An Open Letter To Tony Perkins: Why I Celebrate Gay Pride Month And Not Self-Righteous Pride Minute

The month of June is Gay Pride Month. Now, I have not yet seen where they have declared Adultery Pride Month, I have not seen where they have declared the Drunkenness Pride Month.

- Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, in response to a caller on American Family Association radio.

To: Mr. Tony Perkins
From: Rev. Dan Vojir

Dear Mr. Perkins:

For twenty years, you and the Family Research Council have demonized the LGBT community, comparing homosexuals to drunkards, adulterers, drug addicts, child molesters and even Nazis.

Where is your pride? What's more: do you celebrate it?

I know where my pride is:

It is in the courage of the hosts who overcame the prejudice instilled by fear-mongering and righteous arrogance.

It is in the creativity of people who gave us quilts and red ribbons to instill compassion and courage against hatred and bigotry.

It is in the audacity of people who loved each other openly, thereby creating more love for fellow man.

It is in the beauty of people who had a higher percentage of caregivers than your "righteous" families.

It is in the vitality of people who kept fighting for the civil rights of themselves and others.

It is in the humanity of the thousands of people who gave enormous compassion to those AIDS victims whom you unceremoniously evicted from their homes, while they were sick and dying,  during the worst epidemic our country has ever seen.

And it is now in the President who came to terms with his own conscience and declared that love for one another is a human right, one that should be celebrated and not be restricted by laws.

Mr. Perkins, you demonize the people and the celebration of all these things because you cannot believe that people can be good without your distinct imprimatur, masking it, of course, as "God's will". But in what love, compassion, and humanity you demonize and hold in contempt, I and millions of others have a deep sense of pride.

And I ask you again, where is your pride? Perhaps ...

It is in your ignorance of the love two people can for one another, regardless of gender.

It is in your self-righteousness which overshadows respect for humanity.

It is in your intolerance towards people who are different from you.

It is in the disdain you feel for diversity.

It is in the man-made authority vested in you by a group of people who share in your pride.

It is in your acts of destroying rights, livelihoods and yes, families.

It is in your fear-mongering and pronouncements of a fictional "homosexual agenda"

For twenty years your pride has been placed in these things.

As I witness Pride parades and celebrations throughout the country, I see the joy at knowing who we are and who we have been. I witness the effervescent streak of humanity. I witness the survival of the human spirit, the kind of spirit that cannot be put down by the demonizing you and your cohorts so arrogantly proclaim to be the "Word of God."

Mr. Perkins, over the last few months I have been nurturing a Rainbow Garden to grow for Pride Week here in San Francisco. It resides in the Juan Bautista Community Garden in Park Merced. Far more than just a tiny bit of flowers and sparkle amongst the other more staid garden beds, it has garnered respect as a small quadrant of Pride in beauty, and beauty in Pride. People recognize it as a celebration of life, love and survival. They have pride in it, and, I am happy to say, pride in me.

Yes, I know where my Pride is, and after twenty years, the country knows where yours is.

I feel sorry for you, Mr. Perkins. Very sorry. When I conduct a small ceremony in the garden this Sunday in celebration of San Francisco's Pride Day, I will say a prayer for you.

Very Truly Yours,

Rev. Dan Vojir
San Francisco

Poor Scott Lively? Poor David Kato? Poor Uganda? No: Poor America - Our Religious Right Got Just What It Wanted!

One of my recurring rants about the extreme Religious Right is that whatever demonizing they inculcate into the minds of people, someone is going to get killed. It's happened in the past: the demonizing of GLBT people has resulted in bashings, murders and suicides. They disavow any wrongdoing, of course, going against common knowledge - and common sense - but hiding beneath the glorious cloak of religion, they feel they can get away with most anything. The latest murder simply confirms the extent to which their aspirations in Africa will go: David Kato was a dreaded "homosexual activist" (the term made pejorative by Family Research Council's Tony Perkins) in Uganda and was one of the people featured in Rolling Stone's* front page expose headlined "Hang Them!" 

David Kato was viciously bludgeoned to death last Wednesday, amidst not only the shock and horror of Uganda's LGBT community, but of the rest of the world. Kato was also an LGBT human rights activist of some reknown. Ironically, his fame reached its height when his picture was published in that (now infamous) tabloid shot. 

KUDOS to CLINTON:

The name of David Kato was known by our own State Department and Hillary Clinton had this to say about the murder:

This crime is a reminder of the heroic generosity of the people who advocate for and defend human rights on behalf of the rest of us -- and the sacrifices they make. And as we reflect on his life, it is also an occasion to reaffirm that human rights apply to everyone, no exceptions, and that the human rights of LGBT individuals cannot be separated from the human rights of all persons....We honor David’s legacy by continuing the important work to which he devoted his life.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will undoubtedly receive a rhetorical slap in the face by Tony Perkins, who, if memory serves us correctly, enlisted the services of a lobbying group for $25,000 to stop the U.S. Congress from admonishing Uganda for its proposed "Kill the Gays" bill.

WHATEVER IT TAKES

Let the backpedaling and disassociating rhetoric begin**: Scott Lively, co-author of The Pink Swastika has stated repeatedly that he had nothing to do with the "Kill the Gays" bill in Uganda, bemoaning the fact that the bill had a death penalty. However, back in 2009, after his "successful" presentations and lectures in Kampala, Lively exuded hubris about his exploits.

From Scott Lively's Defend The Family Newsletter, Mar. 17,2009:

I'm writing from Kampala, Uganda where I am teaching about the "gay" agenda in churches, schools colleges, community groups and in Parliament. My visit here is being treated as an international crisis by the "gay" activists and their media toadies, who are spinning lies in their usual manner, but the Ugandan response has been resoundingly positive ...

