The Family Research Center, “Hate Groups,” And Tony Perkins’s Persecution Complex

Whether or not it's proper to call the FRC a "hate group," the persecution complex being displayed in the wake of Tuesday's shooting is absurd.

As I noted yesterday, Tony Perkins, the head of the Family Research Council took groups the Southern Poverty Law Center to task in light of Tuesday’s shooting incident, claiming that their designation of his group as a “hate group” somehow made them at least morally culpable for an act of violence by some random individual for reasons that are still not entirely clear. Perkins’s comments have been echoed by many on the right, and while not endorsing Perkins’s charges, The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank does take the SPLC to task for labeling the FRC a “hate group”:

Human Rights Campaign isn’t responsible for the shooting. Neither should the organization that deemed the FRC a “hate group,” the Southern Poverty Law Center,be blamed for a madman’s act. But both are reckless in labeling as a “hate group” a policy shop that advocates for a full range of conservative Christian positions, on issues from stem cells to euthanasia.

I disagree with the Family Research Council’s views on gays and lesbians. But it’s absurd to put the group, as the law center does, in the same category as Aryan Nations, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Stormfront and the Westboro Baptist Church. The center says the FRC “often makes false claims about the LGBT community based on discredited research and junk science.” Exhibit A in its dossier is a quote by an FRC official from 1999 (!) saying that “gaining access to children has been a long-term goal of the homosexual movement.”

Offensive, certainly. But in the same category as the KKK?

Since the shooting, conservatives have complained that the media have played down the story. This probably has less to do with bias than with the fact that nobody was killed. Still, there is something to the complaint.

I took issue with Glenn Beck before his fall for stirring up the unstable by promoting conspiracy theories in the mass media; more than one Beck follower became violent. What the Southern Poverty Law Center and Human Rights Campaign have done isn’t close to the level of provocation Beck achieved, but that doesn’t justify their actions. The National Organization for Marriage, which opposes gay marriage, is right to say that the attack “is the clearest sign we’ve seen that labeling pro-marriage groups as ‘hateful’ must end.”

To be fair to the SPLC, the quotes that they cite in their discussion of the FRC on their website include not only quotes from 1999, but also far more recently material, including this 2010 quote from Tony Perkins himself:

 ”While activists like to claim that pedophilia is a completely distinct orientation from homosexuality, evidence shows a disproportionate overlap between the two. … It is a homosexual problem.”

This is, of course, a fundamentally absurd position. Not only is it factually untrue in that statistics tend to show that child sexual abuse is in no way a predominantly a same-sex activity, but it also ignores the differences between a consensual adult relationship and the inherently non-consensual abuse of a child, be they male or female. Trying to equate the two is simply false, but the question is whether that makes the FRC a “hate group” equivalent, in the judgment of the SPLC, to the KKK or Westboro Baptist Church is a difficult one. In some sense, it’s entirely subjective and the SPLC can defend itself in that regard. My personal opinion, as I’ve expressed before, is that it’s a mistake to label all opponents of same-sex marriage as bigots.

Does the FRC cross the line? Well, they certainly at least come close to it, and I find much of their rhetoric to be closed-minded, ignorant, vile, and offensive. Does that justify labeling them a “hate group?” I’ll leave that up to the reader to decide, but I will say that I think Milbank’s blanket condemnation of the SPLC for doing so is misplaced. They aren’t just ordinary run-of-the-mill opponents of same-sex marriage, they are vehement opponents of anything approaching equality and respect for gays and lesbians, and they’re willing to spread lies to accomplish their agenda.

Leaving aside whether the designation is proper or not, though, what’s really rather annoying is the persecution complex that Perkins’s comments from yesterday reveal. the mere fact that there are people out there who criticize the mission of his organization, and who think that it’s wrong, as I do, is seen as some kind of infringement on their rights. I’ve seen it many times from groups on both sides of the political aisle, but it’s a phenonomenon that seems to be far more prevalent on the right than the left.

