Michelle Bachmann thinks that loving other people of the same sex is “sexual dysfunction” and “bondage” and “slavery,” and that anyone who thinks otherwise is “part of Satan.” And of course their families aren’t really, y’know, families.
But don’t worry: Bachmann isn’t judging anyone. She thinks all those limbs of Satan have “honor and dignity.” Well, all right then.
Do you think there’s one chance in a million that David Gregory will be anything like this tough on Rick Perry about his extreme views?
Amazing. The only thing dysfunctional, enslaving or despairing thing about it is how she and people like her treat gays. If her hateful, intolerant and ugly views didn’t exist, everyone would indeed be perfectly “gay”. Especially, no doubt, her husband.
And if I hear one more time about “love the sinner hate the sin”, I’m going to puke. It’s nothing more than the religious codification of ancient hatreds - malevolent judgements upon a people’s fundamental existence, with no basis *whatsoever* in reality. Homophobia needs to be called out for the bigoted hatred it is, no different than racism, no matter what religious BS it gets wrapped up in. Again, and again, and again these people need to be shamed until such speech is no longer accepted in polite society.
To paraphrase the Specials: “If you have a homophobic friend, now is the time for that friendship to end.”
Is that “Sarah Bachmann” a typo or snark? Thx.
Freudian typo, Mary. Fixed now. Thanks for spotting it.
It is indeed pitiful watching Crazy running away from Crazy. But it’s national TV, time to ditch the bat feces and go bland. And so Michelle intones neutral set pieces in monotones: “I don’t judge them. I am running for the presidency of the US. I don’t judge them.” As if repetition somehow cleans the slate. And perhaps in some minds it does…
Even so, Gregory is still woeful. Sure he is more persistent than normal here. And yes he managed to connect her past statements about “defining political moments” to her present dodge of relevancy. But good god, that monster contradiction practically fell gift wrapped onto his lap. Simply put, Gregory is not up to the task. Never really has been. He has a hard time spotting bullshit on the fly. And that’s no slander on Gregory. It takes a mathematical-literary mind to quick-think, cross reference, find the deep vein of questioning that elucidates. It is high skill. Very few have it. And it seems of the few, there are even fewer liberals with that verbal analytic knack. The Left seems to suffer from a lack of sharp rhetorticians. I suspect that’s because the Right gets so much more training on AM radio…
But back to Gregory:
In the battle of Reporter GoodHair versus Governor GoodHair, Perry will chew this guy up and spit him out like a plug of stale tobacco.
It is a shame that there is such bigotry towards those who hold true to their conviction that homosexuality is a sin.
Yes, Bux, liberals are awful that way. We don’t much like people who hold true to their convictions that black people are inferior or that Jews bake the blood of Christian babies into matzoh, either.
So let me get this straight Mark, your claim is that there is no logical inconsistency in jumping from the statement that the act of homosexuality is a sin to the conclusion that this is parallel to believing that “black people are inferior or that Jews bake the blood of Christian babies into matzoh?” How is that not a straw man to the nth degree and of the worst kind?
Bux, Bachmann said that tolerance of the gay lifestyle is “of Satan.” She denies that, when two men or two women form a unit and adopt a child, that unit deserves to be called a “family.” She’s a bigot. Bigotry is hateful.
Good point Bux. How on earth could anyone draw parallels between “belief in the inferiority of black people leads to unjust treatment of black people” and “believing homosexuality is a sin leads to gay people being excluded from full participation in society”? Really, it’s incredible.
The worst kind of straw man, Bux? Let’s look at the similarities. Both involve determinations that a group of people are fundamentally flawed with *zero evidence*, any claims based on totally bogus, discredited pseudoscience designed to prop up prejudices. Both involve out-groups that have historically been discriminated against violently. Both contribute to continued discrimination and oppression commensurate with the degree to which they are socially accepted and practiced.
In fact, the only real difference is that religious homophobia can be claimed to be based in holy writ. We can all thank our lucky stars that other minorities weren’t libeled so brutally in religious text - although anti-semitism comes pretty darn close.
“Look, I really do think Blacks are decent people. But they are inferior to whites, and unless they die their skin they will be living in sin.” How is that for an exact parallel?
