It’s part of the Republican strategy since Spiro Agnew borrowed it from Joe McCarthy. You state something often enough, people start addressing it, talking about it, and assuming it’s real rather than asking for the numbers behind it. Just like this, we end up talking about how pastors aren’t going to be effected, the scope of the law, but the echo chamber gets drowned out with the message that pastors are the real victims and then they just wait for a rare random case to “prove” their point while ignoring the massive piles of bodies that should have been the debate.

With conservatives, it’s always about preventing the debate. They are against the tide of history with naught but lies and petty bigotries, on all issues. If we were allowed to really think about these issues altogether, the shift left would be so fast in this country, heads would explode. It’s all about preventing the discussion of the real issues.

Including, why are there “pastors” linking up with known hate groups and trying to foment a culture wherein terrorism against a group is seen as an acceptable action? And furthermore, why can’t we as a culture seem to make stick that its still domestic terrorism when its done against a group white christian males don’t like thus having to settle for after-the-fact things like hate crime legislation?

“It provides the Justice Department with the ability to aid state and local jurisdictions either by lending assistance or, where local authorities are unwilling or unable, by taking the lead in investigations and prosecutions of violent crime resulting in death or serious bodily injury that were motivated by bias.”

Well, I can see why they’re so worried. 

I know for me personally, I’m sure I suffer “serious bodily injury” every single time somebody says something I don’t agree with…doesn’t everybody?...

(Shrugs.)  I know I’m preaching to the choir, here, but let’s not forget that these people hate anti-discrimination and hate crime laws because they want to discriminate and not be called on it and want Christian hate crimes to gone unpunished and be lauded.

It would be interesting to compare the things these people are saying with arguments made when the SPLC started suing the balls off of the Klan.

I’m betting the “no fair - it’s free expression to hate” business matches up quite nicely.

You can have the most evilly stupid Christian heart you like - you simply have to behave like all other human beings have rights.

And how have christians in other countries been silenced?  Can we see some valid examples of situations where they were not allowed to say certain things ... or are we talking about urging parishioners to vote this way or that way (already a no no in this country) or do something violent, evil, or illegal?

But the law, Gohmert said, would allow prosecutors to “go after a minister … who says [sexual] relations outside of the marriage of a man and a woman are wrong.”

If the minister says it while decapitating a person wearing a rainbow T-shirt, and then puts the video up on YouTube, then yes.

It is pretty alarming that our citizens fall for this nonsense. That fact demonstrates that a large segment of the population doesn’t understand how the First Amendment works.

How are these people putting together speech with acts of violence?  I don’t get it.

This is the kind of thing that particularly worries me about the potential for larger-scale violence.  You could imagine a crazy church that goes out and commits some hate crimes as a group, and then holes up on a compound waiting for the feds to come.

A shootout at The Holy Church of Looney Toons leads to more radicals, and more violence.

>>”A large part of this is that many people do not understand the Christian heart,” <Rep. Louie Gohmert> said. ”They just don’t like people who disagree with them. The true Christian heart can disagree with people, and still love them deeply,” he said.<<

The combination of historical ignorance that underlie this gem of a statement is mindblowing. Has this Christian Statesman never heard of the Inquisition? How about the 16th and 17th century wars of religion, like the 30 years War in which a huge chunk of Europe killed itself over the mechanics of salvation? Heck, the one thing Protestans and Catholics could agree on during the Reformation was the need to jointly persecute Anabaptists and other radicals. One of the earliest ecunenical ventures was French Catholic and Swiss Calvinist cooperation in hunting down and arresting Servetus, a medical genius who had the “wrong” view on the Trinity. One could go on ad nauseam (literally).

In fact, anger and resentment over theological differences are so common that there’s even a professional term for it:  odium theologicum (theological hatred).

Of course, Christians have no monopoly on intolerance. Not only has this been prevalent in all religions, but also among secular groups and institutions. Marxist parties are infamous for heresy hunts and splitting up over differences. Dogmatic intolerance, whether religious or secular, is just a common human failing. But when a Christianist exalts his tribe into a superhuman, holier-than-thou status, he’s gone several quantum leaps up the obnoxious-meter.

Um, Hamza, for bonus irony points, keep in mind that the Christianist in question is only boasting of his own tribe of Christish Religion, so the church next door would not be the beneficiary of his rhetoric. Classic hate crime example: Protestant black church is bombed. The “Christ” these leaders are concerned about places ethnicity far over creed or doctrine.

What we’re seeing is actually the intellectual decendant of all those old, feudal, European feuds. Whereas doctrine may have dragged the tribal cart around back then from time to time, now there is no doubt that the powerful manifest only that religion that maximizes their pecuniary interests. If a “hate crime” happens to you on their watch, you weren’t the right kind of Christian in the first place.

There was a phrase I heard on Fox news once, when a journalist was reporting from the middle east discussing refugees: after mentioning several groups fleeing, she mentioned “Christian Muslims.” Not Christian Arabs. For the fundies, that’s not a contradiction in terms. It’s not Tribe > Christ; hell, Christ never enters into it. All tribe, all the time.

My problem with Christianists has nothing to do with “The Christian Heart.” It has everything to do with them needing fire extinguishers to put out their pants. “Freedom of Speech” is NOT “Freedom from Criticism.” Quite the opposite, in fact.

You know the saying, “The right to swing your fist stops before my face”? That’s what this law is. As far as I’m concerned, anyone is free to spout whatever hateful, bigoted lie they want. What’s illegal is beating someone up because they belong to a group you don’t like. And for those who bleat, “You’re punishing them for their thoughts!” I say, “Exactly. We already do that. It’s called ‘intent.’ Taking thoughts into consideration has been a part of our criminal jurisprudence for centuries.”