The absolutely master of the persecution complex in recent years, of course, has been Sarah Palin, who has said during the course of the 2008 campaign, that journalists who were asking questions about her and her record were violating her First Amendment rights and that such journalists were “a threat to democracy.” During the Carrie Prejean beauty pageant/gay marriage kerfuffle, she accused the media and pageant officials of violating Prejean’s First Amendment rights. And back in May she essentially said that journalists who printed stories she didn’t like were a threat to freedom of the press. Palin didn’t originate any of this, of course, but she did perfect it, and it’s in the spirit of that same phony persecution complex that Perkins stood outside his office yesterday and tried to blame a shooting by what may have been a deranged man on people that dared to criticize his organization.

Ed Kilgore comments:

I’m truly sorry some evil or insane person wanted to inflict violence on FRC and its employees, but do not think it logical to connect this act with some general persecution of the organization or the conservative evangelical Christians it claims to represent. Those determined to frustrate the Christian Right’s desire for total secular political power are neither Romans nor Communists nor Nazis, and it is far past time for smug powerful men like Tony Perkins to climb down from that cross and stop pretending they bear any resemblance to the actual Christian Martyrs who suffered and died—and still suffer and die—for their faith.

And Adam Serwer adds that this incident in fact proves that no such persecution exists:

Given his group’s years-long characterization of gays and lesbians as child-molesting sociopaths bent on abusing children, I doubt Perkins wants his silly standard for what constitutes a justification of violence to be applied to himself. Historically speaking however, the consensus that violence is not a legitimate tool for domestic politics in the United States has probably never been stronger, which is why LGBT rights groups immediately condemnedthe shooting incident and why the Family Research Council and the National Organization for Marriage are so eager to drape the blame around the shoulders of their most vocal critics. For all their disagreements, both anti-and pro-LGBT rights groups are eager to defeat each other in the arena of the law and the court of public opinion. They have chosen the ballot, not the bullet, and Corkins is nothing more than a near-tragic exception to the rule.

The problem, of course, is that groups like FRC and NOM see persecution not only in the violent acts of a lone nut, but in the efforts of proponents of gay rights to advance marriage equality and other public policy agenda items by the ballot box and the court system. Indeed, just today, it’s being reported that opponents of same-sex marriage in Maryland are describing as “intimidation” the canvassing efforts of proponents of same-sex marriage in advance of November’s referendum:

[Maryland Marriage Alliance Chairman Rev. Derek]MCCOY: On the people that actually signed the petition, they got the records from the Board of Elections. And in addition to Google mapping them out, they have actually started going to people’s addresses and having conversations with people at the address to tell them that they are haters. [They] knock on their door and try and intimidate them to go the other way and give them their long story about their personal saga about their life selection.

This is no more “intimidation” than any other political canvasser that will come to the doors of Maryland residents over the next three months, but in the eyes of the persecution complex crowd, attempting to change people’s minds in a democracy is, in fact, “intimidation.”  But it’s not. It’s called the marketplace of ideas, and people like Tony Perkins need to learn to accept the fact that people disagree with them, sometimes, vehemently, and to stop exploiting what could have been a tragedy to score political points.

FILED UNDER: Democracy, Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. Vast Variety says:

    Not every group that works against marriage equality is a hate group. It’s the ones that advocate “curing” gays, or rounding them all up, or support pastors who advocate for gays to be put to death, which both FRC and NOM has done that they cross the line.

  2. OzarkHillbilly says:

    Does the FRC cross the line? Well, they certainly at least come close to it, and I find much of their rhetoric to be closed-minded, ignorant, vile, and offensive. Does that justify labeling them a “hate group?”