He [Stephan Langa - a "ministry partner" in Uganda] said that a respected observer of society in Kampala had told him that our campaign was like a nuclear bomb against the "gay" agenda in Uganda. I pray that this, and the predictions, are true. [emphasis and parentheses mine]

I still want to send them my remaining stock of about 100 or so copies of Seven Steps, but I didn't raise any money toward this in my last appeal. If you would like to help, please make a donation at www.defendthefamily.com/help/donate.php.

The "nuclear bomb" phrase has been duly noted by many LGBT rights activists, and for good reason: militaristic rhetoric has permeated the Right for a very long time.  And note that his newsletter post ends in a request for donations to support his work and his writings. Lively's seminal work The Pink Swastika was panned by historians and sales were poor  - until he started to hawk the book through churches and organizations like the Family Research Council and American Family Association. It's still being touted in the Right Wing WorldNetDaily.com by uber-conservative Michel Farah. The Pink Swastika is a small but steady moneymaker Lively is loathe to be rid of.

A particularly chilling video of a speaking engagement in Russia chronicled by Huffington Post's Alvin McEwen shows Lively disingenously decrying the audience not to applaud and cheer whenever he mentions bashings or (in this particular case) the manslaughter of gays.  His story concerning the incident in Sacramento turned out to be entirely false  as witnessed by the people who were on the scene. Besides this video, here is actual footage (below) of Lively speaking in Uganda about the "gay agenda" and how he, above everyone else, knows the most about it. Please be advised that this footage is included here only to emphasize the sincerity of Lively's demonizing: this is how America's Religious Right views the LGBT community and presents their view to the rest of the world.

  

And by no means does this demonizing view extend only to figures like Tony Perkins, James Dobson, Pat Robertson or Bryan Fischer. Think of it: "Whatever It Takes" - the motto of Pastor Rick Warren - has a chilling sound to it these days: Warren has not come across as a friend of the LGBT community, taking so very long to denounce the "Kill the Gays" bill in Uganda and doing so only under pressure from liberal evangelicals. "Whatever It Takes" may serve to underline the demonizing attempts of people to enact a kind of genocide in the name of God. 

EXPORTING HATE

OK, that last perception came across as a bit strident. Please forgive me for being overwhelmed by the brutal reality of the Religious Right's determination. However, I am not alone in believing that certain forces were the cause of Kato's murder. According to AP interviews, the notion that Kato's death was only the result of a theft*** is not holding any sway with the LGBT community nor with many others: "David's death is a result of the hatred planted in Uganda by U.S evangelicals in 2009," said Val Kalende, a Ugandan gay rights activist. "The Ugandan government and the so-called U.S evangelicals must take responsibility for David's blood."

Whatever the views about the murder, one thing stands out above all others: America's Religious Right has exported anti-gay sentiment to Africa - vehemently.

And some say - murderously.

*absolutely no relation to Rolling Stone Magazine. 

** Don Schmierer, who co-authored, with Lively, The Pink Swastika and accompanied him to Kampala, Uganda, has stated: “Naturally, I don’t want anyone killed but I don’t feel I had anything to do with that.”

*** Deja Vu: Does anyone remember the pronouncement of Congresswoman, Virginia Foxx when countering the proposed passage of the Hate Crimes bill? With Matthew Sheperd's mother looking on in horror, Foxx recounted the brutal bashing as "... we understood it was a robbery!"

Make It a SAFER Halloween For Everyone!

Yes, readers, it's that time again: the streets will be filled with little demons...and fairies, and Freddies and Sarah Palins. No doubt, you've thought about taking the kids to a "Hell House" tonight to entertain them and keep them off the streets. After all, Halloween has gotten scarier. Just ask people in San Francisco's Castro district, who have had to give up Halloween festivities because of violence.

It's just possible, however, that the greatest threat to safety (future safety that is) is the church-run "Hell House" in your neighborhood. You see, while the usual Halloween Haunted House/Hell House tries to scare kids with the fantasies of the superstitious and the supernatural, church-sponsored Hell Houses try to scare kids with a form of REALITY.

Albeit a very skewed, very gruesome form of reality.

At a Hell House, a demon may escort you through scenes too gory for small children and too disturbing for young adults: a botched abortion of a cheerleader who dies and is headed to hell; the wedding of a gay couple, (the ceremony presided by a demon) the scene then shifting to one of the men dying of AIDS; a young girl goes to a rave, is given a "pill" then  gang raped (she also goes to hell). These and other scenes are graphically depicted before the end, when a moral is intoned and forgiveness of "sins" is offered. 

It's Scary ... and It Kills

We've already seen the fate of some kids who are bullied for being "different" or unpopular. And needless to say, the suicides of gay teens have been focused on by the media. What most people don't know, however, is that religious attempts to steer kids away from "sin" stigmatize as much as they warn: boys and girls have killed themselves over unwanted pregnancies, abortions, abusing drugs or alcohol, or a myriad of other perceived faults. Hells Houses also enable bullies and impound guilt. 

In a recent poll taken by the Public Religion Research Institute, almost two thirds of the American public blame religion in having a direct causal relationship to the latest spate of gay teen suicides:

Bottom line: Hell Houses are not as emotionally healthy as they think they are.

For the rest of this blogs articles on Hell Houses and demonizing:

Demonizing America, Part I: The UPDATES TELL THE STORY

Demonizing America, Part II: "Kill Them All! God Will Take Care Of His Kind!"

Demonizing America, Part III: SPECIAL REPORT - HELL HOUSES

Also:

Obama: It Gets Better...Hell House Ideology: IT GETS WORSE!

