{"id":564,"date":"2007-03-12T06:20:56","date_gmt":"2007-03-12T12:20:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php\/index.php\/2007\/03\/12\/your-moment-of-dumb-or-that-vaunted-lefty-tolerance\/"},"modified":"2007-03-12T10:01:05","modified_gmt":"2007-03-12T16:01:05","slug":"your-moment-of-dumb-or-that-vaunted-lefty-tolerance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=564","title":{"rendered":"Your Moment of Dumb (or, that Vaunted Lefty Tolerance)"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the interesting things, to me, about the whole Marcotte kerfuffle was that you actually saw a bit if integrity on the part of many leftybloggers. While many among the thin film of left-leaning Christian bloggers were quite rightly offended by Marcotte’s raw bigotry (and John Edwards’ slimy cynicism), the interesting thing to me was that you didn’t see all that many bloggers on the infidel left complaining that Marcotte was much of an aberration. Oh, you saw the usual complaints of “she’s being taken out of context” (which pretty well deflated when one saw <\/em>the context) – but I don’t think anyone ever tried the “most leftbloggers tolerate religion just fine” response.,<\/p>\n

Which is good, because the tradition of bashing faith (or at least Christianity; Islam and non-observant, Israel-phobic Judaism are not quite <\/em>so feared) is wide and deep on the left. Especially locally.<\/p>\n

Not that finding it is especially interesting. PZ Meiers’ rote phumphering<\/a> is sort of like Joan Jett playing “I Love Rock And Roll”; you know it’s coming, it’s always the same, whooeee.
\nAnd you read stuff from Mark Gisleson…:<\/p>\n

I am certain that each and every day for centuries now somewhere in the world a Catholic nun or priest has done something extraordinarily good. I’m also sure most martyrs died nobly and were pure in their beliefs. And I’m even more sure that not once in the history of the Roman Catholic church has the hierarchy ever done the right thing, instead siding, consistently, with the monied and privileged.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…and wonder if he just didn’t get enough attention out of farting in church as a kid.<\/p>\n

At any rate, the big, sweeping hatreds like Marcotte’s and Meiers’ don’t bother me as much as the casual bigotry that seeps into the daily exhortations of the “regular” leftybloggers (and the petty left in general). It’s there that the heart of the left lies.<\/p>\n

Jeff Fecke – local rent-a-blogger who writes for Minnesota Monitor, an organization paid for by an organization that shares space with George Soros’ “Media Matters for America” (but which to the best of my knowledge has never revealed the source of its funding) but who sniffs and calls Michael Brodkob a paid republican operative, has apparently discovered a “talent” for Photoshop<\/a>, linking to a piece in MinnMon about an incident in Sioux Center, Iowa<\/a>, involving a group of gay activists’ vans being apparently vandalized with anti-gay graffiti.<\/p>\n

Fecke’s headline:<\/p>\n

Your Moment of Zen (or, that Vaunted Christian Tolerance)<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ah. So without knowing who were the suspects, Fecke blames the incident (assuming it was legitimate vandalism – and some interesting questions were raised in the MNMon comment section, which you should read) on Christians? And, more directly (given the wording and tone of his headline) a trait of people who call themselves Christian?<\/p>\n

For starters, if we assume the incident was legitimate (and when it comes to local leftists’ stories of faith-based hate crimes, “trust but verify” is my philosophy – face it, local lefties, too many of your fellows have abused the media in the past), it most likely has much more to do with anti-gay sentiment that is still a deeply-ingrained part of much of rural America. Imagine if you will a bus full of Israelis at Berkeley or a van full of Young Republicans at Macalester, if you need help picturing the sort of provincial hatred that sort of exercise would conjure forth.<\/p>\n

The whole exercise of the “Soul Force Equality Ride” – vans full of gay guys from Minneapolis driving through small towns – seems entirely designed to publicize the heretofore-unknown concept that there are anti-gay bigots in small towns. “Expect more events like these as Soulforce and the Equality Ride directly confront the institutions that produce this type of hatred”, MinnMon writer Andy Birkey breathlessly intones in the piece Fecke links; one wonders (“trust but verify”) if Birkey has seen an itinerary.<\/p>\n

If <\/em>the incident was legit, then it’d seem they got exactly what the wanted; bigotry’s been exposed! Mission accomplished! (Unless they left a group of missionaries in Sioux Center to try to perform outreach and change the local hearts and minds. I mean – what other purpose was there besides driving in, confronting, taking pictures and leaving? I’d invite any “SoulForce Rider” to comment and discuss this).<\/p>\n

But what has this incident to do with Christianity?<\/p>\n

Other than as a breathless frame-up (presuming legitimacy) of small-town redneck bigots? Not a whole lot.<\/p>\n

Fecke’s broad brush is a sweeping indictment of Christian bigotry in the civil arena. And aside from providing the intellectual and moral framework for the renaissance and liberal democracy itself, inciting and focusing anti-slavery sentiment in the United States and Europe, driving the entire notion of social welfare for most of American history, and providing the moral background for the entire civil rights movement (led by white as much as black churches), I guess you could say Christians sure are bigots.<\/p>\n

But only if your brush is broad enough to avoid things like “facts” and “details”.<\/p>\n

CORRECTION:\u00a0 Andy Birkey, not Matt.\u00a0 Not sure where that came from.<\/p>\n

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One of the interesting things, to me, about the whole Marcotte kerfuffle was that you actually saw a bit if integrity on the part of many leftybloggers. While many among the thin film of left-leaning Christian bloggers were quite rightly offended by Marcotte’s raw bigotry (and John Edwards’ slimy cynicism), the interesting thing to me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-war","category-faiths-and-their-followers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}