Hating for Jesus

Over at Red State Rabble is a good piece on fundamentalist hypocrisy: Hate Spech: What Would Jesus Do?. In brief

Do policies intended to protect gays and lesbians from discrimination end up discriminating against conservative Christians? Ruth Malhotra, a senior at the Georgia Institute of Technology says they do. The school has a policy that bans hate speech based on sexual orientation. Malhotra has gone to court to overturn the policy, which she sees that as an unacceptable infringement on her right to religious expression.

RSR muses on the problem on infringing on anyone's freedom of speech - a problem we all have to wrestle with (see my post below Tolerating the Intolerant), at least that 'all' of us who actually want actual tolerance and freedom of speech, that is, of course. He points out the fundamental hypocrisy of people like this:

At the same time, they bray loudly about the discrimination against Christians. Sensitive to the even the smallest slight, they even claim that when stores put signs in the window wishing everyone a "Happy Holiday," they are participating in a war against Christians.

All too true. People like Malhotra want to be free to say all kinds of vicious and hateful things against people who aren't members of their little club - and yet they howl when anyone says anything that they can perceive as an insult. Of course, they have a moral right to demand everyone be nice, or better yet subservient, because they are right, after all. If they insult someone, it's deserved; if they're insulted, they've been maligned.

It's a key concept of religion, after all: the creation of a super-family. It's a way of gaining (or compelling) trust and cooperation in a group too big to be related, or known individually. But this creation of a larger 'we' comes with a serious price: a larger 'them' to fight against. And considerably more vituperation along with it.

Today's fundies are more scared than they've been in a long time: they know they're losing priveleges they once had, and they're angry about it. And they can see that soon enough people they despise will be on an equal footing with them, and that makes them angry as well as scared. (And scared they are: they know how they treat the 'Other' so why should the 'Other' treat them any better?) After all, an equal footing is a come-down from the top...

In the end, Red State Rabble reluctantly concedes that this is a fight ought perhaps not to have. He says he

doesn't believe we should ban hate speech -- vile as it is -- by Christian fundamentalist. We do believe it is imperative confront these bigots forcefully and expose them for the hypocrites they are.

And in the end, I (reluctantly) have to agree with him. Much as I hate and, yes, fear the notion of giving these people license to be foul - something I fear they'll take as license to persecute - free speech is too precious.

I might be persuaded to believe that schools - certainly public schools, where we require kids to be - should be made havens of safety. Forbidding hate speech there is not on the same level: children are already 'deprived' of some rights adults have. We accept that they aren't adults, with full adult rights, and that they need us (adults) to protect them until they're grown. That would include protecting them from hate.

But in the wider world? Free speech is too precious, and hate speech is part of the price we have to pay to have it.

But we must call them to account for their bigotry and their hypocrisy. We must - all of us, especially those among Christians who despise this as much as we do - we must not let them think we for even a heartbeat agree or approve of what they say.

It's the least, the very least, we can do.