    I had to stop and say this: Are they a group? Yes. Do they hate a group? Yes. Guess what? So did the KKK. That makes them a hate group. Have they lynched any gays? Yet? Not as far as I know. But when I googled “FRC mathew shepard” this was #2 on the hit parade. Which led me to this: A whole parade of sh!t fail hate. Yeah, they are all one great big group of hate. They hate the gays every bit as much as the KKK hates blacks, but let’s face it, not even the KKK engages in lynchings anymore. Those are hazardous to one’s health.

  3. Hoot Gibson says:

    Was it “absurd” for bill clinton to blame rush limbaugh for tim mcvey? Of course it was. Was it absurd for Paul Krugman and the entire leftwing wacko contingent to blame Sarah Palin for shooting Gabby Giffords? Of course it was. Was it absurd for Brian Ross to immediately blame the Tea Party for the shooting in Colorado? Of course it was.

    If the left is gonna dish it out, it’s gonna have to take it, no matter what apologists like Doug say.

    If the left is gonna live by the smear and guilt by association, they are gonna die by it—their hypocrisy be damned.

  4. Vast Variety says:

    Here is an example of why FRC is a hate group. Mike Heath runs the organization trying to keep Maine from legalizing marriage equality. FRC and NOM have given this group financial support and Mike Heath is Maine’s statewide representative for FRC.

    This is what Mike Heath said after the shooting at FRC…

    Heath continued, “If Maine doesn’t end this decades long conflict over the evil of sodomy with an overwhelming NO vote in November we can expect to see this sort of violence in Maine in the near future. Homosexuality can lead to the most horrific and violent consequences in individuals and society. The twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of it.”

  5. OzarkHillbilly says:

    The problem, of course, is that groups like FRC and NOM see persecution not only in the violent acts of a lone nut, but in the efforts of proponents of gay rights to advance marriage equality and other public policy agenda items by the ballot box and the court system.

    Let me just say, The_Gays_Are_Winning.

    Back in the mid ’70’s when I came of age (I know, I know, back when the first dirt was being made) to be called “gay”, or to be more accurate, Homo (it was the soup du juor) was to be weak and ineffectual. Nowadays, the “Gays” are the greatest threat to civilization since the Visigoths or the Mongols.

    If I was gay, I would be proud. As is, I am proud of my gay brethren.

    Go forth, and conquer.

  6. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Vast Variety:

    This is what Mike Heath said after the shooting at FRC…

    The twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of it.”

    So Minneapolis/St.Paul will soon be a couple of salt mines?

  7. Vast Variety says:

    @OzarkHillbilly: lol maybe. There is a anti-gay ballot measure going on there this November.

  8. rudderpedals says:

    Milbank acts coy and maybe he has to rub shoulders with FRC and NOM suits at dinners and such. If so he appears to have left his conscience with the hat check girl. Doug’s essay is spot on. Bravo!

  9. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Vast Variety:

    There is a anti-gay ballot measure going on there this November.

    Yeah, I know. My older, somewhat conservative religious sis lives there (Coon Rapids). She is in town next week and I am going to plumb the depths of her Christian soul. Somehow or other (delusion of mine?) I just can’t buy her buying that load of crap (she knows global warming is real).

    Hope springs eternal. Just as she tries to save my hedonistic soul, I try to save her grand children’s future.

  10. Spartacus says:

    @Hoot Gibson:

    “If the left is gonna live by the smear and guilt by association, they are gonna die by it—their hypocrisy be damned.”

    You seem to think that someone is either completely to blame for another’s actions or not at all to blame.

    We can’t (and shouldn’t hold others necessarily legally responsible), but it defies both logic and experience to say that a person’s arguments and rhetoric have no influence over others and, therefore, aren’t contributing factors to the circumstances that may lead to violence. Rather than denying this, the focus should be on whether the argument/rhetoric is factual and not needlessly inflammatory.

    I think a lot of people would agree that much of Limbaugh’s (and other right-wing entertainers’) rhetoric is not factual and is intended to inflame as much as possible. I don’t think the same can be said of the SPLC or the Human Rights Campaign, and that is probably why we currently see many more of these types of policy-connected killings from the Right than from the Left.

  11. Just Me says:

    Campaign, and that is probably why we currently see many more of these types of policy-connected killings from the Right than from the Left.

    Wait-just how many killings directly related to conservatism have happened recently.

    I think it is one thing to say left groups aren’t responsible for what happened at the FRC, but there really haven’t been that many-most of the mass murders have been crazy people who werne’t really motivated by anything than their own insanity.

    THe media has tried to pin some of these on conservatives-Loughner being a huge one and of ours the recent Aurora shootings.

  12. James says:

    @Just Me: Google abortion clinic shooting or bombing

  13. @Just Me:

    May I suggest you read up on the assassination of Dr. George Tiller ?

  14. Just Me says:

    Well I admit I forgot about Tiller.

    Mostly because every single shooting in the last couple of years has been the left trying to hang it on the right or the Tea Party and being wrong.

    So, abortion rhetoric was involved, I think you will be hard pressed to find too many legitimate conservatives out there who advocate for or support shooting abortion providers or bombing clinics.

    So will still maintain that the right isn’t any more responsible for murders that happen as the left. I mostly fall into the assumption that the shooter is mentally ill. I don’t think it does much for discourse to blame people for the murderous actions of others.

  15. Spartacus says:

    @Just Me:

    Of course just about all of these killers are crazy or mentally ill. And, of course, no one on the Right supports or advocates killing other people. That’s why we don’t hold them legally responsible for their vitriolic rhetoric.

    The issue is whether their rhetoric helps create the right mix of circumstances wherein people who are crazy/mentally ill, but still highly functional, will become so unhinged that they commit violence.

    When the rhetoric is factual and not needlessly inflammatory, it is (1) more likely to contribute to public dialog and (2) probably less likely to be a contributing factor to violence.

  16. Lynda says:

    @Just Me:
    The Norwegian massacres were carried out by a person with militant far right ideology and xenophobia.

    The recent tragedy in Wisconsin also appears to be racially motivated.
    http://abcnews.go.com/US/california-detective-wonders-sikh-temple-massacre-connected-unsolved/story?id=17030694

    White supremacists are often linked with the right wing just as communist groups like Weather Underground are linked with the left. Religious terrorists are linked with the religion they claim to represent (Al Queda to Muslims, Provisional IRA to Catholics etc)

    The vast majority of people on both sides of the aisle and of any/no religion deplore the use of violence vs the ballot box but tragically a minority do not.

    The minority linked with the right wing (however unfairly) have been more in the news recently. Whether that is just a statistical blip or a trend I don’t know.

  17. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Doug Mataconis: Good for you Doug.

  18. Mr. Replica says:

    The more Romney talks about his taxes, the more Obama(I think)has him by the balls regarding this issue.
    While I do agree that we should be talking about a tax system reform, rather than one persons obvious gaming of the system, I do think it would be very damaging to Romney and his wanting to lower taxes plan. Especially if these unknown tax returns actually show Romney paying very little.
    Why would anyone(outside if the zero taxes crowd)want to allow someone to lower the taxes even further, when it’s known that people like Romney can already pay any rate they want?

    Considering Romney is silent, if not extremely vague, about which exact loopholes he would close in the tax code. What makes people think that he would actually follow through to close loopholes he himself might have used?

    I see this tax return issue would be very damaging to Romney. Not because he might not have payed taxes, because it would show just how much wealthy people like him ACTUALLY pay in taxes.

  19. Mr. Replica says:

    Damn, posted in the wrong thread. That’s what I get for having more than one tab open…
    Sorry.
    @Mr. Replica:

  20. stonetools says:

    @Doug Mataconis: Good for you Doug.

    +1

  21. Vast Variety says:

    @OzarkHillbilly: I have one of those to. She likes to recite Leviticus to me when ever I bring a boyfriend to a family get together. Then I have to remind her she is on husband number 4. After that we usually hug, tell each other that no mater what we will always love each each other and spend the rest of the time reminiscing about how she got me to eat mud pies when we were kids.

  22. Habbit says:

    You guys are so funny… so pointlessly aligned with your silly political ideologies that you will defend and make excuses for any negative actions that could poke a hole in its stability. With this recent incident, the blacks are niggers according to homosexuals trash that erupted in 2008, and thousands of other similar cases, the evidence of political ideo-hypocrisy excuse-making from you “tolerant” sanctimonious liars is overwhelming. Any time an a violent situation is initiated by a “right-winger,” you folks with opposing views are quick to blame the “omg extremism” of the ideology, but when the reverse occurs, do the same principles apply?

    An individual who works for a FAST FOOD CHAIN SAID HE SUPPORTS MARRIAGE BETWEEN MAN AND A WOMAN AND IT DOMINATED HEADLINES FOR HALF A MONTH… until of course, the company broke sales records, showing the American public didn’t really approve of the press’s vitriol, and somehow the media’s interest immediately faded.

    Yet, in Washington, DC. two weeks later, a man walks into a building with the INTENTION OF SHOOTING, KILLING, MURDERING, SLAUGHTERING, EXECUTING, BUTCHERING, EXTERMINATING HUMAN BEINGS BECAUSE OF DIFFERENCES IN BELIEFS… but it’s not really all that important because of “the fact that nobody was killed.”

    Jesus Christ, get a freaking clue.

    Let’s get one thing about human nature straight… “Right-wingers” don’t mind when violence happens against “left-wingers,” just like “left-wingers” don’t mind when violence happens against “right-wingers.” ‘Denouncements’ and claims of caring from both sides are merely nothing more than public relations, face-saving lies.

    And don’t forget to neg this post because your feelings are hurt. 🙁

  23. Scott Rose says:

    SIGN THIS PETITION AND REPOST IT ALL OVER THE PLACE. TELL WASHINGTON POST COLUMNIST DANA MILBANK THAT WE WILL NOT STAND FOR HIS ENABLING OF ANTI-GAY HATE GROUPS. BE SURE TO READ THE PETITION TEXT.
    http://tinyurl.com/bw32rp5

  24. Scott Rose says:

    When people have been raised in a sexual orientation apartheid system, with the disadvantaged gay minority frequently the object of scorn in addition to stigma and discrimination, the unjust sexual orientation apartheid system can seem “normal,” rather than what it is, objectively viewed — pathological — and therefore, even persons of apparently good intentions can think that wanting to perpetuate anti-gay discrimination in marriage might not be bigotry. But it is anti-gay bigotry. What else would it be? An early Christmas present to every gay fellow citizen, that you are going to perpetuate the sexual orientation apartheid system against them? “I”m not a bigot; I’m just going to continue to treat you as the second-class citizen you deserve to be, because my notions about marriage are so noble.”

  25. Wow, did I stumble into the Daily Kos?

  26. alanmt says:

    Great post, Doug.

  27. Lynn Eggers says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Salt mines? Here? Will I have to work in one of them?

    Actually, of course, homosexuality had nothing to do with the destruction of Sodom… “‘Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.” These people don’t even know their bible.

  28. Tony W says:

    Homosexuals are simply the “other” du jour. Once they achieve some momentum on equality, those who need to make others small to feel big will move on to another minority group.

    Hate groups such as FRC, etc. certainly foster that feeling and the confirmation bias that comes naturally from such associations can create some “true believers” that, as has been noted above, come unhinged.

    The best remedy for this is a broad, strong and readily-available liberal-arts education. Habits of rigorous thought and the challenge to one’s own beliefs and ideas that naturally comes along with real learning will not allow such ideas to stand on their merits.

    This, sadly, is my opinion of why the education system is so weak in the United States. I call it “Intellectual Terrorism”

  29. al-Ameda says:

    @William Teach:

    Wow, did I stumble into the Daily Kos?

