JC on a Stick

What is it with fundies claiming martyrdom? In particular, for about a decade since civil unions than same-sex marriage started in these United States, self-identified, self-proclaimed Christians and a few Jews insist they are being or will certainly be persecuted by those gay and gay-liking sorts.

I thought again about it today when Tom Lang linked to a loon with a rant entitled "Get Ready for Christians Going to Jail." It's not at all unusual. In fact, it's mundane and predictable, even standard at the infamously anti-gay MassResistance site.

The principal conceit is that any protections or rights given to LGBT anyone not only takes away from the straights, that it means attacks and punishment for what we used to call "normal" people. The facts that there are no intellectual, historical or legal support for that paranoia seems irrelevant to the loons.

They do like to look to England, Europe and particularly Canada for the most tenuous of analogies. Granted that our northern neighbor has a spare 8-page Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Unlike the absolutist free-speech/free-exercise-of-religious First Amendment,the far more rational and humane Canadian charter does truly prohibit hate speech. So there is a bit of a rationale in fundies claiming that preachers might be told to cool it if they orate hateful or violent screeds.

That's not about to happen here but such realism does not deter fundies and wingers.

They love the bakers and photographers who refuse do service same-sex weddings or commitment ceremonies. They like to cite the Methodist owned New Jersey pavilion that refused to rent to gay groups, Catholic Charities stopping adoption services to avoid gay-couple adoptions, church-owned businesses who could not exclude birth-control coverage in employee health plans, and even the notorious publicity hound David Parker.

In each of those instances and many other similar ones, the principals claimed victim status...dishonestly and dishonorably. In the church and "conscience" related businesses, the assertion was that they were doing religious work and forced, forced I way, to choose bucks or God. In reality though, the Methodist and RC churches, as well as hospitals and other businesses owned in part by churches were running side businesses for profit. As such, they took state and often federal funds, thus being required to obey health, safety and non-discrimination laws in their ancillary roles. Catholic Charities was particularly egregious in their mythology about this, proclaiming loudly that they were forced out of adoptions when in fact they chose not to obey the laws while still demanding federal and state funds. Give me a break, Padre.

Parker was a pet amusement for me in that similar to the for-profit biz angle, he staged a sit-in at this kids' school until he forced the law to arrest him. Then and to this day, he claims he was arrested for exercising his rights to protect his children instead of the simple civil trespassing that he engineered. Triple shame on him.

The underlying question is what are these anti-gay and fundy types seeking? They seem intent on claiming they are being cruelly, unfairly martyred.

What is the motive? What is the idea?

Even in their tiny brains, it must be obvious that our Constitution, statutes and case law at both state and federal levels offer extraordinary levels of protection.No cleric will ever have to bless a homosexual marriage, even though the civil aspect is totally legally separate from the religious ritual. No preacher, no matter how obnoxiously anti-gay, will or ever has faced prosecution for bone-headed slanders.

Yet...yet...the wingers and fundies dearly love the idea that these things surely will happen. Despite all evidence, history and law, they return repeatedly to their feigned, potential persecution.

I was raised as a Christian. I believed in transubstantiation. I knew that Christ died on the cross for my sins. With that background, I have a felt sense that this attitude is hubris and arrogance. They want to identify with the most powerful and important character in their religion, their mythology. God, to abuse the term, that's arrogant.