Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
I haven't given out a Robert O'Brien Trophy in a while and this guy is just begging for it. From ultra-right wing anti-gay bigot Ken Hutcherson in -- naturally -- the Worldnutdaily.
Many reading this may not understand where I came up with this concept of calling Christians "the new Negro."The reason is because there are undeniable similarities. Jim Crow laws were passed to keep me from having my constitutional rights and my rights under the Declaration of Independence of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Even though the Constitution gave me those freedoms, man was smart enough to be able to keep me from living those freedoms by saying I was "separate but equal."
Today, my constitutional right of freedom of religion is being eroded again by laws such as the Hate Crimes Bill and repeated attacks by the politically correct crowd. Threats that came along as a result of an African American wanting to get out from under Jim Crow laws were formidable and scary and designed to keep African Americans quiet. The same thing is happening to Christians today.
What a lying piece of shit. No, the hate crimes bill does not affect your freedom of speech in any way. You have to actually commit a violent crime against someone before the hate crimes bill applies. And the bill explicitly exempts the expression of religious ideology from the bill, an entirely unnecessary provision intended solely to prevent the kinds of lies that Hutcherson continues to tell.
And no attack on your views, no matter how strident, violates your rights. You do not have any right not to be criticized. And if you're going to say the monumentally idiotic things that you say and believe the monumentally idiotic things that you believe, you're going to take some flack for it. Don't like that? Then shut the hell up and stop your whining.
Another way secular society is trying to control Christians is by the fallacy of the separation of church and state. That establishment clause was intended to protect the church from the state, not to keep the church from participating in the state. Christians' ignorance of the meaning of the establishment clause has allowed us to be controlled just like the African Americans were in the 1950s and '60s.
Ah, of course. Preventing Christians from forcing non-Christians to utter prayers to a god they don't believe in is just like what happened in Selma, Alabama. Not allowing Christians to impose their religion on others is just like being beaten by police officers and having dogs set loose on you when marching peacefully. I can't even tell those two things apart, they're so identical.
If you don't believe one could be attacked for their stand on Judeo-Christian beliefs alone, take the case of Miss California, Carrie Prejean. Look at her refusal to compromise her Christian values. She has been vilified, demonized and lost her title simply because of her constitutional right to freedom of religion. What is so encouraging is that she will not compromise; she will not give up her values and would rather please God than take what the world has to offer her.
Yeah, she sure was uncompromising when she got that boob job. And did you see that porn video she did? That was absolutely uncompromising. Praise the lord for such good Christian women! And here again we see Hutcherson confusing criticism with oppression. The only thing that happened to Prejean was that she got laughed at for being a stupid hypocrite. That's not oppression, it's a justified reaction to stupid hypocrites.
Sarah Palin is another example.The politically correct crowd has a very difficult time dealing with Sarah because of who she is. Mrs. Palin is a pro-life, pro-gun, pro-traditional marriage, pro-hunting, white, conservative, Christian male who happened to have been born a woman! The politically correct crowd knows exactly what to do with a white male with those attributes, but a woman?
She is the perfect picture of the politically correct woman - strong, beautiful, able to both buy and fry the bacon, take care of the family, run an entire state and still take care of her baby. But because of who she is, and because she does not subscribe to politically correct thinking, she has been attacked for no other reason than her Judeo-Christian values, just as African Americans were attacked for no other reason than their skin color.
Again, Sarah Palin has been criticized. And not just for being a Christian but for being an idiot, a serious liar and a crazy extremist who hangs around with witch-hunting theocrats. That's not oppression, it's expression - entirely protected by the constitution she knows so little about.
If you still don't think Christians are being attacked for our beliefs, consider Pastor Ake Green in Sweden and Pastor Stephen Boisson in Canada and many other men of God around the world who have been jailed and had their non-profit status threatened because they dare to call homosexuality a sin.
