Monday, August 06, 2007

I'll Hate Who I Want to Hate - In Jesus' Name

Only in Memphis.

It seems there's a consortium in the city vigorously opposed to the pending hate crimes bill before Congress.

Hate crimes - think about that statement - and think, even further, about the overt expression of hate crime you have known, or seen.

Slavery, the Holocaust (which, with all due apologies to Mel Gibson and his old man, did really happen)- remember the African American man beaten and dragged behind a pickup truck? Or Matthew Shepard - a gay young man tortured and left in the elements to die?

Hate crimes - you know what I mean, right?

So guess who is opposed to this (although let's be clear here, the opposition rings hollow as cover for different political agendas in the next election cycle)?

That's right - a group of clergy - And what's their beef? They don't want what they say in the pulpit about gay and lesbian people to be interpreted as a hate crime.

Well, sister - brother - if what you say in the pulpit can, in anyway, be interpreted as anything other than the radical character of the Gospel of Jesus Christ - that sets us free from such baggage -

then sit your ass down and shut up - in Jesus' name. Amen.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

One comment about this that I wanted to make about this in SS but failed to get out: I had written a letter about this issue via NOW a couple of months ago to our state representative in DC whose name will be concealed to protect his guilt/idiocy/narrow-mindedness. (Former mayor of Chatt; sound familiar?).

His email reply to my message was that while the premise of the law was noble and all that, he just couldn't imagine any reason why he would support this bill. Full of naivete, I replied that surely this particular sentence must be a typo. There's no way I could have read that correctly, and if I did, it must be a simple clerical error. How could anyone be opposed to this bill?

A few days passed and his personal assistant in DC and I lobbed voice mails back and forth. When I did in fact talk to his trained monkey, he argued that C. was opposed to this bill because it was a "slippery slope," with many covert angles, legal land mines and hidden agendas to be negotiated, as he put it. After all, he reasoned, if we legally protect "them," next we will be protecting pedophiles and zoophiles.

I was barely able to contain my shock. (I told you I was naive!) After quizzing him about this further, he very politely asked me if I was an attorney, to which I replied I was not. He then mentioned that he could refer me to some websites with (I assume) lots of small words and big pictures so that I could wrap my little mind around this issue and how C. was right in his position. So hush, thou small-minded woman.

Indeed, it's sickening. But the lack of logic and overwhelming power of fear both by elected officials and members of the cloth to whom we look for guidance around this whole thing is what makes this all the more outrageous.

So now, JJ, with that missive stated, what can we do?