Matt Barber in all is Gah-lory!!!
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Believe me, I get it. I have lived my life as a gay man who until relatively recently had no choice but to abide by the rules, even if those rules both written and unwritten stifled my freedom to openly love who I love and be who I am. To be powerless is frustrating. To be truly oppressed, treated less than equal is a betrayal of the ideals of this country and a jagged little pill to swallow as an American.
However, there is a huge difference in the state-sanctioned bigotry I lived through and the trumped-up oppression the Christian Right claims is systematically being implemented in this country. To hear these people tell it, that black man in our high office and his fascist army of gay brown shirts are demanding Christians either abandon their Bibles or be sent to prison. It is not being presented as slippery slope possibility any longer, but as fact.
Nowhere is this actively persecuted Christian meme being more rabidly pushed than on Matt Barber's website BarbWire. With contributing writers reading like a who's who of renowned anti-gay bigots, it is one stop shopping for people who find it necessary to understand and expose what our opponents are up to. In a May 22 piece about the Christian Right's reaction to the infamous Michael Sam kiss, People for the American Way's Right Wing Watch had this to say about Barber's rag.
We have to admit that the launch of Matt Barber's "BarbWire" website has been a real boon to our blogging efforts as its mission seems to be to scour the internet in an effort to find the most virulently anti-gay pieces it can and then publish them all in the same place, thereby saving us a lot of work and giving us a constant source of content.
In a post today, Matt Barber proves true why this is the go-to website for people who venture where others won't, just to take the pulse of the extremist wrist. With their losses mounting, Matt and his band of professional Authoritarians began to ramp up the outrage to eleven. After the
Windsor loss and the state-by-state reaction by the lower courts, their rhetoric has ramped to ear-splitting decibels. Behold the first two paragraphs from Barber's rant today
The Coming Christian Revolt.
From behind a smoking sniper rifle high atop his ivory tower peers the secular “progressive.” He surveys his many victims, strewn across the American landscape below and mockingly sneers, “War on Christianity? What war on Christianity?”
He then resumes shooting, all the while insisting that those uncooperative Christians who scatter for cover behind the word of God and the U.S. Constitution somehow suffer from a “persecution complex” (the baker, the photographer, the florist, the innkeeper, the Christian school administrator, etc.).
Most of Barber's audience is old enough to remember when, in the summer of 1966
Charles Whitman climbed the University of Texas Tower in the heart of Austin and began shooting, killing 16 people and wounding 32 others. These mass murders have become commonplace today, but this event was the introduction of this new kind of violence to our country. Barber knew exactly the emotional strings this shocking metaphor would pull. Innocents will die if you don't act now. Give generously NOW or be shot.
I may be going out on a limb here, but I find Barber's use of the Whitman murders pretty damned incendiary.
Recently, five white Catholic men sitting on the highest bench in our land threw this crowd a bone. They have survived to fundraise another day. If that hadn't happened, I probably wouldn't have spent my Sunday evening writing about Matt Barber and his webstain. But it did happen and needs to be logged.
As the recent Hobby Lobby decision reaffirmed, the government cannot legislate away religious free exercise. Where your desire, intense though it may be, for me to employ you despite your antagonistic values system, pay for your abortion, or host, photograph or otherwise bake a rainbow cake for your faux “wedding,” comes into conflict with my absolute right to religious liberty, the result is a foregone conclusion.
I win, you lose.
Ah, yes, Matt, you win, I lose. But what are we both really winning and losing here? Either you win your right to have the State enshrine bigotry or I win my right to not have your views determine my freedoms. It's that simple.
It isn't too much to hope that we both win. I want you to love your God and read your Bible and have all the freedoms this country affords.
Stop imagining that we wish for you what you wish for us.
Now on to Tops!
TOP MOJO
July 19, 2014
(excluding Tip Jars and first comments)
Got mik!
1) I wholeheartedly by ChicDemago — 345
2) We are working on quarterly regional salons, ro... by kos — 197
3) I spent a lot of my childhood in Arizona. by ExpatGirl — 162
4) So do I! by Mopshell — 127
5) "Go to Europe or some other country" by ssmt — 113
6) yes. Also a state where some of us who by Denise Oliver Velez — 111
7) Greenwald is out for Greenwald period!!! by calgalnfl — 111
8) Tucson - was where the ban on ethnic/Chican@ by Denise Oliver Velez — 111
9) Fuckers by gchaucer2 — 108
10) I think there's a misunderstanding here. by Rei — 107
11) As a tourist, by Youffraita — 106
12) This dude is the Louie Gohmert of Russia. by Bonsai66 — 100
13) Vyan! So nice to meet you in person by navajo — 98
14) It's a bogus arugment by praying manatheist — 96
15) Yeah, go to Europe and suffer through those by Susan from 29 — 96
16) with all respect by Laurence Lewis — 93
17) Why trickle down is a failure by Navy Vet Terp — 91
18) Right on - SB 1070 by Denise Oliver Velez — 88
19) Some will try to make a big deal out of Garner's by cai — 88
20) Exploitive, cruel, stupid policies by Phoebe Loosinhouse — 87
21) And I by AaronBa — 83
22) I have relatives there and I make THEM visit ME by fugitive — 80
23) This is all a symptom by La Gitane — 80
24) Murder caught on video by Whimsical Rapscallion — 79
25) How about a Daily Kos Convention elsewhere? by Mopshell — 79
26) Delete my fucking Netroots ... well, hell. by Black Max — 76
27) Well me, I'm here for the duration. by Azazello — 76
28) As much as I despise Louie Gohmert, that's by OllieGarkey — 75
29) Oh, come on. by Mother Mags — 75
30) Bullshit...in a diary by a diarist who's... by bobswern — 72
31) And I'll tell ya' something else, by Azazello — 72
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TOP PHOTOS
July 19, 2014
Enjoy jotter's wonderful PictureQuilt™ below. Just click on the picture and it will magically take you to the comment that features that photo. Have fun, Kossacks!
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