Notice that he had to go all the way to Canada and Sweden to find examples of actual legal oppression? And he's right, both of those cases are outrageous violations of the rights of the men involved. But he forgot to mention that in both cases the courts overturned their punishment. So even the two examples he had to go to other countries to find turned out for the better. Yep, this is just like what Martin Luther King endured.
What an idiot.
Politics
Comments
Holy smokes! Did this guy really say that Palin is a WASP male who just happened to be born a woman? So prejudices against blacks, whites(?), and Christians are bad, of course, but boy don't it suck to be born a woman?
Too funny.
Posted by: Jonathan | December 11, 2009 9:31 AM
Congratulations, Ken Hutcherson, on your trophy.
Posted by: FastLane | December 11, 2009 9:34 AM
Did he just suggest Sarah Palin is a transsexual?
Posted by: DaveL | December 11, 2009 9:45 AM
Hutcherson no doubt has other trophies for stupidity which will stand proudly with this new one. He can't have built up to this level of hate and stupid without taking smaller steps along the way. With Palin & Prejean as idols, he cannot lack for material which will continue to earn him the scorn of thinking people everywhere for years to come.
I bet he's seen Prejean's video and can't stop hitting Play. Maybe that's why he seems so distracted...
Posted by: MikeMa | December 11, 2009 9:47 AM
Not long ago I read an article written by an evangelical Christian that took exception when gay rights advocates said that their fight was similar to the civil rights movement. The evangelical hissed that gay people are nothing like black people in that black people are born black and will always be black. But gay people were making a choice ...
Now we have an evangelical saying Christians are the "new Negro"? Because Christians are born Christians and will always be Christians?
My neck hurts from the abrupt change in direction ... whiplash!
Posted by: MartyB | December 11, 2009 9:47 AM
Obviously, Robert O'Brien has a mental illness. I'm really surprised that you would be such a meany-pants as to make fun of him. Aren't you above that, Ed? I hope that from now on, this blog will only focus on topics which meet my own evaluation of my own lofty intellect.
Posted by: Wes | December 11, 2009 9:49 AM
Ed, kudos for taking the time to differentiate once again between "attacks" and "criticism." The use of the word "attack" to describe a difference of opinion or a reasoned critique of someone's political speech is increasingly common, and it is of course a deliberate tactic that is being encouraged.
In debate or dialectic among educated folks, we "attack" the other side's evidence or logic, but most of us understand that the term is being used metaphorically, to describe techniques of argumentation in an exciting or literary way.
Less-gifted folks sometimes seem to have trouble with metaphor, literary allusion, and irony, and some of them seem to genuinely believe that Prejean, et al, have actually been "attacked".
It seems strange that it has become important to point out the differences between arguing over politics vs. beating someone with a pipe - but that's where we are.
A response of "No, I didn't attack [Prejean, Palin, Beck, etc.], I criticized his/her arguments" when offered sincerely and calmly won't satisfy the rabid hate-mongers, who aren't out there to engage in rational discourse in the first place, but it may help others to understand the constant attempts to manipulate their perceptions.
Well, one can hope, anyway.
Posted by: threetorches | December 11, 2009 9:59 AM
A pedantic quibble of Ed's statement:
I would argue we all have the right not to be criticized; however others have a far superior right to criticize us. Therefore government does not protect our right to not be criticized but instead is constitutionally obligated to protect the superior rights of others to criticize us. Therefore, I would change the response to:
I bring this up because even liberal rhetoric continues to infer our rights can be limited by some arbitrary determination by government of what our rights are or are not, contra to Madison's and other framers understanding of rights versus legitimate powers. I continue to argue our rights can only be limited or prohibited when we've constitutionally delegated powers to government or when the government is defending the superior rights of others.
I emphasize the importance of distinguishing the difference because the most effective public square conservative argument I've encountered in winning the debate is that government has the power to deny us our rights if they fail to discover a numerated right in the Constitution. The liberal meekly defends a 'living constitution' type argument in response - a losing argument though not dishonest like the conservative argument. Ed certainly doesn't make either of these sorts of arguments; but I'd like to see all freedom-loving Americans never use rhetoric that our unenumerated rights can be arbitrarily parsed beyond the two limitations I've listed in this comment.
