"Intolerant and Ridiculous"

A couple of posters have called me on my use of language in my most recent post, pointing out that sweeping generalizations such as “the religious right is ridiculous” are counterproductive. I couldn’t agree more. I thank the posters for pointing this out and thereby allowing me the opportunity to be more clear: I find the actions of the individuals who interrupted the Senate session last week to be intolerant and their assertion that only Christian prayer is acceptable in Senate of a “Christian nation” to be highly offensive. While I do not mean to target the sincere beliefs of people of faith, I am offended when individuals show such disrespect both of others’ religious practices and the principle of religious liberty in this country. And I find it deeply ironic that protestors who use the language of religious freedom to oppose the hate crimes bill are in turn so disrespectful of others’ religious freedom.

Finally, I should have been more precise with my words. I did not intend to imply that the right, monolithically, is ridiculous. More precisely, I believe that organizations who exploit the sincere religious faith of others solely for the purpose of furthering discriminating against gay, lesbian, bisexual and/or transgender people are deceitful, dangerous and immoral.

I would welcome a sincere debate about the hate crimes bill, but that is not what such organizations are doing. Instead, they disguise opinions as facts and stir up irrational fears about religious liberty to defeat a bill that is, I believe, an important step in addressing violence against women, people with disabilities, and gay, lesbian, bisexual and/or transgender people. Just last week, a hate crime survivor committed suicide. Every year too many people—especially young people, and especially young people of color who don’t conform to gender norms—die because of bias-motivated violence. It’s time for some legislation to address this, and the highly offensive, blatantly false arguments coming from this bill’s policy opponents are both “intolerant and ridiculous”.