For Religious Conservatives, the War Against Gay Rights is Already Lost

One of the more enjoyable aspects of the recent and rapid advance of gay
rights over the past few years -- and the past few months in particular
-- has been watching the Baghdad Bob-like insistence on the far-right
that the battle against the Homosexual Menace can still be won. For
those of you who might not remember, "Baghdad Bob" was a nickname given to Saddam Hussein's Information Minister Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf. He earned notoriety for being the worst propagandist anyone had ever seen, insisting that the defense of Iraq from the Dubya
invasion was going great for Hussein -- at one point telling reporters
there were no Americans in Baghdad while our tanks rolled around in the
background.



The right's approach to the advance of gay rights and gay acceptance has
been complete denial to a ludicrous degree. For people who talk about
liberty and freedom a lot, they sure don't seem to have a lot of use for
them.



At the head of all this stupid, you're generally going to find Michele Bachmann. Yesterday was no exception.






Raw Story: Appearing on CNN’s The Situation Room, and speaking before Arizona governor Jan Brewer vetoed SB 1062
which would have effectively legalized discrimination based on
religious grounds, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) explained to Wolf Blitzer that a veto would “eviscerate” freedom of speech.



Asked by host Blitzer what she thinks Governor Jan Brewer should do with
the bill sitting on her desk, Bachmann replied that we need to have
“tolerance” for people on both sides of the issue.



“I think what we need to do is respect both sides. We need to respect
both opinions,” Bachmann replied. “And just like we need to observe
tolerance for the gay and lesbian community, we need to have tolerance
for the community of people who hold sincerely held religious belief.”





Let's get one thing straight right off the bat: the right to discriminate is not
religious freedom. It's the opposite. When you give everyone the right
to be as oppressive as their dark, hating hearts desire, the result is
not more freedom, but more oppression. This is what Libertarians
constantly fail to understand and this is why hate-filled intellectual
lightweights like Bachmann love Libertarian arguments so much. They
aren't pro-freedom, they're pro-oppression. It's the same with the Obamacare
contraception coverage debate -- forcing your employees to abide by
your religious beliefs is not religious freedom, it's state-sanctioned
religious oppression.



So when a Bible-beating dope like Bachmann tells you something is about
freedom or liberty, it's not. It's about the opposite. If Michele
Bachmann gave a damn about religious liberty, she wouldn't be such a tireless fearmonger when it came to Muslims.



But the bigger and dumber argument is that we have to tolerate the intolerance of bigots like Bachmann and other SB1062
supporters -- or we are ourselves intolerant. This is an incredibly
stupid argument specifically designed to turn logic on its head. It
would make the people denouncing white supremacists or
counter-protesters at a Westboro Baptist funeral protest the real
bigots. This is not an argument that can survive in the wild. "Tolerate
my intolerance, hater!" is just as stupid and illogical as it sounds



Meanwhile, similar pro-discrimination bills are dropping like flies
all around the country. None made it as far as Arizona's, so they
didn't get the same amount of coverage. And, as I spent yesterday pointing out, no challenge to a state same-sex marriage ban has failed since the Supreme Court's Windsor decision -- a fact that handed the Michele Bachmanns of the world yet another loss yesterday.



The tide in the right's fight against the Creeping Homosexual Menace
isn't turning, it's turned. The war is all but over and the fierce
denials from the homophobe chorus only serve to (barely) delay the
inevitable. Those tanks behind the Baghdad Bob-like Michele Bachmann
aren't from the Religious Conservatives' advance force -- they're flying
rainbow flags.



And it's time for the dead-enders to wave white ones.



-Wisco



[photo via Wikimedia Commons]