Look, a lot of nice people were racists. They didn’t know any better. They were merely following old traditions of hatred that invaded their cognition in ways that they couldn’t have understood. But at a certain point there was simply no longer any excuse. That time is now for homophobia. We need to call it what it is: hatred. That is where is originally comes from, just like any other misinformed and oppressive prejudice. You can dress it up any way you like, but if you think your religious interpretation leads you to believe such horribly cruel, hurtful things, even if you’d rather not, then you need to wake up. There is no excuse for the Taliban. There is no excuse for modern Christians or anyone else.
Eli, there is a religious basis for anti-black bigotry. It’s the curse of Ham, which comes from an interpretation of Noah’s curse in Genesis. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_Ham
So let’s say that I believe that the Bible is the “word of God” as it claims to be. And let’s say that I really am convinced that God really does exist and that he makes his will known in the Bible. What am I suppose to do with a passage like Leviticus 18:22 which says “you shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination”? Just ignore it because Mark or Eli view it as bigoted? Or maybe I’m suppose to work real hard to twist the interpretation or context of this passage so that it fits nicely in line with Mark and Eli’s list of do’s and don’t's? I think you’ll find that I’m just being consistent with my faith in calling homosexuality a sin. I think you’ll also find that your problem then is with Christianity. And therein I think you can find a parallel. I’m sure you are able to treat Christian people with dignity and respect even though dare I say you hate some of the clear teachings of Christianity. Similarly, I may hate homosexuality as an abomination of a pure sexual act between a male and a female, but this doesn’t preclude me from treating those who practice homosexuality with human dignity and respect. A civil union and a recognition of a group of people as a family are not human rights, they are legal right. Change the laws if you don’t like it, but don’t call Michele Bachman a bigot for trying to be consistent with her religious faith.
Poor Bux. He(?) wants to be a decent human being, but that would violate his “religious faith”. He(?) probably denies himself lobster rolls and ham sandwiches on the same principle.
It’s puzzling, BTW, that really serious Christians keep citing the OLD Testament to justify views that, in a more genteel age, would have been called “unchristian”. It sometimes seems that their messiah’s main message must have been “If thou wouldst be perfect, go look up the things you already hate, in Leviticus, and tell everybody I’m the one who condemns them.”
-TP
What am I suppose to do with a passage like Leviticus 18:22 which says “you shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination”?
If you believe that passage is Holy Writ,
you should avoid lying with someone of the opposite sex.
(the next clause, which Bux omits to quote, commands the believer to put active male homosexuals to death)
Also, if you believe that passage is Holy Writ, you should refrain from wearing cotton/poly blends, or eating hassenpfeffer or shrimp or lobster or clam chowder or bacon or ham. Also, you are commanded in Leviticus to let your fields lie fallow every seventh year, and observe Jubilee every fifty years, forgiving all debts owed you, returning rural real estate (but not urban real estate) to those who lost it through bankruptcy and forclosure, and letting your fields lie fallow again (even though you just did that on the forty-ninth year).
Also, Leviticus commands the believer to burn flawless livestock as a burnt offering to the LORD, and to put adulterers to death, just as it commands believers to put men who lie with a male etc. to death.
Yet somehow, the hatred of many “Christians” is reserved for gays and not for adulterers (house on C Street); and plenty of people clad in cotton/polyester pants see no problem in violating in letter and in spirit all of YHWH’s strictures except for the one bit about hating gays — that one they keep, “religiously”.
It’s almost as if they were taught bigotry first, and seized upon Leviticus as a justification for their hatred.
Michele Bachmann is a bigot.
Mark - that’s not the photo you want. THIS is the photo you want:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyharnden/100100848/fried-food-and-retail-politics-at-the-iowa-state-fair/
Joel and Tony P.:
Don’t play sharia with a Talib. You’ll lose. The Christianist response is to point to something that Paul said in one of his epistles. This, in conjunction with selective (but not unfair) reading of the Gospels, gets around the shellfish problem. It’s not quite as clear as Leviticus (although some Conservative Jewish rabbis have had some success with interpreting Leviticus away), but it does read naturally as a condemnation of homosexuality.
Now that Bux doesn’t know enough Taliban apologetics to point to Paul doesn’t surprise me. They tend to use their Bible rather selectively, after all. And everybody knows that Paul was the Stalin to Jesus’ Marx.
“I think my views are clear.”
I agree with her.
Ebenezer,
Thanks for the tip, but what do you mean by “lose”? I come to bait the Talibs, not debate them.
-TP