “anti-American” fifth column members? About her bill to allow light bulb “freedom of choice”?  About her rejection of evolution and climate change?  About her accusation that Hillary Clinton’s aide was a Muslim terrorist? (Cleverly married to a Jew, to throw us off the scent…)

One would think that voters who agreed with her bigotry and extremism would at least be embarrassed by her aggressive ignorance. But she was elected. To the Congress of these United States. Three times.

If that isn’t evidence that America is doomed, I don’t know what is.

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