The Persecution Files: Gohmert & Gaffney.


Catholics burning Protestants, a fine old Christian tradition.

Catholics burning Protestants, a fine old Christian tradition.

Christians just love the idea of persecution. Generally speaking, throughout all of Xian history, the persecution was applied by them, towards pretty much everyone, including those Xians who decided to do things a bit differently. The history of Xianity is a particularly nasty one, and it’s not at all like they like to paint, with them the humble, willing martyrs so terribly persecuted. The initial church, the Catholic one, had a death grip on many world leaders, as well as too much of the population. The had terrible wealth and power, and used it. Ages went by with the constant spilling of blood, all the wars, the crusades, condemning countless children and adults to death. All the declarations of heresy. The inquisition. Oh, all those witches to torture, burn, and hang. A Christian’s work is never done. Once divisions took place, those who rejected Catholicism got busy torturing and killing those who wouldn’t renounce Catholicism (as in Hawaii), and so on. A history replete with brutal oppression, burning with fanatical hatred and writ in blood. The majority of Xians, anywhere in the world, know very little about actual history. They know the insipid stories they are fed, and little more. Learning on your own when you’re any flavour of xian is frowned upon, and quickly discouraged. Learning has this nasty habit of shedding light, and making a person curious and questioning. Not a good thing when it comes to religion. You are, to steal from Futurama, to choose to believe what you have been programmed to believe.

Christians to this day insist they are persecuted, oh yes we are, they cry, while stamping their feet. This never ending cry is often deafening here in uStates. Recently, the ever delusional Louie Gohmert and Frank Gaffney went on and on about it.

Back in early 2009, at the start of President Obama’s time in office, the Department of Homeland Security released a report about violent right-wing extremism. This would have been a relatively minor event had the Religious Right not immediately seized upon a single footnote in the report to claim that the whole thing was an Obama administration attack on Christians, veterans, anti-abortion activists, gun owners and conservatives in general.

In reality, the report dealt with the very real threat of violent right-wing extremism—the sort espoused by people like Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh—and had nothing to do with the Religious Right as a whole or people who simply have conservative beliefs and political views. Nonetheless, Religious Right groups smelled an opportunity to raise money off a made-up threat of being persecuted by the new administration and immediatelysettoworkpaintingthe report as an attack on all conservatives, in particular Christians. Liberty Counsel even printed out “proud to be a right-wing extremist” cards for its members to carry, seemingly untroubled by willingly conflating itself with terrorists like McVeigh.

Quickly, House Republicans got involved and the department withdrew the report—much to the dismay of the Republican DHS staffer who wrote the report, who worried that all the outcry would hurt his small unit’s ability to fight actual violent right-wing extremism. When, just weeks after the report was pulled, an anti-choice extremist shot and killed abortion provider George Tiller, there was little to no backtracking among the activists who had claimed that a single mention in the report of anti-abortion-driven extremism was somehow an attack on all people who oppose abortion rights.

We bring this all up because nearly eight years later, conservative activists and their Republican allies are still using this report to claim that President Obama hasn’t been willing to fight Islamic radicalism and that he thinks that conservative Christians are the real terrorists.

The duplicity of Xians is of no surprise; most people have become long accustomed to it. Xians lie so damn much, it’s really only shocking when you first learn about the very long history of dishonest, hypocritical chicanery. The story is full of links, and there’s a lot to it, and I recommend reading it. I just want to address a small bit of the screed:

“And, actually, there are those who believe in this administration that Christians are the biggest hate group threat,” he said, “because, as they say, Christianity and religious freedom are code words for Islamophobia, homophobia, xenophobia and all these others, when, if they really understood Christianity, they would understand that if you’re truly a Christian you have no fear except for God, that’s the beginning of wisdom. “

Y’know, I hear that often, that Xians have no fear, except for being scared shitless of El Shaddai, but it simply is not true. If your belief was so burning, so solid, and you were absolutely convinced of the greatness of your god, why the brutal history of oppression? Why the constant attempts at brutal oppression now? Xians hate and fear great swathes of humanity. Naturally, they keep up the competition hate for other branches of the Abrahamaic religions (Judaism, Islam – same god, same basic beliefs). That’s no surprise. However, they twist themselves in insanity knots over the need to hate all those they brand “other”. Scott Lively couldn’t get his dream of executing people for the crime of being gay off the ground here, so he took it to Uganda, where he found success. Now that we’re entering into fascism, who knows what he’ll be able to do here. Xians hate and fear queer folk, and the reasons they manufacture are unbelievably weak. As has been mentioned here before, there are several love stories in the old testament (bible of your choice) which involve people of the same sex. My favourite is Jonathan and David. Yahweh didn’t go ballistic, why would it? I doubt any loving relationship ever garnered much attention. Rape was much more Yahweh’s thing. That, and slicing up concubines who had been tossed out to be gang raped all night. I guess paper was impractical. Oh, also demanding that raped virgins be executed. If there’s one thing you can learn from many stories in the OT, it’s that any new guy in town was expected to be gang savoured by all the men in town. That’s never explained, just why there were always herds of rampaging men who were after fresh male ass. They never ended up punished, these stories were always vehicles for the punishment of an unnamed woman. That brings us to another thing Xians hate and fear: women.

Oh, they don’t hate proper women, those who are prepared to be subservient and “womanly”. After all, a xian man needs an uterus, preferably a seldom speaking, non-thinking, non-questioning compliant one. Women who use their brains, are independent, and are unafraid to express themselves? Not so much. Above all, Xians just hate women having bodily autonomy. No, according to them, a woman must always belong to someone, a male someone. A woman should have zero say about what goes on, especially in the case of sex. Xians are absolutely rabid on the idea of abortion, and that’s a relatively new thing. Back when I terminated my pregnancy, in the 1970s (last century!), no one was fussing about it. They had not yet seized on it as a viable political platform. Any woman who has been on the planet for a good length of time knows that termination of pregnancies is not remotely new. It’s been done, well, pretty much always. Again, this is about power, privilege, and the overriding need to oppress. There’s the usual fault line of hypocrisy, too. Any person who has done time as a clinic escort can tell you about the fanatical anti-abortion Xians who have shown up at the clinic back door, hauling a young daughter with them. It’s not enough though, to just insist on punishing women by making pregnancy a situation of forced birth and punishment. They also want women to have no access to birth control, and they don’t want comprehensive sex education in schools, oh no. It doesn’t matter to them, either, whether or not all the people they insist inflicting this shit on are Xian. All that matters is their right to brutally oppress others. Such a loving religion, alright.

Xenophobic? Oh yes. Xians are constantly running about with their big ol’ stamp of oppression, marking all those people, and them too, oh, and especially those, “other“. Not us. They deeply fear globalism, because for those of us who see that as an opportunity to reach past borders and build bridges, to Xians, that’s a fucking nightmare. They require hatred, fear, and oppression. It makes them think their god has the biggest penis or something. That god, which is such a vaporous weakling that Xians just have to fight for it, oh my yes. That supposedly blazing faith which can’t stand up to a bunch of people being happy without their wispy dotard of a god. They don’t have faith, they don’t have belief. They have insecurity.

Islamaphobia? Oh, in spades. There’s nothing fanatical oppressors love quite as much as another faction of their faith to declare war on. Since the protestant/catholic thing has finally calmed down, for the most part anyway, this is the new divide. Fanatics on both sides of the faith splinter are exactly the same. They have so much in common, all they can do is hate one another. As far as the Xian fanatics in uStates, they just can’t stand the fact that anyone who does not believe in what they demand is allowed to exist at all, let alone live here.

“But these clowns,” he added, “are so ignorant of what true Christianity is, and that it’s the one religion that’s truly based on love, the idea that God so loved the world and sent His son and His son so loved the world that he gave his life,

Oh sure, spending your whole life working on the brutal oppression of others, that’s love. As for Yahweh and that whole “hey, I sacrificed a kid!” bullshit, you really need to sit in an empty room and fucking think about that scenario. It’s ugly as could be, and it was completely unnecessary. That said, if you’re so sold on that whole sacrifice business, how about you sacrifice your need to be fanatical assholes who live to stomp on the humanity of others? Right now, I’d settle for this: shut the fuck up, and stop legislating your hatred, fear, and bigotry.

Via Right Wing Watch.

Comments

  1. says

    Oh, and before anyone cries “you can’t paint all Xians with the same brush!”, hey, you believe the same things. If you don’t like what these assholes do, take that supposed faith of yours, and stand the fuck up, against them. If you are not actively doing that, all you’re doing is shoring them up.

  2. says

    Oh, and before anyone cries “you can’t paint all Xians with the same brush!”

    You know what you call a christian who doesn’t believe hateful batshit stuff?
    An atheist.

  3. petern says

    A tweet by Matt Dillahunty from a few years back:

    “Dear liberal, enlightened Christian: I’m not lumping you in with fundies -- you are. Get a new name and new holy book to selectively cite.”

  4. Kengi says

    As with most religions, the holy books of the Abrahamic faiths are large, complex, and contradicting enough to support any viewpoint. And, like people who call themselves atheists, humanists and free thinkers, often use their philosophy of life to justify their own perspectives and actions, both good and bad.

    Yes, there are, indeed, liberal Christians who take their faith and “stand the fuck up, against” the conservative Christians. If you don’t see and hear them, it’s because you aren’t looking for them or listening to them. I’m personally familiar with Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago which has been active for many years supporting progressive causes and fighting against conservatives, including conservative Christians.

    If you want more, just check out the NYT article about the resurgence of the immigration sanctuaries in the liberal Christian churches in America.

    Houses of Worship Poised to Serve as Trump-Era Immigrant Sanctuaries

    This downtown church is one of 450 houses of worship in the United States that have offered to provide sanctuary or other assistance to undocumented immigrants, according to leaders of the Sanctuary Movement. (Few congregations have the space and fortitude to risk harboring immigrants indefinitely, so others are lining up to contribute money, legal aid, food, child care or transportation.) The congregations joining this network have more than doubled since the election of Donald J. Trump — a rapid rebuttal to Mr. Trump’s postelection promise to deport two million to three million unauthorized immigrants who he said have been convicted of crimes.

