Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Michelle, can you talk a little more about the "gay agenda?" 

Until I read your book, I just thought the whole gay agenda notion was
just more right-wing blather. I was surprised to learn that many
right-wing Christians believe there is an actual gay conspiracy, a la
the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
  

    
I should get my fundie sister into this discussion.  She once wrote a
letter to the Contra Costa Times delineating and condemning the "gay
agenda".  The group held breath in our family is waiting for the day
her fundie, mid 20's son comes out.  There are an awful lot of
indications in that direction.  The crime is that his beliefs may cause
him to suppress his true nature for his entire life.
  

    
One of the things that I don't think most liberals realize about the
religious right is that there is actually a deep intellectual
infrastructure supporting many of its positions. The myth of the
"homosexual agenda" is a good example. Sure, some of the movement's
anti-gay bigotry is driven by antipathy and anxiety (homosexuality is
seen as both utterly disgusting and so incredibly tempting that, if
restrictions are loosened, *everyone* will do it). But countless books
try to give these prejudices a kind of theoretical legitimacy by
constructing a homosexual conspiracy that seeks nothing less than the
destruction of Christianity. "The Pink Swastika," by Scott Lively and
Kevin Abrams, explains that stories about the Nazi victimization of gay
people are lies devised to further the homosexual agenda. In fact,
Nazism was a primary homosexual movement, and today's gay rights
movement is its direct descendent. 

To be honest, I can't tell you how many people in the movement
actually believe this. But Lively, the California state director of
Donald Wildmon's American Family Association, has been widely featured
on Christian right radio and TV. And the idea of a demonic homosexual
plot against America is very common in Christian nationalist discourse.
Alan Sears is the president of the Alliance Defense Fund, a major
Christian right legal group that's frequently in the news for fighting
high-profile culture war cases. He co-wrote a 2003 book called "The
Homosexual Agenda," whose introduction promised, "We will outline how
the homosexual agenda touches every area of our lives, from the media
to education to families to corporate America and to government  
[sic]. We will document how the religious freedoms of all Americans are
under attack from radical homosexual activists."

This kind of demonization gives people a scapegoat for the very real
anxieties that plague them. As I write in the book, it's tempting (and
I've certainly given in on occasion) to relish the irony of the high
divorce rates in the states most obsessed with protecting marriage. But
it makes sense that people in these areas really do feel like marriage
is under attack, because the marriages they see around them seem so
terrifyingly tenuous. 

Incidentally, next week I'm going to Ohio to debate Phil Burress, the
head of that state's Focus on the Family affiliate and a driving force
behind the anti-gay marriage amendment there.  He's been married three
times. 

 
  

    
And how many of those marriages produced children?  Did he marry any
women past the age of reproduction for purposes not of bearing
children, but for sex and companionship alone?
  

    
>>>One of the things that I don't think most liberals realize about
the
religious right is that there is actually a deep intellectual
infrastructure supporting many of its positions.<<<

Those books don't seem like a "deep intellectual infrastructure" to
me, though. What kind of objective evidence do any of them give to
support their hypotheses? Which published academic historians do they
quote saying the Nazis were a homosexual movement? 
  

    
(The 19th Century/early 20th Century German military, Roon most
notoriously -- his career was ruined for it -- had a deep streak of
homosexuality. Wasn't the Night of the Long Knives Hitler's purge of
the gay faction of the SS? But after that, the Nazis didn't have any
overt homosexuals in their ranks, as far as I'm aware). 
  

    

I think a parallel to this is the myth that the US is a Christian nation.
There may not be a "deep intellectual infrastructure" documenting that the
Founding Fathers meant ours to be a faith-based government or that the
Puritans left England determined to create a nation with a godly leader, 
but that there are books or leaflets, that there are "experts" out there
repeating the same thing over and over is deemed sufficient.
  

    
Michelle, could you compare the current situation from the right to
the earlier zeal with which Marx was believed to have all the answers. 
Also, why was Marxism such an intellectual obsession?  