You're Right, Mr. Obama ...

Demonizing America - Part III: SPECIAL REPORT - HELL HOUSES - Causing Teen Suicides Or Rescuing Souls?

DEMONIZING AMERICA, Part 3: Prologue


The following two paragraphs are excerpted from the 2005 edition Hell House Outreach Kit by Pastor Keenan Roberts of New Destiny Church of Arvada, Colorado. While this kit may have been updated, the basic scenes are being played in Hell Houses across the country. 

* Gay Wedding ($45) — This energetic scene will give you another powerful weapon in your arsenal against the homosexual stronghold and the born-gay deception. The demon tour guide conducts the ceremony that actually involves a young married couple. (The wife dons masculine make-up for the necessary male look.) The tour guide pronounces them “husband and husband”. Then the scene utilizes a time warp to move several years into the future with one of the partners dying of AIDS as demon imps swarm into a hospital room. This package comes with the originally produced rock-n-roll wedding march CD, the air of evil background music CD and the death drum track also on compact disc.

* Gay/Lesbian Suicide ($45) — This scene creatively combines two cutting-edge issues into one script. The drama for the scene calls for a spiritual battle between the angel of the Lord and the demon tour guide. They wrestle for Jamie's intellect as she struggles with whether or not God has made her this way. This script captures an incredibly compelling exposé that unmasks the “born-gay” lie.

DEMONIZING THE DEMONIZERS

For once, I'm at a loss for cynical words. I can't demonize someone - simply because to do so would be pointless. People who are caught demonizing are already demonizing themselves. Hypocrisy is like that. 

Once when I was a kid, my dad took me and my cousin Pat to a "Haunted House", put on by the local Chicagoland flower-grower, Otto Amling. It had real actors in skeleton costumes who said "boo" a lot, and had a mechanical "Frankenstein" who lunged at you when you tried to go out the back door. I took it in stride as fun. Pat, however, did not. He held my father's hand so tight my father mumbled something about circulation. When we left, he was as white as a sheet. Pat was three years older than I was. I was nine.

With the spate of teen suicides caused by bullying, it is impossible for some people to see today's Hell Houses as anything but the worst demonizing force ever devised by man. Based on the morality plays of the Middle Ages, they take young people through vignettes as horrific as any Halloween film or venue. And even though they've been parodied and laughed at by others*, their purpose, they insist, is not to scare, but to save. And they are very, very specific about who and what they want today's youth to be saved from. 

I spoke to Pastor Keenan Roberts of New Destiny Church in Arvada, Colorado last week. Pastor Roberts has been selling "Hell House Outreach" kits to churches across the country for the past 19 years. His "Hell House" kits provide a full working script complete with suggestions on props, costumes sound effects. As a cottage industry, in fact, it has been very successful. 

To be fair, I won't quote Pastor Roberts extensively because as every good writer knows, quotes can be edited in such a way as to be very, well... demonizing. Instead I will cite a few key phrases and paraphrase what he believes about Hell House and the current situation.

Pastor Roberts' primary points were:

1. He does not have connections with churches who purchased hell house "kits" and scripts. Therefore, he does not know if any have edited their scripts considering the present situation of teen suicides.

2. People don't really understand Hell House and its purposes. He asked me to define "demonizing". "Our calling is to help people understand what the Bible says. We have choices - and choices that are outside of God's plan are sins."

3. A Hell House simply states that it does not condone homosexual behavior.

4. Media is unfair because it uses "filters of convenience," meaning that it uses one set of criteria and applies it to the whole concept of Hell House. He noted that media criticism was not pointed quite as much to the issues of pre-marital sex and abortion as to the issue of homosexuality.

5. Hell House should be considered a "rescue operation." "You can't point at us and say 'you're part of the problem.'"

6. "Don't shoot the messenger"

Pastor Keenan, I should relate, seemed very sincere in his efforts to impress upon me that what he was doing was right.

But if you look at the text above and the video below, you will now find out how difficult it is not to demonize Pastor Roberts.** A Hell House states more than "we don't condone homosexual behavior"; it states in big, bold letters BECAUSE YOU ARE IN SATAN'S GRASP, YOU ARE A SINNER AND WILL BE PUNISHED BY EVERLASTING HELL. Quite overshadows any message of love, doesn't it?

The most salient point in the entire Hell House script is the depiction of homosexuality as a bad (read: sinful and unhealthy) choice that is spread because activist homosexuals need to recruit young people as part of their "agenda." The immutability of this point cannot be stressed enough: anyone believing otherwise is an un-Christian liberal. Criticism about other aspects of the script are also met with scorn. (e.g.: parents across the country have voiced criticism concerning Hell Houses' violence. They are brushed aside as not knowing the true meaning of Hell Houses.) But the tenacity by which Hell Houses cling to the original script may be more indicative of the respect/power churches demand: alter the script in any way, and that power deflates.

HOW FAR WILL THEY GO?

The legends that sprung up from Columbine were tenuous as actual facts about the shootings began to trickle in. One legend, however, did not die - at least in the minds of Hell House producers: the legend of the martyrdom of Cassie Bernall. 


The legend was simple:  one of the gunmen supposedly asked Cassie if she believed in God, and when she replied "yes" he shot her. The media and Cassie's parents focused on that last moment extensively. The problem was, that's not what happened: 


wikipedia:

Most examinations of witness testimony state that Cassie was not asked anything before she was shot. According to witness Emily Wyant, who was hiding under a wood table with Cassie, Eric Harris said "peekaboo" before shooting Cassie, while Cassie continued to pray silently.It is believed the famous exchange actually took place between Klebold and Valeen Schnurr, and was mistakenly attributed to Bernall.