Posted by: Michael Heath | December 11, 2009 10:04 AM
What is so encouraging is that she will not compromise; she will not give up her values and would rather please God than take what the world has to offer her.
Yeah, I'm still looking for that video that will show us all the specific ways in which she'd "rather please God."
Funny how these oh-so-pure moralists will trash others for harmless sexual conduct that's none of their business, and then totally ignore the same conduct when their own celebrity spokesmodels do it. I'll take that as an admission that they don't think private consensual sexual activity is really that bad.
Posted by: Raging Bee | December 11, 2009 10:09 AM
If Hutcherson believes that criticizing, mocking, and verbal "attacks" are oppressive and unconstitutional, why hasn't he turned himself in to the authorities for writing that article?
A little while back I was relaxing in a park and noticed a couple of young boys, brothers I think, playing on the playground. One kid was a little larger and kept messing with the smaller one, pushing him, throwing sand at him, and generally being a pain. The smaller one tried a number of different strategies to deal with the situation. He tried to ingratiate himself with the other child, ignore him, and avoid him. But the bigger kid just grew more and more bold.
Finally the bigger boy worked himself up to a point where he shoved the smaller kid, who fell on his butt. The smaller boy jumped up, tears of frustration welling in his eyes, and screamed, "STOP!" The larger boy was so startled by the furry of this defiant command that he fell back, landing on his butt in a fall that neatly mirrored the one he'd just inflicted. There was a brief pause of shock then the larger boy started bawling. He rolled over on his knees, got up and ran to his mother who had been reading, or perhaps simply ignoring the whole affair. The boy buried his face in her thigh.
The mother gave him a little pat of comfort. But it was clear she was aware enough of the situation to know he'd simply gotten what was coming to him. She went back to her reading, one hand absently patting his back. The boy eventually cried himself out and went back to playing, though this time without constantly harassing his brother.
I really hope Hutcherson finishes crying himself out soon.
Posted by: Abby Normal | December 11, 2009 10:13 AM
Huh?!? She was vilified, demonized, and decrowned because of one of her constitutional rights? That's so wildly irrational that it's not even wrong!
Miss Prejean was vilified and demonized for being a bigot, but NOT for her constitutional rights. She has the right to be a homophobe, to be a bigot, and to be a Christian, and even to express her Christian homophobic bigotry openly, as she did; the Constitution protects all of those rights, and none of them were violated. But she does NOT have any right of protection from criticism for doing so.
And if I remember correctly, she lost her title not because of her Christian homophobic bigotry, nor for expressing it, but because she was discovered to have misrepresented herself to the pageant organization (i.e., had lied about her past) and also had failed to fulfill some of the duties of her post since being crowned --- perfectly justifiable reasons for firing someone, as in any other type of job.
~David D.G.
Posted by: David D.G. | December 11, 2009 10:17 AM
Mr. Heath, Many commenters have urged you to start your own blog. I woudl like to suggest you run for office. Your comments indicate the kind of thinking that we need in government. Thanks for your thought provoking analysis on this and many other issues. M Duran
Posted by: Mark Duran | December 11, 2009 10:18 AM
Re Michael Heath
I second the comment of Mr. Duran @ #12. I am, however, rather fascinated about a move from San Diego to Northern Michigan. Mr. Michael Heath must like cold weather.
Posted by: SLC | December 11, 2009 10:30 AM
I don't know about the Swedish case, but as I recall Boissoin said a lot more than just "homosexuality is a sin". Not that what he did say justifies prosecuting him, but minimizing his offense is disingenuous.
Posted by: Eamon Knight | December 11, 2009 10:32 AM
It was an an extremely sexist statement on Hutcherson's part. What do you expect?
Posted by: FishyFred | December 11, 2009 10:51 AM
About time he got the trophy. Ken should have got it the moment he proclaimed off his low blow horse that if a male ever opened the door to let him out of a store as a courtesy he would rip his arm off and beat it with the wet end. He truly believes that all males should be heartless, soul less (but not godless) robots.