Perhaps absolutist thinking exists notwithstanding brains or lack
thereof.
  

    
Has this happened before in history?

How'd we get out of it?
  

    
I might have put that badly-- what I meant by deep intellectual
infrastructure wasn't that there's a lot of profound thinking going on.
Rather, I meant that there's a huge cannon of books reflecting the
Christian nationalist's alternative reality, often chock full of
footnotes referencing each other, so that the entire thing becomes a
richly detailed, nearly impenetrable edifice of untruth.  It's an
ideology rather than simply a set of prejudices…
  

    
Hi, Michelle.  I look forward to reading your book.  In
the meanwhile, I'm wondering how much (if any) common
ground your observations might share with Karen Armstrong's
take that fundamentalism is a reaction to modernity.
  

    
Michelle, many secular liberals who (my interpretation) have a hard
time imagining anyone taking right-wing Christian beliefs seriously
have talked about these trends in terms of the Republican party
cynically taking advantage of the religious "base."  Is that all we're
looking at, or is the government currently being infiltrated by
Christian theocrats? 
  

    
How can we convince Democrats to treat religious voters with respect
rather than writing them off as superstitious idiots?
  

    
Respect is circular.
  

    
Perhaps those outside the religion are not aware of believers'
acceptance of and trust in chain-of-command (using the word
"authority" doesn't really get my point across).  Children will obey
their parents.  Wives will obey their husbands. And so on.  And lest
you think these are hayseed-chewing folk, this is accepted by
intelligent, successful, and fabulous people.

So this acceptance of God-ordained chain-of-command is ripe for
exploitation.

Then there is the view that there is literally a spiritual war
going on here and now between God and the Devil, in which we are all
involved.  So *everything* is polarized and interpreted in that regard
(which allows for statements like: "You're either with us or against
us") leaving out any middle ground and the only option is: "Make your
choice--good or evil".  This leaves no options.  

Again, this trust is so susceptible to misinterpretation or
exploitation.
  

    
I think the biggest question in my mind after reading the book is this:

How much do you think the leaders of the Christian Nationalist movement
believe what they preach?  You can see someone like Santorum first saying
gay marriage will soon lead to people marrying animals, and then
backpedalling rapidly.  Likewise on his Intelligent Design position.

It could be that he's saying what he believes, and then realizes that it
might cost him votes.  Or it could be that he's saying what he thinks will
get him votes, and realizes he's made a mistake.

To put it another way, do you think that they are following an agenda that
they believe, and tweaking it for pragmatic reaons, or do you think that
they are being manipulative in the first place, and fine-tuning their
source of votes and funding?

And it may vary by celebrity; Santorum might be working the public in a
different way than Jerry Falwell is.  But knowing who is working the crowd
which way would suggest strategies.
  

    
There's another thing that may be at play. He may be saying what's
been drummed into him through years of Christian indoctrination, and
the backpedaling is because he's finally been called on it. 
  

    
There is a real problem in the local evangelical community, and I
suspect in the national community as well, with the faithful not
speaking out when they feel that one of their own is wrong.  This
failure will eventually set them back further than where they were when
they started.
  

    

> ... Wasn't the Night of the Long Knives Hitler's purge of
> the gay faction of the SS? 

That's not what Wikipedia and other sources says:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/night_of_the_long_knives.htm

From what I read, that event was a typical purge of political opponents.
  

    
Michelle, come back and save us from topic drift! :-)
  

    
A question for Sharon Lynne Fisher -- which Democrats dismiss
religious voters as superstitious idiots? Hillary Clinton? Barack
Obama? Al Gore? This charge gets hurled around a lot, but I don't see
any evidence of it, and I'm curious about what makes you feel that way.