The Bernall's website still carries the legend and makes no attempt at hiding the fact that it is still up for sales of the book, She Said "Yes."


Salon. com, Sept. 30, 1999:

The belated media outing of the truth about Cassie Bernall raises questions about why the story took so long to find its way into print. Misty Bernall's book landed on the Publishers Weekly bestseller list at No. 14 this week, with 350,000 copies in print and more than 250,000 already sold, according to the publisher. In the past three weeks, the Bernalls have appeared on Today, 20/20 and Larry King Live, among others. The story has inspired a massive surge in Christian youth groups' recruitment around the country and overseas.

Hell Houses also play fast and loose with other issues: e.g., the abortion scene ends with the young girl DYING because of the abortion. Medical journals have consistently stated that about one girl in one MILLION ever expire from an abortion. Another point: prepared scripts have been edited to suit the ideas of each church. While some churches may prefer to tone down the violence and demonizing, some even ratchet it up, even including Muslims or other religious or ethnic groups they deem headed for eternal damnation. Pictures from the Freres  Corbusier performance show the abortionist wearing a yarmulke (Jewish skull cap).

LOVE THE SINNER



Some scholars believe that the proper exegesis of Christ's philosophy of love was that it took more courage to love your enemy than to hate him. He also knew that the concept of loving your enemy would be a hard sell - in fact, downright unpopular. 


It still is. In days of war, intrigue, terrorism and distrust, loving your enemy - or even those who are "different" - has never been harder. This brings about the question of culpability and its admission in regards to Hell Houses. You see, one small piece of demonization can make it nearly impossible to love the person at whom it is directed. And any extreme demonization can entirely cancel out all of the commands to love someone, particularly if those commands are voiced afterwards. In other words, no matter how many times someone tells you that God wants you to love someone, that plea has been rendered moot and senseless by the first disparaging word about them.


Telling the public that Hell Houses do not demonize and instead demonstrate love is almost ridiculous. I say "almost" because there are people who believe Hell Houses preach the "love-the-sinner" meme effectively. They must believe - if they are to support their church. And we must accept the fact that they exist, because to think otherwise would be dangerous:

A 2001 study published in the Journal of Psychology found that “the belief in an active Satan [is] directly related to intolerance toward gay men and lesbians.” Given that all of the gay and lesbian characters in Hell House scenes are condemned to hell by Satan and his demons, this research raises serious questions about the impact of Hell Houses on impressionable youth.

One upset parent wrote that Judgment Houses (aka Hell Houses) are just another form of child abuse:

It has been said that “hell serves the holy purpose of cradle to grave intimidation,” and this is exactly what that church is attempting to do. But for civilized people, including most Christian people, what they did can be considered child abuse. They can only be thankful that with the separation of church and state, child protective service agencies cannot do anything about it. 

A review from Newsweek of the Les Freres Corbusier New York production:

"It was a grotesque and shocking imagining of contemporary secular culture, an extreme version of the way some very conservative Christians may think the unsaved live."

 CBS Texas affiliate 2008:

"One skit is a girl on Facebook," says Houghteling. "She meets a friend and gets raped and the demon says she deserved it."...[Reporter] Houghteling tells CBS 11 News that the message Trinity Church is sending to the young members is that if you struggle with certain issues then God has no place for you."

BULLY ENABLERS

One of the most frequent taunts that are used against gay teens is, of course, "you're going to HELL!"  I should stop at this point, because the correlation to Hell Houses is so obvious. But it doesn't seem obvious to the producers and supporters of Hell Houses. The denial of Christian Right stalwarts like Pat Robertson and Tony Perkins of the increasingly strident Family Research Council has demonstrated that the rhetoric of any debate will be contentious. To them, demonization does not exist. Neither does the possibility of enabling bullies to torment students.

Fortunately, there are Christian groups across the country that have taken a stand against vehicles such as Hell Houses:

With clear implications for the Hell House message, the Council of Bishops, Elders and Christian Leaders, which represents organizations and congregations that reach 98 million Americans, has publicly stated that they are “united“united in [their] rejection of all forms of fear-based religion” and refuse to “cooperate with or support political or religious leaders who caricature and condemn the lives of gays and lesbians.”

THE NUMBERS ARE OUT THERE - SOMEWHERE

The only concrete numbers I have been able to come up with are from 2007: approximately 1.6 million people visited Hell Houses. “Hell House Kits” were distributed to 800 churches across the US and 18 countries. Some churches reported that their Hell Houses received 12,000 visitors per year and utilize as much as 300 people either as professionals or volunteers. Every year since 2007, the numbers have increased.

So have the number of teen suicides and reported instances of bullying in schools. Concerned parents and educators are going over past research and teen suicide statistics. The future may hold a surprise for supporters of Hell Houses. Until then, however, culpability is the predominant issue. Some people may have already asked themselves (as I have done): do the producers and supporters of Hell Houses honestly think they aren't culpable in any way? Can they take one more look at the scenes, the scripts, the props, the acting and say that teens could not in any way be affected in such a way as to contemplate suicide? Or contemplate bullying as an accepted behavior, especially if it's bullying someone who's "going to hell" anyway? Some Hell Houses have been driven to given advance warnings that emotional distress might result - before they go on with the performance! Some attending children are under 12 years old. Are Hell House churches so bent on tormenting youth into salvation that they will risk inflicting severe emotional stress? Do they care at all?

From Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council on the subject of gay teen suicides:

Despite how threatened they are by the truth, there is nothing more compassionate than trying to rescue people from a lifestyle that is physically and emotionally destructive. GLAAD doesn't see it that way. Just as they did with Matthew Shepard, they're exploiting Tyler Clementi's tragic death as a weapon to scare Christians into retreating--or, in this case, as a way to pressure the media to muzzle any opposition.

As you can see, Perkins is a master at demonizing, especially when he's defending himself: he never talks about any gay organization without framing it  in  "battlefield" terms.

So what do we have now? At best, we have a group of dedicated Evangelicals burying their heads in the sand for God. At worst, we have ...

Tony Perkins, Bryan Fisher and Lou Engle.

EPILOGUE:

If nothing else, I hope that I have conveyed that this is an urgent issue that must be addressed NOW. Just as some evangelicals see the Halloween season as a fleeting chance to save souls, others must take this chance to save lives. If you know of a Hell House in any area in the country, please contact your local media to investigate it and contact local child welfare organizations to help organize protests. It's vitally important.

UPDATE: Another gay suicide has been reported: Corey Jackson, of Warren, MI (Detroit), hanged himself last Tuesday. Corey was a 19 year-old sophomore at Oakland University. Police and friends denied that it was a consequence of bullying. PROBLEM: The portrayal of gays as "making a wrong choice" still sends a message to gay youth: "if you keep on being the way you are, you're going to hell."

*Landover Baptist Church has the Lake of Fire Dunking Booth.

**I am biased, to be sure: my 6-year stint at the AIDS Emergency Fund in San Francisco showed me then just who were the demonized and who were demonizing. In the one photo above, I might as well have been that demon who was talking to the young man in the hospital bed, the only difference being that I wasn't telling him that he was going to hell.

To read the first two parts of DEMONIZING AMERICA click HERE and HERE or go to The Devil and Dan Vojir

Demonizing America - Part 2: "Kill Them All! God Will Take Care Of His Kind!"

Like it or not, the concept of bullying has been with man since the very beginning of his existence. We called it "survival of the fittest," to rationalize terrorizing the weaker species. During ancient times, bullying took the form of slavery. It took the form of victors lording it over vanquished: male rape was seen as an excellent form of bullying as well as slavery, which, if one thinks about it, is perhaps the ultimate form of bullying. In the Bible,  the ultimate bully was embodied in Goliath, the man-mountain whom the Philistines sent out to daily harass and taunt the Hebrew armies. Some people argue, however, that the ultimate bully was the God of the Old Testament. Israel was His schoolyard. Look what He did to poor, defenseless Job!

On a bet with Satan.

Size and strength characterized bullies whether in personal size or number of soldiers in an army: Napoleon and Hitler were considered bullies by the relatively defenseless Eastern European countries: when Neville Chamberlain waved the paper treaty with Hitler in front of the Britons and declared "peace in our time,"  the Czechs cowered with the thoughts of the bully Nazi army  - which did, in fact, march into Czechoslovakia days later.

Whatever the form, however, bullying was always a state of the strong ruthlessly handling the weak.

Religious bullying is not new: if you think of one sect purposely taunting, terrorizing, then ultimately killing off another sect as bullying, then you're right. The first case of western civilization genocide was the bullying, then annihilation of the Cathars of Southern France. They were different than anyone else, wore different clothes, worshipped not in churches but out in fields, did not eat meat, did not believe in hierarchy such as bishops and were extremely good to their neighbors. Naturally, the pope hated them.

To publicize their heresy, they were forced by the Church to wear yellow crosses sewn onto their tunics (demonstrating that Hitler wasn't very original) and routinely had their hands cut off, the only reason being that the church considered them heretics. Their numbers continued to grow despite the vicissitudes imposed on them, until the pope had a plan: get together with the king of France, Louis the VIII,  take their lands and simply eradicate them. That's when the battle cry above was born: while beseiging the city of Beziers, one of Louis' commanders asked the papal legate how he could tell the 200 Cathars from the rest of the 15,000 Christian citizens of Beziers. The legate's answer went down in history: "Kill them all - God will take care of his kind." Louis and Clement's strategy claimed approximately 120,000 lives over a period of some 20 years, becoming the first genocide in modern history. It was known, of course, as the Albigensian "Crusade."* 

Revisionist "historians" of Christianity always seem to overlook the Albigensian Crusade, perhaps because it not only stained the church of the Middle Ages but because it also gave rise to another dark era of religious bullying: The Inquisition. For hundreds of years, men like the legendary Torquemada  carried out the bullying of Jews and Moors (Muslims) in Spain, Portugal, Italy, France and scattered places across the rest of Europe. 

I remember the evening I went to see the film adaptation of Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code. A nun was holding a makeshift sign that said "Lies, lies, lies!" But while the movie focused on the Church organization, Opus Dei, it did not touch upon the Albigensian Crusade to any substantial degree. That was, to me, the typical philosophy touted by almost all of America's religious leaders: never admit to anything and never, ever apologize. And if you have to apologize, do it when people won't remember what you're apologizing for. The Vatican recently apologized to a very dead Gallileo for imprisoning him, and the Southern Baptist Convention apologized for its part in the institution of slavery 140 years after the U.S. condemned and abolished the inhumane practice.