    This church is accustomed to mobilizing for social causes, from gay marriage to fights against casino gambling and for an increase in the minimum wage. Five years ago, the church joined the New Sanctuary Movement of Philadelphia, but Mr. Flores is the first person the church has taken in.

    The movement was revived in 2006 and grew during President Obama’s two terms, said the Rev. Alexia Salvatierra, a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. At least 2.5 million people were deported during Mr. Obama’s time in office, earning him the nickname “deporter in chief.”

    One big change from the 1980s, Pastor Salvatierra said, is that now, thousands of Latino churches and their clergies are also involved in protecting immigrants — frequently their own members and often quietly. In the ’80s, mostly white, Protestant churches led the way.

    “We’re in a different universe now. We don’t need the white people to rescue us, thank you very much. We need to be in partnership,” she said in an interview, before heading off to train sanctuary workers at a multiethnic church in downtown Los Angeles. She expected 25 people, but 150 signed up.

    Religious leaders are preparing for the possibility that this could change under President Trump. Auburn Seminary in New York City, which trains religious leaders on the left, convened a postelection “Long Game Faith Summit” this month, and invited the Rev. Alison Harrington from Tucson to give workshops on sanctuary.

    “We can’t assume that churches and houses of worship will remain safe locations,” said Ms. Harrington, senior pastor at Southside Presbyterian Church, long a hub for sanctuary work.

    Sanctuary workers in the ’80s organized a sort of “underground railroad” to move immigrants from dangerous regions to safer ones, and that may have to be reactivated, she told her workshop.

  5. says

    Kengi, sure, there are some xians who decide to do something good once in a while. So what? These same xians are not the ones out marching against every single attempt to legislate bigotry and hate. They are not taking a stand against the constant assaults on autonomy and choice. They are not taking a stand on all the “religious freedom” legislation. The list goes on and on and on and on and on.

    Where in the fuck are all those good, liberal xians fighting outright against the xian right at every turn? Where is the roar of them saying “you are not xian, we will not allow you to claim that”, or as mentioned by Matt Dillahunty, they aren’t giving themselves a new name, and citing a different book. They are still, by their very beliefs, shoring up the xian fanatics, and I am sick and fucking tired of giving them any quarter because a few of them decided to do one right thing. That does not correct all the evils and wrong.

    A whole lot of Indian nations decided, long before these xians, to become sanctuaries for immigrants and refugees. Does anyone care about that? No. Is anyone making a case for Indians based on that? No. That’s because a case is not needed. Indians in general are not evil people, busy oppressing others.

    A very few xians doing the right thing now and then is meaningless -- when they stand up to the fucking rest of them, I’ll pay attention.

  6. Kengi says

    Most of the progressive people who voted for, campaigned for, and worked for Hillary were those “very few xians” you speak of. I’m not suggesting we need to pat them on the head, but we certainly don’t need to claim they don’t exist when they represent the majority of people in America who support progressive causes.

    You ask where the fuck they are and I showed you some of them. Do you really want me to show you a shit-ton more? I certainly can. It’s easy enough. Here’s an article I read yesterday as well:

    http://www.patheos.com/blogs/frankschaeffer/2016/12/paul-ryans-white-selfie-unintentional-poster-child-white-supremacy-movement/

    The NYT has had several recent articles about Rev Coery Brook’s New Beginnings Church in Chicago and how they are working with street gangs helping to stop the outbreak of violence there, and how other churches in the city have been very active fighting against the conservative gun-in-every-hand agenda.

    Many of those same churches have supported LGBT equality for years yet rarely got media coverage beyond local newspapers.

    I have personal friends who are members of what you derisively call that “supposed faith” who have worked very hard for progressive causes every day for years, fighting against conservative Christians as well as conservative humanists (that “supposed philosophy”). The overwhelming majority of the LGBT organizations at my university were Christian. In that NYT article it talks about how the same groups were providing support for anti-Vietnam war movements when we were both in diapers, and how they continued to support Central American refugees in the 70s and 80s.

    Most of the 65,844,954 people who voted for Clinton were Christians standing up to the fucking evangelical favorite. Paying attention yet?

    Look, I get that you hate all Christians. But I don’t. I know way too many good people who are Christians to fall into the same BS the conservative community does when bitching about why none of the “supposedly moderate” Muslims complain about the extremists. It’s nothing but bigotry.

  7. blf says

    It’s nothing but bigotry.

    Possibly worse: Insisting “They” conform to every one of “Your” expectations for the subject in question; that is also known as a “purity test”. It’s also quite categorical (absolutist).

  8. Crimson Clupeidae says

    I would add that while there are good xians and xian organizations, like Kengi points out, way too many of those come at the cost of being proselytized at in order to get the ‘charity’ they provide.

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