The 14 Characteristics of Fascism Part 3, Essay 1

Part 3 of our continuing series, the 14 Characteristics of Fascism and how they apply to the Rethugs and BushCo in particular.

Part III: Identifying Scapegoats

Essay 1
(Distorted Facts: The Cultural War Against Gays )
By Daniel (SweetPea)

SECTION 1

During the 1920s and 1930s the world learned that when sociopathic leaders, such as Adolf Hitler,were megalomaniacal to put their insane ideas in print, the world should wake up and listen. Today I would humbly suggest that the same holds true for public statements made by megalomaniacal religious leaders on the far right. If we don’t wake up and both, listen, and infer the lessons from the past, we may not only lose our Constitution and our freedom. Some of us may well lose our lives.

Execution Mania

If we take the Holy Bible at face value there are anywhere from ten, to eighteen, to twenty-three capital offenses. They are as follows:Murder (Exodus 21:12, Exodus 21:15); Murder (Exodus 21:12, Exodus21:15); Kidnapping (Exodus 21:16); Disobedience to parents (Exodus 21:17, Deuteronomy 21:18); Juvenile delinquency - incorrigibility (Deuteronomy 21:18-21); Bestiality (Leviticus 20:15); Violations of the Sabbath (Exodus 31:15); Adultery (Leviticus 20:10); Abominations (Leviticus 20:2); Blasphemy (Leviticus 24:16); Incest (Leviticus 20:11); Homosexuality (Leviticus 20:13); Witchcraft (Exodus 22:18, Leviticus 20:27); False prophecy (Deuteronomy 13:5); Worshiping a false god (Deuteronomy 13:6-10); Sacrificing to false gods (Exodus 22:20); Sodomy (Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13); Sex with a woman betrothed to another (Deuteronomy 22:25); False witness in a capital crime (Deuteronomy 19:16-20); Fornication by daughters of priests (Leviticus 21:9); Failure to abide by a decision of the High Court
(Deuteronomy 17:12); Unchastity (Deuteronomy 22:21-24); Cursing someone (Leviticus 24:14); Negligence resulting in death (Exodus 21:29).

Wow! That’s quite a list, but whether like it or not the truth of the matter is that there are pastors, laity, and members of congregations who seriously believe that the above list of capital crimes should indeed result in executions if the perpetrator is found guilty. Consider the remarks that follow:

“Brute beasts … part of a vile and satanic system [that] will be utterly annihilated, and there will be a celebration in heaven.”
Jerry Falwell On homosexuals, as quoted in The Bible Tells Me So, 1996 [2]

“I’ve never seen a man in my life I wanted to marry. And I’m gonna be blunt and plain: if one ever looks at me like that, I’m gonna kill him and tell God he died.”
The Reverend Jimmy Swaggart in a September 2004 evangelism television broadcast [3]

“The State carries the power of the sword, that is, the power to prohibit [homosexual] conduct with physical penalties, such as confinement and even execution. It must use that power to prevent the subversion of children toward this lifestyle.”
Judge Roy Moore in a 2002 concurrence in a custody case involving a lesbian mother. [4]

“In Stranger at the Gate , I recalled my experience in a fifty thousand watt Seattle radio station where I had gone to debate a Reconstructionist Presbyterian Pastor on a Popular call in show. When I asked him how he interpreted the passage in Leviticus that calls for the death of a man who sleeps with another man, he replied without hesitation, ‘It means you should be killed.’ After swallowing hard, I asked him, ‘Who should do the killing? You church folk?’ He answered without pause: ‘No, that’s the civil authority’s job. That’s why we have to get more good men of God elected into government.’” [5]
Mel White describing an encounter with a popular west coast Presbyterian pastor

“(R. J. ) Rushdoony used that verse in the book of of Romans (Romans 1:32) to prove that the Laws of Moses, written thirteen centuries before Christ, still apply to twenty-first century Christians. In Leviticus, the author makes it clear that men who sleep with other men are an abomination and should be executed (Leviticus 20″13). I have met fundamentalist Christian Clergy and laity alike who take the whole verse seriously and warn me in letters and on radio talk shows that it is God’s will that I be executed for accepting my homosexuality as God’s Gift.” [6]
Mel White on R. J. Rushdoony, founder of the Chalcedon Foundation and of Reconstructionist theology.

I have no doubt that the majority, indeed vast majorities, of the people in this country aren’t so crazy as to call for the execution of Gays and Lesbians, but for some reason, certain individuals with authoritative personalities have obsessed over this issue and it has become their idee fixe. I’d like to say that they weren’t sincere, that their desire to use the state to commit genocide against the gay and lesbian community were something beyond the confines of their very dark and twisted “faith,” but the truth of the matter is that when these people say that gays and lesbians should be put to death, they are not kidding. They are operating on the same paradigm and Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. One may worship Allah and the other may worship the Old Testament Yahweh ( I see very little Christianity in their fanatical rants), but in the end both, the radical right wing Muslims and the radical right wing Christians operate under the same principles. They genuinely believe that their Holy Books are superior to any secular document such as our Constitution and they want to replace those governing documents with a very brutal and repressive form of theocracy that will justify the execution of those who dare to dissent.

Part of the problem with a literal interpretation of the Bible is that it fails to recognize the fact that some passages are more relevant than others. Those who accept a literal interpretation of the Bible believe that all parts of the text are equally without error, so you literally end up with a form of Christianity in which the four Gospels of Jesus Christ are as important as the Book of Haggai or Malachi.. Lesser prophets are placed on the same level as Jesus Christ. That is a very twisted form of Christianity when your central prophet is no more important than any other figure in the Holy Text. But it does provide a convenient excuse, a brutal justification for selecting the violent and repressive parts of the Bible that promote bigotry, hate, violence, and death. And it allows your typical homophobe to ignore the portions of the New Testament which call for love, mercy,
charity, humility, and forgiveness.

I suspect that there are Christians who either won’t admit, or who can’t understand that what they say can have an effect on what other people do. I do not deny them the right to speak their minds ) freedom of speech is one of the corner stones of our democratic republic), but I DO retain the right to counter their hateful, obsessive scorn with what I perceive to be the truth. In short, I claim the right to speak the truth to power–or if you will, I claim the right to speak the truth to what I consider distortion, revisionism, and, often, out right lies.

Where to begin? So much of what the far right says is little more that Orwellian Double Speak, revision at it’s very worst. All to often the far right attempts to portray itself as the innocent victim of Gay and Lesbian Propaganda, but when you read their material, listen to their rhetoric, and watch them on television you realize that they are actually engaged in some of the most hypocritical projection one could ever imagine. In short, they are calling the kettle black. As a mater of fact, many of the accusations they hurl at my community sound as if they were penned by Hitler’s Propaganda Minister, Doctor Paul Josef Goebbels.

To be continued

Tags: 14 Characteristics of Fascism, Persecution of Gays,