Just how many religious people in America know of the "dark side" of their religion?  The percentage would be closer to "0" than you think. Today's religion and yesterday's history aren't exactly friends, which is why we're seeing revisionists cropping up, so that people of faith need not apologize for anything. One wonders if people actually know about the first Christian theologian - Tertullian - and his last-minute conversion to Montanism or that many of the Vandals and Visigoths sacking Rome were Arian Christians.  How they would react to the stories about the concentration camps for pagans in Skythopolis, Syria?  Or the persecution of heretics? And for the last hundred years little has been made about Martin Luther's horrendous anti-Semitism (he wrote the seminal work, On The Jews and Their Lies)

Other instances of religious demonizing, then bullying, were the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre (40,000 "heretical" French Protestants massacred in one day), Native American Indian slavery ("ungodly heathens" forced to build and work on the California Missions - approximately 50,000), and Chatila (massacre of 1500 Muslims by Christian Phalangists). Bullying on a continuous scale came in the form of The Crusades (millions of Jews and Muslims killed in the an untold number of major wars, minor wars and massacres), Charlemagne's forced conversions of the Saxons (legend of Widukind) and in later years, the Russian pogroms and massacres of Jewish villages and settlements.

The worst incident at demonizing in history?  There are so many, but arguably the most vile was the "Blood Libel" of the Jews, so strongly entrenched into the European psyche that it took hundreds of years to convince Christians that Jews did not kill gentile children to drink their blood for secret ceremonies. (BTW, this gave rise to the Jewish Legend of the Golem)

DEMONIZING PWAs

Many people were demonized during the "Age of AIDS" (1982 - 2000).. PWAs ( People With AIDS -primarily gay men) were the new lepers since during the first years medical establishments and health organizations were uncertain about how contagious the virus was. There were a few faith-based agencies in San Francisco during the beginning and the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles stepped up to the plate in 1986, but so very many churches abstained from doling out compassion. They just weren't up to the courage of Father Damien.

The Christian Right's eagerness to demonize gays, politicians and non-Christians became evident with the like of Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority and Pat Robertson's 700 Club. Of course, statements from people like Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms didn't hurt either:

Americablog:

Sen. Jesse Helms says the government should spend less money on people with AIDS because they got sick as a result of "deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct," The New York Times reported Wednesday....

Pat Robertson:

- I have a zero tolerance for sanctimonious morons who try to scare people.

- I know one man who was impotent who gave AIDS to his wife and the only thing they did was kiss.

Such was the fervor of the Moral Majority at the time, that it seemed as if they danced in the streets while people were dying in the streets: "Thank you God, you have sent a plague to our enemies."

THE LAST HOLDOUT?

Probably the most obvious (and the most vicious) holdout as far as demonizing PWAs is concerned is the powerful Southern Baptist Convention. Almost thirty years after the start of the epidemic, the SBC still cannot point to the sponsorship of any faith-based agency dealing with AIDS ...in this country. They lauded Mike Huckabee in 1996 when he wanted to quaranteen PWAs (the casual contact theory had been disproven years befor then, but Huckabee still pushed the quarnateen - to his own embarrassment years later). Today, they still follow Jesse Helms dictum that helping AIDS victims in Africa was fine because they were "all heterosexuals" while all AIDS victims in America were perverted sodomites.***

Next Up: 

Demonizing America - Part 3:  HELL HOUSES - Causing Teen Suicides Or Rescuing Souls?

* Scholar Steven Runciman wrote:

"High ideals were besmirched by cruelty and greed ... the Holy War was nothing more than a long act of intolerance in the name of God".

 **"That massacre, said Pope Gregory XIII, gave him more pleasure than fifty Battles of Lepanto, and he commissioned Vasari to paint frescoes of it in the Vatican"."

***I may be wrong on this since my research is over a year old. 

Demonizing America - Part I: RECENT UPDATES TELL THE STORY

How they demonize. 

Who they demonize. 

Why they demonize. 

- A Four-Part Series

As a rule I define Christof***cists as existing in two groups: the Elmer Gantrys (Rick Warren, Pat Robertson, Creflo Dollar, Rod Parsley, etc.) who are snake oil salesmen in love with their own snake oil; and, the Elmer Fudds, the gullible and unwitting followers of the Gantrys, but no less dangerous since Fudd's the one with the gun.

                                                      - The Elephant In The Room, OpEdNews, 02/06/09


wikipedia:

In colloquial usage, the term demonization is used metaphorically to refer to propaganda or moral panic directed against any individual or group.

We've seen the results: America is becoming a nation of the bullies and the bullied. For Religious Right groups and media personalities, for gubernatorial candidates and city councils, demonizing rhetoric is the weapon of choice to harass, discriminate, degrade and (sometimes) kill the people they think are a drain on their society. And although the recent spate of teen suicides in the country seems limited to issues of sexual orientation, demonization has seeped into the public consciousness and spilled over into issues of politics, race, immigration and class struggles. The "bully pulpit" has become firmly entrenched in our American psyche and it shows no evidence of abating. In fact, it's escalating. 

In the last year, we saw a new symptom of demonizing become part of our legal lexicon: righteous assassination. The term applies mostly to people who perceive someone's "immorality" to be evil and detrimental to the rest of the country. Byron Williams, the would-be terrorist against the ACLU and the Tides Foundation was about to commit "righteous assassination" when he was stopped on California's Interstate 80 outside of Oakland, CA. He mentioned inspiration from FOX-News and Glenn Beck (read the UPDATE below). And before that incident, we were horrified at a shooting at a Unitarian Church in Knoxville, TN because the accused "targeted the congregation out of hatred for its liberal social policies." 

Demonization works.

Tony Perkins and his Family Research Council have been very busy juggling demonizations of President Obama, DADT, the "gay agenda," health care reform, everyone "liberal," "activist judges" and, well, the list goes on and on; so it might seem that FRC is the only organization doing the demonizing. WRONG. It only seems that way, because the FRC has been quicker and more vocal. The other demonizers are still out there in full force, taking notes from Perkins. Case in point: what Perkins and the FRC did in the last 24 hours shows its dedication to A-1 demonizing:

DADT UPDATE:

The ruling by a Federal district judge that the policy of DADT in the military is unconstitutional has garnered quick response from RR bullies across the country.From the FRC:

Once again, homosexual activists have found a judicial activist who will aid in the advancement of their agenda.