You know what; I thought of the ultimate scandal for him: Some male should just simply open the door for him at a local store. Let's test his bigoted words. If he goes through it without incident, then we get to scandalize on grounds that he is a liar and a hypocrite. If he goes and does what he said then he gets arrested for assault and battery and that creates the scandal that way. Heads we win; tails he loses.
Posted by: Gregory Weagle | December 11, 2009 11:21 AM
Posted by: James Hanley | December 11, 2009 11:29 AM
SLC @ 13:
Northern Michigan is where I grew up. If you love northern woods and all the attendant sporting opportunities this is heaven except for March/early-April; by then the long winter makes one a little stir-crazy. This weekend will be the first weekend we can snowshoe this winter and I'll be trying to find some wild elk herds that thrive deep in the Pigeon River State Forest (Not to hunt, just to observe, I already filled my freezer with venison and the odds of getting an elk permit are about 15,000:1 IIRC).
I loved San Diego as well. Most people including the locals are much less diplomatic than SLC when asking what was our rationale for moving back to Northern Michigan. Something along the lines of, "Are you fucking nuts?". In March I answer in the affirmative.
Posted by: Michael Heath | December 11, 2009 12:04 PM
Uh, Ed? The Robert O'Brien Trophy is traditionally awarded for what, exactly?
Posted by: Molly, NYC | December 11, 2009 12:21 PM
And in that vein, would anyone like to start a pool on how long it is before Mark Sanford's wife catches flak for not "stand[ing] by her man?" Nasty disloyal bitch, her -- and isn't divorce forbidden by Christianity anyway?
Posted by: D. C. Sessions | December 11, 2009 12:32 PM
@Molly, NYC: If I understand correctly, the RO'B Award is reserved for those individuals whose idiocy and douchbaggery go beyond the pale of what's expected of this blog's usual suspects. Congrats on your well-earned award, Ken.
This is utterly symptomatic of right-wingers today, and it leads me to conclude that they are tremendously insecure in their beliefs, along with being projecting liars.
Posted by: Sadie Morrison | December 11, 2009 12:34 PM
Posted by: Spartan | December 11, 2009 12:34 PM
I've said it before, I'll say it again: Oh, to be persecuted like a Christian in America. That would be awesome.
Posted by: James Sweet | December 11, 2009 12:37 PM
Re Michael Heath
For the information of Mr. Michael Heath, I was once approached by a professor in the transportation engineering department at MSU asking if I would be interested in a position there. Given my graduate school experiences in Rochester, NY, my response was that winters last too long in the Lansing area.
Posted by: SLC | December 11, 2009 12:37 PM
Have to agree with SLC, if only Michael Heath lived in SE Michigan. (Sorry man, can't vote for you... wrong district. You could move down here, but there are fewer elk and the snowshoeing isn't that good.)
As to James' point @17: although I live in the "liberal stronghold" of Ann Arbor, it is hardly a liberal place. Having lived abroad for most of my life, perhaps I have a different liberal/conservative compass than my neighbors.
Finally to the point of the post. This is my favorite bit: She is the perfect picture of the politically correct woman - strong, beautiful, able to both buy and fry the bacon, take care of the family, run an entire state and still take care of her baby. But because of who she is, and because she does not subscribe to politically correct thinking, she has been attacked for no other reason than her Judeo-Christian values, just as African Americans were attacked for no other reason than their skin color.
So much cognitive dissonance in that paragraph alone, that I just couldn't help but write a short rant of my own.
So is Hutcherson saying that Sarah Palin is choosing to buy and feed to her family meat that is high in saturated fats, thus giving them a higher chance of a heart attack? Of course, I recognize that this is figurative bacon, and therefore figurative saturated fat, and figurative heart attacks, but it's not as witty when I use "nationalist jingoism," "logical fallacies," and "becoming social pariahs," instead.
