"Hate Group" Designation Angers Hate Groups

Tony Perkins-- Good actor/bad actor

-by Noah

Earlier this week, I happened across an article from The Washington Post titled "Hate Group Designation Angers Same-Sex Marriage Opponents." It seems that some hate groups aren’t comfortable with their recent designation as hate groups by The Southern Poverty Law Center. Gee. Ain’t that just a whole lot of too damn bad.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a major Civil Rights organization based in Montgomery, Alabama defines itself as a non-profit civil rights organization that is dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry towards the vulnerable in our society. It monitors and tracks hate groups, militias, white supremacists, and other extremists. The SPLC started up in 1971 and they define hate groups as those who have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people. The SPLC issued its newest report on the haters just in time for Thanksgiving.

Chief among the included and affronted was The Family Research Council. The SPLC accuses the council of putting out “demonizing propaganda aimed at homosexuals and other sexual minorities.” Peter Sprigg, who calls himself a “senior fellow for policy studies” at the FRC, recently went so far as to state, proudly no doubt, that he thinks “homosexual behavior” should be outlawed. Council President Tony Perkins (no blood relation to the guy from Psycho), clearly resenting the designation called the designation a political attack by “a liberal organization.” There it is again. Imagine what the flies on the walls heard: Damn liberals! Always fighting for peoples’ rights! Next thing ya know, they’ll be allowing gay people to vote! Oh, wait! They do! This is terrible! The sky is falling! My marriage is being threatened!

Perkins’ hissy fit statement droned on:

“The left’s smear campaign of conservatives is… being driven by the clear evidence that the American public is losing patience with their radical policy agenda as seen in the recent election and in the fact that every state… that has had the opportunity to defend the natural definition of marriage has done so.”

These guys are soooo touchy; like schoolyard bullies. Every sign of human decency is “radical” to them, but, when you stand up to them, they start to whine and cry. Gee Tony. Sorry to ruin your holiday weekend as you and your faux Christian group of mental misfits would do to others. You dedicate your whole life, your whole being to causing misery for others and then you whine when someone calls you on it. How dare they! Burn in your Crypto-Christian Hell, Tony.

I wish President Obama and the rest of the Democrats would learn this: It’s time to call these Republican nutbags out loudly and reveal them for what they are once and for all. For instance, I think the about-to-be House Speaker, John Boehner, is so tightly wrapped that he could be reduced to a sobbing, wailing, puddle quite easily. We’ve seen the evidence. He’d have to be carried away to a padded cell where he belongs. Put him in a cell next to one that says Bachmann on the door, just down the hall from one that says Jabba the Limbaugh. Throw it right back in their faces like the editor of Motor Trend Magazine did earlier this week when Limbaugh went all wackadoodle over their calling GM’s Chevy Volt the Car Of The Year; seeing something good as a threat. "Just remember: driving and Oxycontin don't mix."

Tony Perkins, like the rest of the Repugs, keeps referring to the midterm election results as if they were some sort of mandate for their various and sundry perversions. They will continue to do so until they are called out. The Dems need to do some research on these hideous gasbags and find out what pushes their buttons. Then, push away, with extreme prejudice. Most Republicans are so far gone down the road to blithering nutbagville why not speed them on their way to their final destination and be done with them? Give them the treatment that matches what they dole out. Smack ‘em upside the mind and make ‘em cry for mommy. The Post’s article goes on to quote gay rights advocate Dan Savage as saying on CNN:

“… [W]e need a cultural reckoning around gay and lesbian issues. There was once two sides to the race debate. There was once a side you could go on television and argue for segregation, you could argue against interracial marriage, against the Civil Rights Act, against extending voting rights to African Americans, and that used to be treated as one side… of a pressing national debate, and it isn’t anymore. And we really need to reach that point with gay and lesbian issues. There are no ‘two sides’ to the issues about gay and lesbian rights."

Savage is right, of course, and just as good people stood up to pro-segregation bullies decades ago when the SPLC was just getting started, good people need to stand up now. Tolerating the incessant hate of Neanderthal groups like the Family Research Council only serves to impede social progress, and, yes, social justice. If Republicans don’t like it, make them eat it.

Brian Brown, President of another merry band of homophobes, the ironically named National Organization For Marriage, also griped about the inclusion of his group in the SPLC’s new report:

“This is about protecting marriage… The whole idea that somehow those folks who stand up for traditional marriage, like the Family Research Council, are hateful is wrong. [The Law Center is] trying to marginalize and intimidate folks for standing up for marriage and also trying to equate them somehow to the KKK is wrong.”

Yeah Brownie. Heckuva job. And your point is? You see, I’ve been married to the same woman for 28 years and I know you’ll be appalled to learn that we lived together without a piece of paper for many years before that. In that time, I have known and worked with and for some very fine gay people. I even know some who are married to other gay people, great gay people. At no time in all that time, have I ever felt that my marriage was threatened by what you fear and what most of us would call the real world. Get over it. What is it about YOUR marriage that makes you feel threatened?