"Homosexual activist", "judicial activist", "agenda." These are demonizing buzz-words coined by Mr. Perkins himself. They may not seem as powerful as other words, but one must realize that Perkins has been using these words in the context of "destruction" of family values, "destroying" America and "demoralizing" lovers of liberty. And Perkins has used "agenda" ever since he produced his pseudo-documentary "The Gay Agenda" in 1996. This putrid piece of anti-gay propaganda is still making the rounds of churches, proving that demonization can be profitable.

And Perkins' demonizing buzz-words will be aped by people like Bryan Fischer and Pat Robertson (the judge, of course, signed a pact with the devil).

Teen Suicide UPDATE:

Another gay teen-related suicide occurred in Norman, OK. This one apparently as a result of a city council meeting where anti-gay sentiments were strongly voiced. Zach Harrington, 19, committed suicide one week after he attended a Norman City Council meeting during which residents of Norman expressed displeasure at having Norman declare October as LGBT History Month.

Tulsa World:

[Van Harrington] feels his son may have glimpsed a hard reality at the Sept. 28 council meeting, a place where the same sentiments that quietly tormented him in high school were being shouted out and applauded by adults the same age as his own parents... Some members of the audience even suggested that any council members voting in favor of the proclamation may have trouble getting re-elected.

Sometimes the demonizers turn the tables and re-demonize: Tony Perkins recently reacted to the stories of gay teen suicides by relaying faulty and erroneous statistics showing that gays have greater mental health problems than heterosexuals in a WaPo op-ed piece:

[H]omosexual activist groups like GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network) are exploiting these tragedies to push their agenda of demanding not only tolerance of homosexual individuals, but active affirmation of homosexual conduct and their efforts to redefine the family. There is an abundance of evidence that homosexuals experience higher rates of mental health problems in general, including depression. However, there is no empirical evidence to link this with society's general disapproval of homosexual conduct.

But there is evidence: Tony Perkins and all his minions have been busy demonizing homosexuals so much it's amazing that we don't have more teen suicides than we do. (NOTE: the latest suicides are only a part of the larger picture - teen suicide rates have been rising for years).

And his tactics are just as nefarious: the sources he cites have been critical  about Family Research Council's free-handed jumbling of their research and statistics.

FLORIDA GAY ADOPTION BAN UPDATE:

Even though it has been only three hours into this writing, you KNOW that demonizing will take place concerning the latest news: (read Pam's House Blend for the full story)

“Florida has today done grave harm to the well-being of vulnerable children who will be raised in homes with role models who cannot provide them with the true vision of what family life should be,” Matt Sprigg, Family Research Council

That was FRC's last demonizing response to repealing the ban. 

Of course, we have yet to hear what the Perkins cabal has to say about the Washington Post's interview with domestic terrorist Byron Williams:

Glenn Beck UPDATE: 10/12/10 - 11:40 AM ET

Glenn Beck's nemesis, Media Matters, has just released an in-depth interview with Byron Williams, the man who engaged in a shootout with police on California's I-80 Interstate in Oakland when it was discovered that he intended to kill people at the ACLU and Tides Foundation in San Francisco. Previously, in an Oct. 6th interview, Williams stated that Glenn Beck did not coax him to violence, but the just-released audio interviews reveal the extent Beck had indeed demonized the Tides Foundation and the ACLU. Columnist Dana Millbank, writing for the Washington Post conducted the interviews:

Examiner. Com:

The columnist calls Beck an “enabler” and says the FOX host is dangerous because  “his is the one voice in the mass media that validates conspiracy theories held by the unstable.” 

Byron Williams was the perfect example of an Elmer Fudd. He was someone willing to do whatever the RR bullies and Glenn Beck wanted him to do: act on their rhetoric without being directly implicated.

Up next: The long history of demonizing.

Demonizing Gays And Abusing Puppies; How the Radical Religious Right Is Killing Us With Kindness, Neglect, And One Proposition At A Time

I can demonize with the best of 'em. First, because I know when I'm demonizing something or someone. Secondly, I can sense fear and know when to use it. But most of all, I can use hyperbole and make it seem possible. For example, I can say that "the Religious Right wants gay teens to commit suicide." I didn't qualify the statement by saying "some" of the Religious Right. I played upon progressives' fears by using the word "suicide" and demonized by using "wants." Then back up the statement with something, like posting a clip of a pulpit personality ranting about the "destructive gay lifestyle." It's really rather simple, isn't it? 

Which is why "social conservatives" and Religious Right leaders demonize all the time. It has a simple formula that's quick and cheap (unless, of course, you're insecure about your ability to demonize and think you need billboards and stuff). Demonizing, of course, is not new to religion, but Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) have strong "we -are-the-only-religion" doctrines and therefore lend themselves to demonizing everyone else on a large, all-inclusive scale: It's alway "us" vs "them" and "them" is immediately demonized. In her book, The Origin Of Satan, Elaine Pagels puts the process of Christian demonizing neatly:

"Jesus' followers did not invent the practice of demonizing enemies within their own group... they drew upon  traditions they shared with other first-century Jewish sects. ..The Essenes never admitted Gentiles to their movement. But the followers of Jesus did - cautiously and provisionally at first, and against the wishes of some members. But as the Christian movement became increasingly Gentile during the second century and later, the identification of Satan primarily with the Jewish enemies of Jesus, borne along in Christian tradition over centuries, would fuel the fires of anti-Semitism."