Hutcherson apparently is in the same place as Palin is in not remembering that she quit running an entire state waaay back in July.
He apparently doesn't see that she parades her baby out as some sort of twisted "I made a choice to keep my child, but I'm not going to let other women have a choice about such things" badge-of-honor; and what about taking care of her other children, too? It's as if Hutcherson forgot that Palin has other children (hey, if he's going to play the caring mother card, he should play it all the way).
And finally, if her Judeo-Christian values mean that it's okay to be a political hack, a hypocrite, a failed governor, and to not act in accordance with many of the tenets of Christianity ("do unto others..." being one of the two major things that Christ supposedly told people to do... channeling Rabbi Hillel from roughly a millennium earlier). Then, yes, people are criticizing her for her Judeo-Christian values. However, those would be her practice of Judeo-Christian values, and not what people understand them to actually be. I mean, I would imagine that the Golden Rule of ethical reciprocity is something that many people would agree on as being a very moral thing; and it is echoed in other religions and philosophies not connected with Christianity.
Posted by: Umlud | December 11, 2009 12:38 PM
Ignoring accuracy for a moment, this statement is only logically consistent if by "the church" he means "this one particular church." Otherwise, if church X participates in the state, then church Y is not protected from the state.
Even if we parse this establishment clause as intending to "protect the church" (as in any church) "from the state", then keeping the church from participating in the state must logically follow, anyway. Otherwise, you can only favor one church.
Well, not always... Rochester just got our first non-trivial snowfall of the season earlier this week! Of course, it was a doozy... My commute home took three times as long as usual yesterday, and I left early to beat rush hour. :/
Posted by: James Sweet | December 11, 2009 12:40 PM
Yeah, really. If you're going to do that, why not go the extra distance to China or Afghanistan or wherever, where Christians actually are oppressed because of their beliefs?
Posted by: James Sweet | December 11, 2009 12:43 PM
@ Spartan: I agree with your assertion that the rest of the state is pretty conservative. It's something that I have to deal with when doing field research in collaboration with the DNR. (People loves to hate them some DNR. And it's usually for trying to conserve - using scientific methods at a regional scale - the very deer, fish, and fowl populations that those people love to hate them for trying manage.)
However, to say that Ann Arbor is "liberal" in an absolute sense? I just don't see it. Again, though, it could be due to a possible difference in my liberal/conservative compass. Am I a liberal? I wouldn't consider myself one, but I know of many people who would think that I was, even before they learned that I lived in Ann Arbor.
Posted by: Umlud | December 11, 2009 12:43 PM
Lansing's winters are far milder than where I live (I attended/graduated from MSU in East Lansing). Lansing gets about 50" of snow a year. Rochester, NY gets about 90" a year.
We average about 155 inches a year.
Posted by: Michael Heath | December 11, 2009 12:49 PM
Holy cats! Where I live in Canada we only average 44" a year.
Posted by: Captain Mike | December 11, 2009 1:08 PM
Holy lake effect, you mean.
Posted by: tacitust | December 11, 2009 1:28 PM
I live near Toronto. All our snow gets dumped on Buffalo :).
(According to Wikipedia, we average ~50" per year.)
Posted by: Adrian W. | December 11, 2009 1:36 PM
Re Mr. Heath.
"I would argue we all have the right not to be criticized; however others have a far superior right to criticize us."
what? I'd go with Ed's "you don't have a right not to be critized"
"I emphasize the importance of distinguishing the difference because the most effective public square conservative argument I've encountered in winning the debate is that government has the power to deny us our rights if they fail to discover a numerated right in the Constitution. The liberal meekly defends a 'living constitution' type argument in response "
I went back to read the above, because I scroll through MH's posts. and the above is exactly why I do that. Its drivel.
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
In a race, Ed vs MH, who would you vote for?
Posted by: Kevin (NYC) | December 11, 2009 2:16 PM
Has anyone else noticed the rhetorical trick Hutcherson does in this statement:
He states that the Constitution gave him these freedoms, but that "man" took them away. This is the exact same phrasing used by Christian preachers, who use the term "man" as derogatory. Hutcherson seems to be implying that the Constitution was divinely received, something that his ill-informed audience would not doubt agree with, despite the basic incompatibility of the Constitution and Judeo-Christian law.
Of course, that idea is common on the right, but I've not seen it done in such a manner before, and I'm surprised that no one else has picked up on it.
Posted by: thinkoplex | December 11, 2009 2:20 PM
Spartan,
I'm southeast of Jackson, but ideologically we're more akin to them than to AA or the metro area. So if you just think Jackson-style conservative, you've got my town.
Posted by: James Hanley | December 11, 2009 2:24 PM
Umlud,
May I ask what kind of fieldwork you're doing? I've begun working on conservation issues with the River Raisin in SE Michigan.
Posted by: James Hanley | December 11, 2009 2:31 PM
I only realized it back in 1993, during the fracas when Clinton tried to lift the ban on gays in the military, but this illustrates nicely how deeply some men's homophobia is rooted in misogyny. This is somewhat milder than "What if some gay comes on to me, or peeks at my wee-wee in the shower," but it's still the same thing: an absolute horror at being treated like a woman. Maybe if they had a better opinion of females, they wouldn't be so afraid of gays.
Posted by: Scott Hanley | December 11, 2009 3:10 PM
Sadie Morrison #21 wrote:
I think this attitude cuts across political divisions of left and right. Try critiquing some form of crunchy-granola spirituality pseudoscience sometime, and watch the comparisons to Hitler fly.
Conservatives may put more weight on the idea of "honor" -- if you criticize someone's belief, you are attacking their honor, and thus have committed an act of personal aggression against them. The liberals who consider criticism to be like a physical attack, on the other hand, seem to frame life as a sort of Care Bears birthday party: criticism leads to hurt feelings, and hurt feelings means that somebody else has been a bully. This has to be stopped, if everyone is to get along and play nice together. So Mom says that everyone has the 'right' to express their own point of view, unhindered by fear ('Mom' can be any authority from the Constitution, to the Love Energy that Binds the Universe Together.)
Of course, your analysis would apply to both groups, too.
Posted by: Sastra | December 11, 2009 3:24 PM
Re Kevin NYC:
I think Mr Heath is reminding us that citizens retain all rights not specifically excluded in the constitution. I think this is an important and careful distinction , and as for the vote...hard tyo piclk between these two fantasy candidates.
M Duran
Posted by: Mark Duran | December 11, 2009 3:43 PM
Re James Sweet
That's pretty unusual for Rochester. During my time there the first snowfall was usually around Thanksgiving. The average high in Rochester in January is equal to the average low in the Washington, D.C. area. Having been born and brought up in Los Angeles and gone to college in Berkeley, Rochester was quite a revelation. Since I retained the California plates on my car, I used to get some funny looks in the Winter.
Re Michael Heath
Rochester gets more snow then Lansing because its right up against Lake Ontario and gets lots of lake effect snow. However,the average temperatures in January in Lansing are about the same as in Rochester.
Posted by: SLC | December 11, 2009 3:47 PM
The liberals who consider criticism to be like a physical attack, on the other hand, seem to frame life as a sort of Care Bears birthday party: criticism leads to hurt feelings, and hurt feelings means that somebody else has been a bully.
Actually, in my own experience, the liberals in question react this way, not because they expect a Care Bears birthday party, but because they simply can't understand how anyone could not see things their way, because they're so obviously right that no sensible person could ever disagree with them; and when someone does attack a deeply held belief of theirs, they're nearly always blindsided and have no idea how to respond. This is why the radical right are so consistently able to dominate public discourse, even when they're obviously both insane and full of shit; and why we can't find the voice to articulate even the most obvious truth.
Posted by: Raging Bee | December 11, 2009 3:53 PM
Umlud:
Ah, no. Hillel was a near-contemporary [1]. Date of birth is dubious, but death at 10 CE is fairly well established.