    What makes you think that?
    You couldn’t properly google translate “Outside The Beltway” from the original North Korean dialect?

  30. Habbit says:

    @Tony W:

    Cute, because you seem to casually dismiss the beliefs and ideas of the other side, while indirectly advocating for the murder of those who hold those beliefs.

  31. Eric Florack says:

    I wrote back in 2001:

    The pattern is well established. Politicians and others have frequently blamed “hatred” for headline making crimes, particularly when in the act of pandering to so-called Minority groups..

    *After the April 1995 bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City, President Clinton named G. Gordon Liddy among the conservative talk-show hosts he called “purveyors of hatred and division,” saying they were “encouraging violence.” The liberal press, who has long been willing to prostitute itself to the end of defeating anyone who holds views to the right of say, Fidel Castro, gleefully agreed with him. There was serious talk of McVeigh being charged under “Hate crimes’
    laws, but I’ve forgotten if he ever was prosecuted under those laws. I suspect though, that he was so charged.

    *’Concerned’ over arson attacks on black churches in 1996, (You recall, the ones Mr. Clinton lied about) civil rights leader Joseph Lowery accused the Christian Coalition of fostering an “extremist climate.” The non problem was followed up as a group of hate crimes.

    *When avowed homosexual Matthew Shepard was killed in Wyoming last year, Homosexual-extra-rights advocate Joan M. Garry suggested it was the result of a conservative anti-homosexuality campaign she said “fuels the fires of bigotry.”, and his killers were subject to and convicted under Hate Crime statutes.

    *Following the shootings at a Jewish community center in California, the leftist media and politicians jumped onto the hate crime bandwagon, labeling those episodes of violence “hate crimes”..

    *In Texas, the dragging death of a black man has brought two white men to conviction and the death penalty. These were reported by the press, most notably CBS and CNN (who forever shill for big government ) as hate crimes.

    Yet there is another pattern, also well established… a more disturbing one.

    #When a gunman spouting blasphemous rhetoric burst into a youth service at a Fort Worth Baptist church this week, and fatally shot seven persons, the liberal’s war on hate crimes was nowhere to be seen. Nor were there endless lines of liberal leaders, making as much out of the situation as possible.

    #When in 1997, a kid who had been known as anti-Christian shot up a high school prayer group in Paducah, KY where were the people protecting us from ‘hate crime’? They must have hidden behind the folks who want to remove the second amendment from the books. It’s the oddest thing; these looked just like the folks who had been
    screaming about hate crimes in my first examples.

    #When the April murders of Christian students at Columbine High School in Colorado, made the front page… where the shooters specifically picked out Christians to shoot at by asking them for professions of faith and then killing them for their answer, we saw no crying and wailing from the usual suspects about ‘hate crime’. Yet, there can be no question that these crimes too, were motivated by hate.

    Such discrepancies alas constitute legal life in America today. And with our over dependence on law, and on government, such nonsense penetrates every aspect of our day to day lives. The obvious question is why such double standards are permitted to exist. The answer, I fear, goes directly to the heart of the motive behind the hate crime laws.

    Understand; “motive” is not an idle choice of a word.. I consider the laws and the motive behind them, criminal. Why?

    Well, in answer, it doesn’t pass my notice, and I hope it doesn’t pass yours, that there are many who scream loudly to the populace for hate crimes laws when certain groups… groups whom they have historically favored… are targeted. Yet, these same people keep stony silence when other groups that they don’t favor are. You should also take note, of which are which. This disparity, (along with the disparity in the implementation of hate crime laws themselves) sends the message that hate itself isn’t the real issue… but rather WHOM you hate… that it’s OK to hate certain people. And of course, by passing hate crime laws and selectively implementing them, the government sends the clear message of which we shall and shall not hate.