  - Elaine Pagels, The Origin of Satan ( Vintage, 1996, p. 34)

OK, enough of Demonizing 101. Let's go on to today's primary issue: how the Radical Religious Right (RRR) will be working its demonizing "agenda" into the country's ballot boxes this November. 


This coming election day, the RRR's "agenda" will be split between Tea Baggers and Republicans. Most of the Tea Party will be focusing on less government (always good for the RRR), while the Republican Party will concentrate on the RRR's other ideals: eradicating abortion, eradicating the "gay agenda," erasing the idea of global warming, slowly promoting the ideas of Dominionism and "Christian Only" republicanism, promoting the status quo (doing nothing), repealing as much "progressive" legislation as possible and promoting capitalism. They will, of course, cover everything with a beautiful cloak they call: "for the good of the country." 


Now let's look at some of the propositions and amendments that are on state ballots. There's a great website called Ballotpedia.org that lists and parses (impartially) all propositions for Nov. as well as ones in previous years and ones that are coming up in  the  future. So, from Ballotpedia.org, here goes (my own demonizing is in red):


MISSOURI: 


Proposition B - "Puppy Mill Cruelty" legislation. RRR: We love puppies, but not to the extent that we have to expand government to protect them. (Translation: "who cares?")


OREGON: 


Measure 74 - State to license marijuana farmers who can distribute crop to medical marijuana dispensaries. RRR: More crime! Costs too much! Too much regulation!! (Plus: We wouldn't be getting any money out of it!) NOTE: There are 26 local propositions concerning legalization of marijuana nationwide.


KANSAS: 


Question 1 - Allow citizens to bear arms in the state. RRR: The U.S. Constitution isn't enough! And tear out that part in the KANSAS Constitution about " no standing armies and militias"! (Bo Gritz will love us forever)
Question 2 - (file this one in the "WTF?" category) Eliminate mental illness as a voting disqualification. RRR: "These people are our friends. They are everyday Kansans. They have jobs, pay taxes and vote." (They also shoot guns)


ARIZONA: 


Proposition 107 - Amend Civil Rights Act to effectively ban all affirmative action legislation. RRR: "We should be judging people on their character and their merit and not their skin color or their sex..."  (But ya do, Blanche, ya do). 
Proposition 203  - Legalization of Medical Marijuana. RRR: "Saying that this is for medicine for sick people is an absolute smokescreen." ("Smokescreen" - get it? How witty!) 

Proposition 302 - Repeal of Arizona's First Things First Program (state's "Head Start" program). RRR: "Unless it's helping people who truly can't help themselves, no, we shouldn't do it." (How compassionate)


COLORADO: 


Amendment 63 - Protect the individual’s right to make health care decisions. RRR: "This is not just to address the mandate in Obama-care, this is to make sure Colorado never becomes like Massachusetts where government puts a gun to your head and says you will buy a private product whether you want it or not." (But how many people won't be able to afford health care's rising costs and premiums, Hmmm?) NOTE: for a list of state attorneys general who oppose "Obamacare," click HERE.
 
CALIFORNIA: 


Proposition 23 - Suspend AB 32, the Global Warming Act of 2006.  RRR: "This has been the blind leading the blind, political correctness that has collapsed the economy in California. California already has the fifth-cleanest air in the country, so why are we doing this when no one else is?" (Gee Whiz! Fifth! Hallelujiah! We can start polluting MORE again!) 


TENNESSEE: 


Amendment: Personal right to hunt and fish within state laws and property rights. RRR: "prevent radical animal rights activists and an increasingly urban state legislature from one day shutting down the activities." ("Durn city folks wants to take away our rights to hunt possum!" - NOTE: the opposition call this bill "frivolous and unnecessary, or as one PETA activist said: "If people have a right to hunt, why not a right to shop or golf?")

Underneath it all

The cool thing about Ballotpedia.org is that it lists all the things that were proposed for state votes but didn't make it - this time. Herein lies the true treachery (demonization mine) of  the RRR: a look at what they're trying to pass and will definitely try again:


Propositions nullifying Health Care Reform: such as Washington State's Health Insurance Freedom Act. States with similar "anti-ObamaCare" measures still in the works: Idaho, Colorado, Oklahoma, Arizona, Missouri, Georgia, Maine, Florida, Louisian, Ohio, Kansas (of course).


Personhood Amendments: Would recognize the personhood of the unborn from the earliest stages of life. States in which the amendment was proposed: Colorado, Nevada 


California Free Exercise of Religion Amendment: Creates Special Constitutional Rule for Speech Based on the Bible. (Reconstructionists want this one in a bad way!)

Oklahoma "Sharia Law" Amendment: no explanation necessary.


Ohio Immigration Reform Initiative: Let's all be like Arizona.


There's also the laws they hope to stop from ever getting off the ground: In particular, the Safe Schools Improvement Act which would include anti-bullying measures protecting LGBT youth. The RRR's reasoning: we don't want homosexual "indoctrination" of our youth. Extension: "we couldn't care less about your queer kids committing suicide, just keeps your filthy hands off our kids. But of, course, we'll tell you that we care about ALL the kids."

So the homophobic, racist RRR wants gay teens to commit suicide, doesn't care about abused puppies, people who use marijuana to ease pain, or planet earth, loves racial profiling, wants anyone who spouts the Bible to be exempt from law,  wants all crazies to carry guns, and wants us all to believe that they're really spewing all this crap "for the good of the country."


OK., that's my demonizing for the day. But before you sign off, take a look at Michelangelo Signorile's take on demonizing as he finally gets enough of the RRR's "blamelessness" in last month's teen suicides: