Sometimes it worthwhile to examine the language we use and what it really means. English, as it is spoken in the United States, is wonderfully malleable and thus common words can be open to interpretation. However there are some words that should be clear in their meaning, bigotry being one.

My parents were Liberals with a capital L. They both came from places and times when the N word could be used and nothing would be thought of it. This was anathema to them, and they were not going to pass this kind of thing down to their children. The rule in our house was that you could hate someone, but you could only do it if you knew them personally and they had done you wrong. There would be no painting with a broad brush, no assumptions put on one person because of the actions of another person like them.

Bigotry is doing exactly that, assuming that there is a monolithic set of actions or attribute to a large group of people. It does not matter if the set is wrapped around sexuality or religion or ethnicity, if you assume that all of group X does action Y because one or some of them does action Y then you are bigoted in your opinion.

I know that expecting consistency from conservatives is like expecting your Springer Spaniel to jump up and sing a chorus of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “I am the very model of a modern Major General” but somehow I continue to yearn to see some of it. This is why today’s announcement of a proposed $60 billion (60,000 million) arms sale to Saudi Arabia is another chance for disappointment.

One of the most common memes in the recent spasm of Islamophobia here in the United States has been that all Muslims are constrained by their religion to spread Islam by any means necessary. It is this kind of intellectual laziness that allows bigots to pick on the small minority of Muslims in the United States. It is the classic broad brush which paints all Muslims with the same calumny as those demented assholes of the Islamic faith who practice terrorism.

The resemblance is uncanny…

It is odd for an Atheist to be defending religious freedom. I have a very negative opinion of all religion, but I have a strong, well, faith, for lack of a better word in the idea that everyone should be allowed to practice or not as they choose. Neither I nor anyone else should be the arbiter of what others find comfort or direction or confidence in. We can argue about the basis of it, we can argue about the outcomes but in this nation, we all have the right to have our religious freedoms.

As the outbreak of Islamophobia has grown so has the hysteria from the Right on this issue. In Murfreesboro TN, where the construction site of an Islamic center was the victim of suspected arson, the Wingers have really lost their minds. Last week they were in court arguing for a judge to issue an injunction saying the zoning commission was wrong to allow the building of the Center. Their primary argument? That Islam is not a religion, but a political movement. From the Tennessean:

Mosque opponents say that Islam is not a real religion. Instead, they argued in a Rutherford County courthouse last week that the world’s second largest faith, with its 1.6 billion followers, is actually a political movement.

Opponents say local Muslims want to replace the Constitution with an Islamic legal code called Shariah law. Joe Brandon Jr., a Smyrna attorney representing a group of mosque opponents, argued that the proposed mosque is not a house of worship. He said the Rutherford County Planning Commission erred on May 24 when it approved the mosque.
Brandon wants Chancellor Robert Corlew of the 16th Judicial District to issue an injunction stopping the mosque.

“Shariah law is pure sedition,” said Brandon in his opening statement Monday.

Lou Dobbs employed undocumented immigrants at the same time he railed against them. Disgusting, but not surprising.

Noted Conservative Hack Jonah Goldberg posted a little article tearing into the idea that the Supreme Court is the place where we define what is and is not constitutional. He is defending the new radical Republican talking point that all legislation should have a constitutional justification attached to it. This is the Tenther’s (folks who think that the powers of the Federal Government are completely enumerated in the Constitution and the Tenth Amendment gives all other powers to the states individually) favorite meme.

They would use this thinking to end the Federal minimum wage, Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. All the big Tea Party faves have this idea, with Joe Miller, Sharon Angle and Christine “I am not a witch” O’Donnell really leading the charge.

This idea is nuts on the surface but it is packed full of nutty goodness as you get deeper as well. The whole push for “constitutional fealty” by the Right is a ruse and always has been. The reason that they want to return to so called original intent it so wipe out two centuries of case law that does not suit their radical agenda.

Tyler Clemeti, was by all accounts a fairly shy freshman at Rutgers University. He may or may not have been gay, but we know for sure that he had at least one sexual encounter with a man. How do we know that? Well after the spy video that his roommate and another student made was released to the internet it became a matter of public record. Tyler had sex with some guy. Surely he thought it was a private thing, but there it was on the internet and would always define him.

This seems to be the proximate cause of his suicide by jumping off of a bridge. This is what the so-called “family values” conservatives railing against the “radical homosexual agenda” leads to. Yesterday I posted a slightly light-hearted look at what they claim this agenda is. The reality is that they don’t want any cultural acceptance of gay folks. It all comes down to that, they want to be able to use gay people as a stalking horse for all the ills of society.

I am pretty sure they don’t think about the consequences, but situations like Tyler Clementi’s suicide are a direct result of this shaming and relentless vilifying of gay citizens. Think back to when you were 18 or 19 or 20. Do you remember who desperate you were to be cool? How you were not sure what the world would hold and just finding out that you really had the choice to be who you are, as scary as that thought can be?

Now imagine what is must be like for those who are gay or bisexual. Gay jokes are everywhere. People are called fags if they don’t conform to the norm, regardless of their sexuality. There are still some kids in this younger generation who are not accepting of gay people being openly gay. For all that polls show there folks under 25, as a group, don’t care if gay citizens marry or serve in the military openly, there is still a good size portion of this population who has bought into the lies and vilification of gays and is not shy about speaking out about it.

In the Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson wrote “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, chief amongst these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” at the time it was a radical idea. Today Conservatives think that our gay citizens wanting to redeem this promise for themselves is a still a radical idea. Who would have thought that people who want to wrap themselves in the mantle of the Founders would wind up on the side of the Monarchists?

Unless progressives can find ways to counter the false images that our detractors are crafting, we will miss the opportunity to attract people who would be very sympathetic to our agenda. And once the Democrats get their coats handed to them in November, they will see us as a greater threat and will work even harder to distort and discredit our message.

Conservatives, including those of the Tea Party variety, aren’t “anti-government.” In most respects they are pro-government to the point of authoritarianism. What they really oppose is any form of cooperative or collective solution to the problems of a complex industrial (or post-industrial) society – especially when the beneficiaries are people they regard with suspicion or fear.