Bat-crazy Christians hold public bitchfest

One year ago, June 28, police in Fort Worth "inspected" a newly opened gay bar. Wearing full uniform they rushed in and started knocking people around accusing them of being drunk, without doing any testing. Witness after witness recounted belligerent police officers who were unnecessarily violent. In just seconds the thugs in blue had arrested 16 people and injured several, including one seriously.

A full investigation was launched and the results showed the police had violated multiple procedures, did rough people up needlessly, and then lied about the incident in an attempt to cover-up the facts.

Agents of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission were involved and had also been found to have violated policy in regards to raid. Three TABC agents were fired and two were disciplined.

The Fort Worth city council decided that the time had arrived to have a police liaison officer who works with the gay community to prevent these sorts of abusive actions. It seemed as if everyone was happy until the bat-shit crazed fundamentalist Christians started protesting.

One minister, Richard Clough, claimed that the the media and gays conspired and "distorted the facts of what happened the night of the Rainbow Lounge to promote the homosexual agenda." Ah, those clever gays. See how they get police to come in, beat them up, and then use that to promote their devious agenda. That is a really bizarre theory but one befitting the man's theology. Consider that he believes Jesus was god, that he planned to come to earth and die, and that he got some nasty people (Jews and/or Romans depending on who you believe) to torture and kill him, so that he could forgive the sins of the world. Similar in a way as both theories contend the victim had an ulterior motive and manipulated the attack to their own ends. I just never figured out why a god, who is all powerful, didn't have the power to forgive sins without all that torture and killing going on.

One news account says the fundamentalists claimed the city "didn't take their Christian beliefs into account."

Wrap your mind around that for a minute? The police aggressively and unnecessarily raid a gay bar and start hurting people in the process. To help prevent such future incidents a police officer is assigned as a liaison to the gay and lesbian community. And this somehow violates the "Christian beliefs" of these bat-shit crazed fundamentalists. What beliefs were ignored here?

Are they saying that their belief is that gay people should be beaten by police officers? Are they saying that basic civil rights of gay people should be ignored simply because they are gay? What are they saying?

What Christian doctrine is at stake here? When it comes to Christian doctrine I think of things like the virgin birth, atonement, resurrection, the trinity, etc. Apparently there is a Christian doctrine that applies to police pushing around gay people. And since these fundamentalists are complaining about measures to stop such activities I have to assume that the doctrine they think exists is one requiring violence against gay people.

About 100 of these people turned out to protest measures to end violence against gay people.

Let me state something quite clearly, as if my views are ever in doubt: fundamentalist Christians HATE gay people. They want gay people hurt. They want gay people stripped of rights. They want gay people to disappear from public view. They don't want a shred of evidence to exist which indicates that gay people exist. When they say they oppose "special rights" they mean equal rights. I sat in their meetings and heard them screaming for state executions of gay people.

Over the years I've met these lunatics. I met Jerry Falwell several times. I knew Moral Majority founder Robert Billings. I met Pat Robertson, Moral Majority bigwig Rev. Greg Dixon, and anti-gay leader Rev. Richard Angwin. I even met Phyllis Schlafly and then later met her gay son.

I went to their schools and attended one of their seminaries. I heard them when no "outsiders" were listening in. These people would do everything in their power to destroy all records that gay people even exist, if it were in their power to do so.

Rev. Dixon is a good example. He told his congregation that he is asked if gay people should have civil rights. His reply: "Absolutely not! Criminals do not have their civil rights." In another sermon he said: "I don't know how in the world you can get a society that won't even put their murderers to death, I don't know how you can ever get them to put these homosexuals to death but God's word would uphold that. They which commit such things are worthy of death." I had a go at Dixon once and he said, on tape, "Homosexuality is a perversion and should be a felony... From a practical standpoint you're never going to get capital punishing for homosexuality but the Bible would certainly stand by a society that would be willing to do that."

Yes, these people can smile and seem pleasant and even friendly. But deep inside they hold a hate that, if ever unleashed by the removal of social sanctions, would lash out violently.

People often argue that Christian fundamentalists are not as bad as Muslim fundamentalists. What they ignore is the different social contexts. In the Muslim world the fundamentalists dominate and thus their hatred and violence is unleashed. Christian fundamentalists live in Western, predominantly secular society where social sanctions are brought to bear instantly when clear cut hatred is demonstrated. All one has to do is witness what happens every time the nutters from Westboro Baptist Church show up with their hate signs against gays and Jews. Thousands of people instantly respond in a counter-protest.

But the real test of the tolerance of individuals is not how they behave when they are restrained by the culture and law that surrounds them, but how they behave when they have the freedom to act inhumanely. Historically fundamentalist Christians were easily and openly violent and cruel to others, when they dominated the culture. These people murdered other Christians, such as Quakers, simply for not being of their church. These people tortured innocent people into confessing that they were witches. They burned theologians at the stake, whipped people, imprisoned them and tortured them. And they did it without batting an eye.

But that was when they controlled the culture around them. Now they don't. But we should not delude ourselves into thinking that this lack of ability to harm others means that they don't have the desire.