As for the question of what might be called the cynicism-fanaticism
continuum, I think it often depends on the individual. I do disagree
with the Tom Frank thesis, which (and I'm probably oversimplifying it)
imagines GOP victories as a result of crafty plutocrats manipulating
the pious rubes to get them to vote against their economic interest.
Obviously there's some of that going on -- the modern Christian right,
after all, was born when a group of Goldwater veterans recruited an
obscure Baptist pastor named Jerry Falwell to found the Moral Majority
in the hopes of wedging blue collar social conservatives away from the
Democratic Party. These days, however, it’s the religious right that
largely controls the GOP, especially at the grassroots, and there are
many senators (Inhofe, Santorum, Coburn, Brownback) and countless
representatives who I think truly believe in some kind of messianic
Christian restoration. There's not necessarily a contradiction between
their faith and their political weaseling, since if politics is a great
showdown between good and evil, then the ends justify any means. 

I have to run to catch a flight to Ohio, but will be back online
later…
  

    
One thing that struck me about your book was your (to me refreshing)
assertion that when it comes to hardcore Christian nationalists, there
is no compromise.  Simply speaking respectfully of peoples' beliefs,
etc. isn't going to accomplish much when the are fanatics bent on
taking over the United States and imposing a theocracy.  So I suppose
part of the trick is knowing whom you should treat with respect
(ordinary Christian believers) and who are your implacable enemies.
  

    

I agree, mcdee.

The blank wall of non-communication that I came up against with those
Christian nationalists of my acquaintance was beautifully explained in your
book, Michelle.  I hadn't previously seen the implacable alternate reality 
supported by home schooling and the encyclopedic array of textbooks and 
think tank tomes defining, describing, defending it.  

I saw an early Francis Schaeffer book and dismissed it as light-weight 
twaddle.  Now I am still trying to grasp that figures I so admire, Edmund 
Burke, Voltaire, Jefferson, Paine and the entire Enlightment are perceived 
by some as powers of darkness tearing down the fabric of a "Christian 
nation."  (I am usually loath to use quotes, but I must.  I do know v. 
fine Christian people and I simply cannot use Christian as adjective or 
noun to identify both.)

I shudder to see the current tearing down of international law, one of the 
most recent and fragile protections of the modern world.  

Initially I could not understand the "homosexual agenda" either.  It 
seemed to me that supporters of marriage and family would embrace others 
eager to take on those same responsibilities and foster the next 
generation.  

Initially I could not understand the virulent opposition to abortion.  
There are so many abandoned living children in this country, so many who 
may not be physically abandoned, but who are inadequately loved, fed, 
protected, nurtured, educated.  Why would anyone in their right mind want 
more unwanted babies?

Why would anyone want to imprison a woman into motherhood for 18 years 
when she herself didn't want the job or the child? 

Call me naive, if you will.  Now I have a better intellectual grasp, but I 
still don't understand in my heart.  

As to authority or the chain of godly commands, YES!  When Pope Urban II 
called for crusade against the infidels in 1095 and Bernard responded with
a fiery sermon from his citadel in Citeaux, war was launched.  Read his 
sermon sometime, it will send chills down your back.  We are once again 
engaged in that same war and both sides claim direct authority from 
God--through pastors and imams--for their actions.
  

    
#46: elsewhere on the Well. I don't mean Democratic officials.
  

    
But why should myths be respected? Is my lack of respect for much or
what main-stream Christianity seems to espouse any more of an issue
than their idea that I am going to burn in hell for ever-lasting time?

Does catering to folks who refuse to give an inch make things better?

How can one call them on their shit in a "respectful" way?

Do Christians treat wiccians or pagans with "respect"?

I refuse to respect so-called Christians who seem not to live the life
that Christ preached about. Love, forgivness, and all those other good
things.

As a Gay person, how could I "respectfully" engage those who wish to
treat me as a second class person. How can I "respect" those who will
not allow me to get married?

Respect? Hell, I just with the rapture would happen so humanity could
get on with makeing our way in this very difficult world.

There is no place for the likes me in the "Kingdom Coming".

I know a lot of Christians I respect though. Fellow Quakers. Sometimes
that gives me hope, and trust me, I would never dream of dissing them.