    A look around provides the idea that open hostility to Christians, and others who hold traditional American values, is growing rapidly, and government is doing much to foster this hostility. Let’s be honest enough to say that this is the real purpose of “hate crime” legislation; to provoke hatred against politically incorrect groups, such as those who dare to try and uphold traditional cultural values, and/or those who are Christians.

    I suggest that this double standard is just one more front on the culture war … a war so many deny exists. Yet, it is a war that continues to claim victims. As in this case.

    Let me be clear, here. I am not suggesting that we give ‘hate crimes’ status to those crimes that we have not. I’m suggesting that we should grant ‘hate crime’ status to NO crime. By their design, and certainly by their implementation, the Hate Crimes statutes tend to reveal motives on the part of the government, which have racial and cultural motives, which are directed against the majority. Lincoln once observed that a house divided against itself cannot stand. Hate Crimes laws, far from being the healing tool they were supposed to be, have only served to deepen our division. It’s time to remove so called hate crimes from the books.

    Clearly, the pattern, given what we see today, hasn’t changed at all. And thus, Doug,is the “paranoia” being displayed, justified.

    With the patterns so established, why does the screaming from the left over Chic-Fil-A about how the owner is guilty of a ‘hate crime” when he simply excersiezed his first amendment rights as regards free speech and freedom of religion, and yet the same left is in stark silence over the FRC shooter, who was obviously and ironically committing his crime in the name of stopping supposed right-wing hatreds?

  32. Eric Florack says:

    @William Teach:

    No. The comparison, is more correctly, Andrew Sullivan.

  33. Tony W says:

    @Habbit: When the “beliefs of the other side” infringe on the equal status and civil rights of American citizens, yeah, I guess I “casually dismiss them”.

  34. Tony W says:

    @Habbit: oh, and yeah I suppose I shouldn’t have let your odd ‘murder’ thing go unaddressed. I guess I figured the good readers at OTB are smart enough to understand that a person’s desire to address a root cause of the issue by strengthening our country’s liberal education system is not the equivalent of “advocating for (anybody’s) murder”.

  35. rudderpedals says:

    @Eric Florack: Hating on Chick Fil A is just like blowing up federal buildings Eric? Same as shooting up Sikhs in their temple? Let the 2001 go, man.

  36. al-Ameda says:

    @Scott Rose:

    SIGN THIS PETITION AND REPOST IT ALL OVER THE PLACE. TELL WASHINGTON POST COLUMNIST DANA MILBANK THAT WE WILL NOT STAND FOR HIS ENABLING OF ANTI-GAY HATE GROUPS. BE SURE TO READ THE PETITION TEXT.
    http://tinyurl.com/bw32rp5

    I just signed a petition to have your CAPS LOCK key fixed, at your expense.

  37. al-Ameda says:

    @Eric Florack:

    The pattern is well established. Politicians and others have frequently blamed “hatred” for headline making crimes, particularly when in the act of pandering to so-called Minority groups..

    So how did Tim McVeigh’s bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City come to be represented as pandering to “so-called Minority groups” ?

  38. mattb says:

    @al-Ameda:

    So how did Tim McVeigh’s bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City come to be represented as pandering to “so-called Minority groups” ?

    Good luck getting an coherent answer. A bunch of us are still waiting for Eric to clearly explain how the Penn State cover up was really all the fault of people pandering to “so-called Minority groups.”

  39. wr says:

    @Eric Florack: And that was so precious to you you held onto it for eleven years. I’d hate to see what you throw away.

  40. Eric Florack says:

    So how did Tim McVeigh’s bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City come to be represented as pandering to “so-called Minority groups” ?

    You do have a rather distressing habit of sidestepping the point.

    @wr: I have over ten years of blog posts online, and continue to gather hits from readers..

    I’ll refiran from commenting on your own writings, being the kind soul that I am.

  41. Eric Florack says:

    Hating

    on Chick Fil A is just like blowing up federal buildings Eric?

    And at what point did I even come close to suggesting such?
    Are all your arguments so lacking?

