Lordy, how silly.
American Atheists got an information booth at the Conservative Political Action Conference, and announced it today, and promptly had its table snatched away because…I don’t know, because it turned out that atheists are atheists, or something. I did say it was silly.
“American Atheists misrepresented itself about their willingness to engage in positive dialogue and work together to promote limited government,” said CPAC spokesperson Meghan Snyder in an email.
Earlier Tuesday, after announcing the group’s participation, American Atheists’ president David Silverman told CNN, “I am not worried about making the Christian right angry. The Christian right should be angry that we are going in to enlighten conservatives. The Christian right should be threatened by us.”
When CPAC spoke to Silverman about this “divisive and inappropriate language,” Snyder said, “he pledged that he will attack the very idea that Christianity is an important element of conservatism.”
“People of any faith tradition should not be attacked for their beliefs, especially at our conference. He has left us with no choice but to return his money,” she said.
But “attacking” the idea that Christianity is an important element of conservatism is not the same thing as “attacking” people for their beliefs.
Now, in all fairness, if Dave had been harassing the people behind CPAC for several months, calling them names and mocking them and tweeting at them, I could certainly see why they would decline his request for a booth. But that’s not what happened. Saying they can’t have a booth after all because he wanted to tell them that Christianity is not an important element of conservatism is just silly.
Oh, clever trolls are clever — and i can see why the CPAC decided to spin the American Atheists away. Intertwining conservatism and Christianity is part of their election strategy, and if someone tries to untangle that knot, it’s a threat to them.
Hell, he might as well have been trying to tell them that the United States is not a Christian nation….
“People of any faith tradition should not be attacked for their beliefs, especially at our conference.”
Funny, that’s what other speakers at CPAC have done, and I don’t mean attacking ideas, I mean attacking people. But then honesty isn’t exactly a conservative value.
To an outsider, the association of Christianity with conservatism is perplexing. Wasn’t Jesus of the Bible something of a pinko?
Acts 2:44-45
And his followers were Commies!!!
Conservatives’ Xtianity doesn’t really have much to do with Jesus, as far as I can tell. They are more the punishing kind. Also, of course, they freely invent completely new definitions of things, and also twist the world so that they are victims.
Anyhow I was going to say, if CPAC is so strong and powerful and caring etc and Xtianity is such a great and powerful and AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE religions, then why are they worried about a few little wimpy atheists at their crappy little folding table? Can’t they even stand up for what they supposedly believe? Don’t they know how to argue for their own side?
What a bunch of scaredy babies.
I disagree. What was foolish was for CPAC to let them have a booth in the first place. AA was pulling a publicity stunt — and I don’t mean that in a pejorative sense, because that’s part of what advocacy groups do — and CPAC walked right into it.
CPAC is a private organization and has every right to turn away anyone they think might be a problem or distraction or undermine their agenda. AA’s agenda might be consistent with some theoretical versions of conservatism, but it is clearly at odds with conservatism as promoted at CPAC. If some CPAC official got suckered into thinking otherwise, well, score one for AA I guess.
CPAC had to make up an excuse to get rid of the booth. Right wing attacks on Silverman are as often anti-semitism as anti-atheist. CPAC wouldn’t want to upset the pro-Israel lobbyists by having bigots spouting crap openly what they usually say in private.
Anyone know any conservative islamist trolls?
I dunno, Silverman’s statements read like a public relations disaster to me, for AA, and for his alleged mission to “enlighten” conservatives. Shooting his mouth off like that resulted in him not being there to do any enlightening at all. Even as a publicity stunt, it failed.
Holy cow! Next they’ll be saying that aborting isn’t the liberals sacrament!!!