Liberals Will Ban Bibles

[chipotle]

As suggested earlier, I'm going to get political here occasionally rather than moving things to a separate blog, but to spare those who might find this a little too acid,

From the AP wires (via Yahoo):

Campaign mail with a return address of the Republican National Committee (news - web sites) warns West Virginia voters that the Bible will be prohibited and men will marry men if liberals win in November. The literature shows a Bible with the word "BANNED" across it and a photo of a man, on his knees, placing a ring on the hand of another man with the word "ALLOWED." The mailing tells West Virginians to "vote Republican to protect our families" and defeat the "liberal agenda."

I have more than one friend who supports Bush and who's also gay or bisexual. (Many of them are also atheists or agnostics.)

And, you know, I'm not going to tell them they shouldn't. They're convinced Kerry would be terrible for national security, or that he'd take away their guns, or that he'd radically balloon the nanny welfare state or whatever. Or they've just accepted the Republican talking points that Kerry's a flip-flopper with no discernable record in the Senate. I disagree with each of those points, but I doubt I'm going to be able to convince those who are dead set against Kerry, just like I doubt I could be convinced at this point that Bush's policies, both foreign and domestic, have been anything but disasters (or "catastrophic successes," if you prefer).

But I am going to say to those people, those self-identified "conservative queers" or the Republican atheists: don't believe for a second that "your" party has the respect for you that you give it. No matter how closer you may think you are to the Republicans than the Democrats on issues of policy, your value is as a scarecrow. You will cast your vote for Bush at the same time Bush's campaign will be using you as an example of everything that's wrong in American society. To you, they may be the party of fiscal responsibility, military strength and upholding the Second Amendment. To them, you're a godless queer. Period.

Yeah, I know it's the other things that attract you to the Republicans. I'm just saying I can't shake the similarity between that idea and "my husband doesn't hit me often, and he's really a fine guy most of the rest of the time."

Comments

[bigtig.livejournal.com]

"To you, they may be the party of fiscal responsibility, military strength and upholding the Second Amendment. To them, you're a godless queer."

Assuming all republicans are bible-thumping queer-hating backwater evangelistic mongrels, of course.

There are strong portions of the republican party that would like to lose a lot of the religious fundamentalism that exists in their rank. The near revolt that took place in the party in the late 90's that was followed by the equivalent of the "Council of Trent" illustrates the point. And now we have neo-conservatism. Whee.

I am surprised at the statement. It would be like someone telling me I can't vote Democrat that because I grew up in the military "I'll be viewed as nothing more than a babykiller. Period." ... that's silly and ignoring the moderate elements of the argument.

For the reason of just complete irrsponsibility of action and stupidity of interaction with other nations, the Demorats
could nominate a bucket of mud and I'd vote for it.

I'm not replublican. (Libertarian, actually) But I find one of the most disconcerting thing about voting democrat is the surprsing company I find myself keeping at times. The amount of unmitigated vitrol is astounding. Here in PA, the largest state up for grabs, the shear volume of unfounded propoganda in both directions is appauling.

The emotions are just too high I guess.

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

Assuming all republicans are bible-thumping queer-hating backwater evangelistic mongrels, of course.

Yes. I didn't make that assumption. The Republicans who ran those advertisements did. My point wasn't that Republicans who disagree with this don't exist -- I was addressing Republicans who don't agree with it, after all. My point is that the RNC is, by and large, saying that Republicans who disagree with this don't matter. It's not a question of whether Republicans on the street want to go out and beat up gays and ACLU members -- it's a question of whether, strategically, painting gay marriage, atheism and Planned Parenthood as the greatest threats to the state of the union will win the election.

In this campaign cycle, there's a whole lot of vitriol and nastiness coming from both sides. And that's not a good thing. But the reason there's a whole lot of mud being slung from the left this time around is because the Republicans have spent an awful lot of time in the previous few election cycles proving that it works.