My Afternoon with the Religious Right

I had been planning on writing a couple different blogs on an entirely different topics for a while now, and was going to work on one this evening.  But I read a bunch of things today that made me decide I needed to write this rant instead.  So the others will have to wait. :)

For one reason or another I read a bunch of right-wing nutbaggery today, and I just feel the need to comment on it.  For starters, a friend posted something regarding the Westboro Baptist Church on Facebook, and while I knew a little of this group’s shenanigans I decided to go to my trusty Wikipedia and look them up.  I guess I never realized just how mental this group of people is.  They hate just about everyone and everything, and it’s impossible to hear anything from them that doesn’t involve hate in some way.  It’s just so insane to me.  They hate gay people (most of all, cause y’know we’re what’s ruining America), Jews, Catholics, Protestants, Lutherans, Muslims, Mormons, Hindus, even Baptists!  Not sure why they then call themselves Baptists then, but I guess crazy doesn’t need logic.  They hate anyone who doesn’t agree with them, and since (again according to Wikipedia) there are about 40 of them, that pretty much means they hate everyone on the planet.  They protest anything and everything, mostly funerals of homos and soldiers.  This makes sense, because all of these soldiers are dying in wars that are god’s punishment for the tolerance of homos in the U.S., so there should be no need to mourn these dead men, they were meant to die!  The twisted logic of all of this defies any kind of actual reason, so it’s hard to wrap my mind around it.  I then went on to look at one of their actual websites, godhatesfags.com.  One of many of their sites, some of the others being preistsrapeboys.com, godhatesjews.com, godhatesislam.com, and of course, godhatesyourmom.com.  Ok, I made the last one up…  Now here is where you’ll find some really great content.  There is a counter on the page that tells you how many people god has cast into hell since you loaded the page!  I also discovered song parodies that they have re-written lyrics to and recorded themselves in full streaming glory…  You’ll find all of your favorites here, Including “Rolling in the Heat” (Adele), “Bohemian Tragedy” (Queen), and my personal fave, “God Will Always Hate You” (Whitney Houston, or I suppose Dolly if you’re a purist).  There are song parodies here by the likes of Ke$ha, Lady Gaga, Eminem, Nicki Minaj, and countless others.  Which begs the question, how do these people even know who these artists are?  If they are so pure and innocent, why do they know a Ke$ha song to even write a parody of it?  I guess the real question is why does ANYONE know any Ke$ha songs, but a comment about the current tragedy of popular music belongs in a different blog post altogether… :)  If you’re interested, go check this shit out, it will amaze you!  Now, the WBC is crazy and all, but so ridiculously crazy it’s hard for anyone to take them at all seriously.  It's so out there it's almost comedic theatre, if it weren't so sick that these few people actually believe this shit.

There has been so much controversy lately with groups such as the Boy Scouts and Chick-Fil-A, that it's hard to ignore.  The second reason I was reading crap today was just because of this.  Another person I'm friends with on Facebook, posted this little gem today:

Now, in some ways I don't even want to dignify this with a response.  I honestly find it completely inane.  While I obviously know what the person who drew this little morality lesson was intending, if you take it literally, it is ridiculous.  A chicken plus a chicken equals a goose egg?  Two gay chickens will only lay eggs that are geese?  Two straight chickens will have a baby fried chicken sandwich?  It's so dumb, yet so many thought it was so wonderful.  I decided to track this pic from whence it came, the Family Research Council.  An organization for which it seems little is actually researched.  Perhaps they should think about a name change.  I went to this page, and discovered thousands of likes and comments for this picture.  A real "discussion" of the topic, and plenty of people moaning on about the "persecution" of Christians, and about how "liberals" are always screaming for tolerance, but are intolerant of these beliefs.  Now here's the thing about that.  I don't care that you don't agree with me.  That is fine, we are all entitled to our own opinions.  If you simply hated me from afar and I didn't have to hear about it that would be just grand.  The problem here, is that we are being denied the same rights as everyone else.  Someone saying that two consenting adults who love each other can't get married, is denying them the same rights as any two other (straight) people.  The fact that you don't agree with it shouldn't matter, that is not the point.  The point is that we should ALL be entitled to the same rights, not just equal rights for only those that agree with my religious stance.  So often the cry from the right comes "gay people are asking for special treatment, and are pushing their gay lifestyle down our throats."  I don't see how being able to marry our partners is "special treatment" of any kind, and the only reason this debate is going on is because we don't have the same rights.  If we were truly equal, the discussion would go away and you would not have hear about our lifestyle.  Don't be friends with gay people, don't attend a gay wedding, watch a show with gay people, etc.  If you don't agree, don't participate, you won't have to hear anything more about us.  But don't deny us the same things you have just because you disapprove.  That is not for you to do, I am not asking for your approval of my life, just an acknowledgement that I am another human being, and deserve the same things you do.  I honestly don't even understand why this is still going on, why do these people even care about this?  Why do you care what other people do with their lives?  In what way could it possibly affect your life?  The last thing I'll say about this is that this whole thing with Chick-Fil-A seems insane to me anyway.  Why would a business even take a position on this?  Isn't it pretty much common business sense to have as many people patronize your establishment as possible?  So saying something like this that is going to piss off an entire section of your customer base seems like a poor business model at best.  

My last point comes down to the fact of where the above post came from.  This pic was posted by none other than my loving brother.  I'm not sure if he fully understands how posting something like this hurts my feelings, or just didn't even think about it.  I would like to confront him on it, but I feel I can't.  First due to his position I feel I can't publicly ridicule and tear apart the pic on fb, like I would do with someone else.  Secondly if I make a big deal out of it, then I feel like it will just seem like I'm making a mountain out of a molehill and am being whiny.  It's really not about the pic itself, more what it all represents, and the fact that he would post it for the world to see, knowing that I am who I am.  If you would take time out of your day to post something like that, then you clearly have no respect for who I am.  It's all just a (poorly drawn and thought out) cartoon to you.  The whole thing makes me sad, and I just still cannot understand why people are the way they are.  If everyone could live in someone else's shoes for just a day, maybe all this stupid bullshit would stop.

So what did I learn from my afternoon of right-wing web searching??  (I also visited some sort of tea-party we hate Obama-type page that I discovered my cousin was a fan of.  It was not really worth mentioning here, but really it was a day-long event of looking at all of this stuff)  I'd like to say I learned something, but really I don't feel like I did.  These are such complex issues, it's hard to boil it all down to a few sentences on a blog.  I feel so strongly about all of these issues, but so many others do as well, and I know that anything I have to say can just be shot down by them in a word, because they do not understand where I'm coming from.  But then the same could be said about me understanding where they are coming from, so it's just a vicious circle.  I learned that many people are hateful, for seemingly no good reason, but really 

I already knew that.  It strengthened my belief that it's always good to hear the opposing viewpoint of yours.  In this case it made my own beliefs stronger, which I suppose it often does.  And I learned that maybe my brother is not as ok with things as I thought he was.  I guess I learned, to quote a rewrite of Dolly Parton, that God will always hate me.  And finally, sad to say, all of this occurred because of posts on Facebook, so I guess I learned that Facebook really does rule my life.