  42. al-Ameda says:

    @Eric Florack:

    Al-Ameda asked: So how did Tim McVeigh’s bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City come to be represented as pandering to “so-called Minority groups” ?

    You do have a rather distressing habit of sidestepping the point.

    I take that to mean that you don’t have answer? That the bombing of the Murrah Building by a conservative, Timothy McVeigh, was not represented in a manner that was pandering to so-called Minority groups”?

  43. rudderpedals says:

    @Eric Florack: You’re the one writing about seeing patterns and those are your examples (the temple shooting’s mine). A visible pattern and calmer examples will draw better replies.

  44. An Interested Party says:

    I have over ten years of blog posts online, and continue to gather hits from readers..

    It is hardly surprising that there are people out there as bat$hit insane as you…

  45. Habbit says:

    @Tony W:

    Your position is absolutely false. There is no “equal status” violation, nor is there a “right” to marriage. What I do see in the Constitution is the right to “Life,” of which you have no care for when it comes to those individuals who disagree with your assumptions. Fortunately for you, the Constitution also prescribes you the “right” to hold your fascist, murderous beliefs as long as you don’t act on them.

  46. Eric Florack says:

    I take that to mean that you don’t have answer?

    I should think the answer obvious; You don’t consider that the right wing is a numerical minority?
    And don’t you recall that the bombing got blamed on talk radio, particularly Limbaugh, who at the time and since has often been accused by the left of pandering to the “right wing crazies”?

    @rudderpedals: Calmer examples?
    Oh, Please.

    Can’t you just yell “Fire” a little more softly? People are trying to sleep, here.

    And a visible pattern? Are you REALLY saying you can’t see the double standards liberals (and in this I include the press) apply to these things?

    I gave you more credit than that, silly me.

  47. jukeboxgrad says:

    May I suggest you read up on the assassination of Dr. George Tiller ?

    Yes, and also relevant is the story of Eric Rudolph. Most people do not realize that the people of Murphy NC hid Rudolph from the FBI and treated him as a Christian hero. And then Palin refused to say that he is a terrorist.

    For plenty of details about this, search for ‘rudolph’ on this page.

  48. Eric Florack says:

    @An Interested Party: Oh, yes, because reducing the size of government to constitutional levels, thereby increasing individual freedoms, and demanding the truth is so crazy.

  49. rudderpedals says:

    @Eric Florack: True, I don’t see a any evidence of a double standard in reporting on these at all even after challenging my left turning tendency with a right kick of the rudder of OTB’s eclectic offerings.

    This looks to me more like Squeaky Fromme and the Geo Wallace shooter but it’s too early,really, to drag out McVeigh and Ruby Ridge and related conspiracies.

  50. An Interested Party says:

    Oh, yes, because reducing the size of government to constitutional levels, thereby increasing individual freedoms, and demanding the truth is so crazy.

    Actually, what is crazy are the ridiculous assertions you make, as Mattb pointed out

  51. Habbit says:

    @An Interested Party:

    Where was your outrage when a bunch of homosexuals got together in their rabid attack groups and harassed the “niggers,” as they labeled them, in 2008? You had none, because to you it was perfectly ok.

    Spade is spade is spade. You’re a hypocrite.

  52. An Interested Party says:

    @Habbit: Ahhh, so because of the actions of a few a$$holes at a rally, the whole gay community should be smeared as racists? I notice that you didn’t mention how others in the gay community called out these a$$holes when you gave us that link…forget hypocrisy, it would be nice if you could at least try to apply a little logic to your thinking…or perhaps you were purposely being disingenuous…

  53. Habbit says:

    @An Interested Party:

    Yes, because you do the same thing. Which part of the word “hypocrite” do I need to break down to you? The “gay community called out” their fellow buddies only because the incident makes the activist movement look bad.

    That doesn’t change the fact that their feelings are exactly the same.

    Your move, spade.