[1] The "died at the age of 120" is a good bet for hagiographic exaggeration, since 120 is the supposed upper limit of human lifespan, granted to very few (ref: Moses).
Posted by: D. C. Sessions | December 11, 2009 4:01 PM
Mr. Heath, I disagree with Mark Duran (#12) and SLC (#13). I think you should start a band. Failing that, join Menudo.
Captain Mike "Holy cats! Where I live in Canada we only average 44" a year."
Oh, yeah?! Well, where I live in Canada we only average 26 cm a year (which I believe is translates to approximately 44 fl. oz. in US measurmentation) and nobody knows how to drive in it. Upon first snowfall when I was little I'd walk up to the intersection to watch the 4X4s skidding sideways through the lights. To this day the crunching sound of sheetmetal brings fills me with nostalgia.
thinkoplex "Hutcherson seems to be implying that the Constitution was divinely received…"
But it was! Haven't you seen the painting of, let's say Jefferson, coming down from Mount, um, Washington, with the Constitutional Tablets?
"...despite the basic incompatibility of the Constitution and Judeo-Christian law."
Yeah, thanks to those activistliberaljudges (all one word).
Posted by: Modusoperandi | December 11, 2009 4:18 PM
thinkoplex @ 34 states:
I think you have an arguable point and I'm glad you raised it. However, I think the safer bet is that Hutcherson's merely a sloppy thinker who relies on rhetoric he finds aesthetically pleasing. I've confronted many preachers on similar points and often discovered there was no underlying theme buttressing their argument, merely a reliance on comforting rhetoric. We should remember that these people are constantly exposing themselves to redundant rhetoric far more than probing insightful analyses.
Posted by: Michael Heath | December 11, 2009 5:53 PM
Michael Heath, #44: However, I think the safer bet is that Hutcherson's merely a sloppy thinker who relies on rhetoric he finds aesthetically pleasing.
Ha ha. At first I read that as "anesthesically pleasing". That also seems to fit pretty well.
Posted by: Chiroptera | December 11, 2009 6:20 PM
@Sastra (#38): You're probably right. I see this trait far more commonly on the right than on the left, though.
Posted by: Sadie Morrison | December 11, 2009 7:01 PM
I'm a po' li'l black man trapped in a white man's body!
Now if it were true that we were making laws to shut them up, then why are they still roaming freely with their big mouths? Gee, another liar for jesus - what a surprise.
Posted by: MadScientist | December 11, 2009 8:14 PM
Since when was Christianity an inherited trait? I really hate it when Christian play the persecution card. They are one of the most supported organizations in the U.S. Attempting to compare trivial Christian problems to that of the Civil Rights Movement is a great insult to the movement.
Posted by: Gyeong Hwa Pak | December 11, 2009 8:23 PM
And in the case of Stephen Boisson one of the most prominent defenders of his right to free speech was Egale Canada, a national organization that advances equality and justice for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans-identified people and their families across Canada.
Oh, the irony of it all.
See the link "http://www.egale.ca/index.asp?lang=E&menu=12&item=1245" for details on how gays stepped up to the plate to defend Boisson's right to spew vile and hatred. And good on them for doing so. As Gilles Marchildon of Egale said;
Some how I can't imagine xtians turning the other cheek in the same way.
Posted by: steve | December 11, 2009 8:23 PM
Åke Green was acquitted in "Högsta domstolen" (the supreme court of Sweden). So much for being jailed...
Posted by: Martin Ek | December 12, 2009 3:37 AM
Folks, if you want see a true christian, go to www.somethingwithin.com. Personally I find religion in general repugant on a good day, but occaisionally I stumble upon someone like Dr. Weems I can at least find some common ground with. Thanks James
Posted by: James M. Phillips | December 12, 2009 7:54 AM
I have to say that this is the first thread I've ever read on the internet where people literally discussed the weather.
FIRST!!!
Posted by: Damien | December 12, 2009 5:22 PM