Mean-spirtedness at its finest

Once again I have been perusing the "news" articles over at the mouthpiece of the American Family Association, onenewsnow.com. Situated between the pieces about Desperate Housewives being an evil, evil show, and Redbook being the devil's handiwork, were a couple of articles that show that when Christ was telling people to "love thy neighbor", the fundamentalists are pretty sure He was NOT talking to them.

These articles are covering, or, rather, seem to be cheering on legal actions and protests against the City of Seattle and two universities in Kentucky for committing the unpardonable sin of giving health insurance to the partners of gay employees. Thats right - they are giving the gays insurance! Give them insurance and they might see a doctor, which might make them live longer! OH THE HUMANITY!

Really, you have to be hard pressed to find any any group in this country more mean spirited than fundamentalist Christians. One of the things ONN does on its site is allow "the flock" to comment on each article. Some of the comments would be absolutely hilarious if it wasn't for the sad realization that these people not only vote, but likely indoctrinate their children with this crap too. I should mention that the names may or may not be real depending on whether the poster actually used their name. Also, ONN screens each comment before it is posted on the site, and, the one I posted pointing out their hypocracy on another issue, didn't quite make the cut - but lets see which ones did:

A particularly enlightened chap named "Bill" commented, while claiming that allowing gay partners would bankrupt the health insurance companies, states, "Add into the mix the homosexuals with their killer disease and lifetime (short as it may be) hugely expensive medical care, and this will only encourage them to continue engaging in self-destructive activity. At society's expense." Bill (assuming it's the same Bill) comments on the other article, "That two perverts remain together for a lifetime on rare occasion does NOT validate the activity. They are an insignificant, morally corrupt, mentally defective tiny minority in the country...yet you'd think they were the majority." Tell us how you really feel there Bill... I'm sure he would have written more, but he had to go buy more WWJD apparel...

Another enlightened fellow named "Terry" writes, "We need to re-establish Jesus Christ in our system of government again, and also in our educational system. We need to go by his laws and not contrive our own. We are under God's judgement. Homosexuals will die and be slaughtered, just like blacks and hispanics. We need to establish the traditional family values that can only come about through establishing Jesus Christ as the head of our government, community, churchs, and society." The Love of Christ is strong with that one, I see. (BTW, the emphasis is mine, the spelling errors are his)..

"Craig" had this little gem to share, "The Constitution doesn't provide equal protection for lifestyles such as pedophilia, incest, stealing, murder and polygamy. Why should a lifestyle like gay marriage be protected or supported?" I had to clean up Craig's typing a bit, reading it made my head hurt. Since when is murder a lifestyle? Is gay marriage a lifestyle in and of itself? If I stay single, will I still be slaughtered like the blacks and hispanics? Perhaps I should go in the other direction and "sin boldly" by getting in a polygamous gay marriage and becoming a shoplifter... Hmmm...

Now, not everyone who commented was, to borrow a phrase from The West Wing, a card carrying member of the "Ignorant Tight-Ass Club." In fact, there were a few people who do get it. One of them, Sherrie Robertson, made an especially noteworthy post where she said, "God bless this Mayor for doing The Lord's Work in this regard. The cruelty and hatred inherent in the religious right position is apparent---only hatemongers would seek to deny someone healthcare because of who they love. Shame on those who do." Sherrie, thank you for injecting some reason into this mad house.

If you want to read the articles in question, they can be found here and here.

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." - Matthew 22:37-40