zack ford of "think progress" scapegoating christians for orlando massacre, like hitler blamed the jews for the reichstag fire in 1933
REGRESSIVE LEFT BLAMES ‘CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIANS’ FOR ORLANDO MASSACRE
Argues that white Americans inspire more violence against LGBT community than radical Islamists.
BY STEVE WATSON
SEE: http://www.infowars.com/regressive-left-blames-conservative-christians-for-orlando-massacre/; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
In a backwards twist of logic, regressive leftists have pinned the blame for the shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando by a Muslim extremist who declared allegiance with ISIS on… conservative Christians.
Writing for ThinkProgress, LGBT Editor Zack Ford outlined his mind bending theory that conservative Christian America is to blame for the massacre in TWO ways.
Ford suggests that conservative Christians are to blame because they promote and practice their own “violence” against the LGBT community, and secondly, conservative Christians have created an anti-Islamic culture, which acted as a “spark” for the attack, according to Ford.
“ISIS may sensationalize anti-gay violence — specifically to spark the anti-Islam sentiment that fuels it — but that doesn’t actually make radical Islam more violent against LGBT people than the conservative Christian sentiment that permeates the U.S.” Ford writes.
Yep, that’s correct, Ford argues that while Islamic governments and ISIS extremists both EXECUTE gay people, American Christians are somehow MORE violent towards the LGBT community.
To justify his argument, Ford points James Wesley Howell, a 20-year-old Indiana man who was found with guns and explosive chemicals in his car on the way to a California gay pride parade on Sunday, just hours after the Orlando incident.
“Howell is white, and he’s from Indiana,” Ford writes, before proceeding to lump him in with recently passed laws in Indiana intended to prevent anyone, specifically business owners, from being forced to provide services for same-sex weddings, should they be approached to do so.
“The people [who blame radical Islam for the terror attack in Orlando] are the same people who regularly speak out against LGBT equality — who support discrimination against same-sex couples in the name of ‘religious liberty’ and who demonize transgender people as mentally ill.” Ford writes, arguing that such behaviour could equally or more so inspire violence against gay people than radical Islam.
While that is clearly a ridiculous argument, given that even so called ‘moderate’ Muslims support KILLING gay people, Ford also fails to mention that Howell is not a conservative Christian, and is in fact a gay man.
Howell’s ex-boyfriend and other acquaintances were interviewed by reporters, and maintained that Howell “harbored no violent feelings toward” the LGBT community.
OK, so already Ford’s argument is resting on ground that is thin to non-existent.
He is arguing that someone who would rather not bake a cake for a gay wedding can inspire worse violence against the gay community than someone who throws homosexuals off rooftops.
Ford also suggests that conservatives’ response to a shooting last year at a Planned Parenthood clinic is another example of the right somehow avoiding taking responsibility.
“Robert Lewis Dear was clearly motivated by his Christian anti-abortion beliefs, but conservatives similarly likewise tried to avoid taking responsibility for propagating those notions.” Ford writes.
However, in reality, investigators concluded that Dear had no clear motivation, and those familiar with Dear said he was a recluse and an utterly confusing individual. “If you talked to him, nothing with him was very cognitive,’ said neighbor James Russell.”
Never mind huh, just blame ALL white conservative Christians for the shooting, and demand they take responsibility.
Ford then spends three paragraphs quoting statistics about LGBT suicide, homelessness, and crime-victim rates, as if all of these things are somehow the fault of every conservative Christian in America.
His conclusion is that conservative Christians all discriminate against gay people and promote and inspire violence and hatred against them.
“The Orlando shooting is not an opportunity to absolve conservatives who have railed against LGBT equality for years.” he writes.
Such an opinion really isn’t all that surprising given that the mainstream media, and the US government promotes the same views.
The Department of Homeland Security is operating under a brief that contends right wing Americans pose just as much of a threat to the country as Islamic extremists. The DHS was also more concerned about being “disrespectful” to Muslims than identifying terrorists, per a Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC) report.
Meanwhile, the president spent a significant part of his press conference concerning the Orlando incident, taking shots at Republicans and Donald Trump, and arguing that using the phrase ‘radical Islam’ is a ‘political talking point’ rather than a factual description.
“There’s no magic to the phrase ‘radical Islam.’ It’s a political talking point. It’s not a strategy… Calling a threat by a different name does not make it go away. This is a political distraction. Not once has an adviser of mine said, ‘Man, if we use that phrase, we’re going to turn this whole thing around.’“ Obama said.
Calling a threat by a different name doesn’t make it go away… Obama and the regressive left might really think about following that advice.
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Orlando: The Reichstag Fire
BY ROD DREHER
SEE: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/orlando-the-reichstag-fire/comment-page-2/; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
Hold your Godwins, please. The term “Reichstag fire” refers to the 1933 arson at the German parliament building, committed by at least one communist. Hitler, the new chancellor, did not let this crisis go to waste. He took advantage of the outrage over the attack to push for sweeping laws suppressing communists, the Nazis’ political rivals. In this sense, Orlando is a “Reichstag fire” event, I predict, because it is a genuine and appalling atrocity that will lead to the demonization, in law and in custom, of orthodox Christians and any who disagree with whatever LGBTs and their allies want.
It’s going to happen. Social and religious conservatives had better get ready for it.
We already saw this yesterday, with this statement by Democratic Congressman Don Beyer from Virginia:
Number three, we must recognize that homophobia cannot be contained. Hatred breeds hatred. We are horrified that one man targeted LGBT victims at two a.m. on an Orlando Sunday morning. But we are not blameless, when we tell government contractors it is okay to discriminate against someone because they are gay or lesbian – or tell transgender school children that we will not respect their gender identity.Our sincere, sustained message of inclusion will create a powerful wall against LGBT hate.
Got it? You oppose laws allowing transgendered males into the women’s bathroom and locker room, you are complicit in Omar Mateen’s slaughter. The only way to stop future massacres, presumably, is to suppress speech and thought we don’t like.
Catholic Bishop Robert Lynch, whose Florida diocese paid $100,000 to settle a claim made by a former employee who accused Lynch of sexually harrassing him, is on the train:
Second, sadly it is religion, including our own, which targets, mostly verbally, and also often breeds contempt for gays, lesbians and transgender people. Attacks today on LGBT men and women often plant the seed of contempt, then hatred, which can ultimately lead to violence. Those women and men who were mowed down early yesterday morning were all made in the image and likeness of God. We teach that. We should believe that. We must stand for that. Without yet knowing who perpetrated the PULSE mass murders, when I saw the Imam come forward at a press conference yesterday morning, I knew that somewhere in the story there would be a search to find religious roots. While deranged people do senseless things, all of us observe, judge and act from some kind of religious background. Singling out people for victimization because of their religion, their sexual orientation, their nationality must be offensive to God’s ears. It has to stop also.
It is certainly true that Christians who hate gays and abuse them are sinning and should repent. But what is “victimization”? Does that include opposing same-sex marriage, or transgender bathroom bills? Does it include affirming what the Roman Catholic church teaches about homosexuality? That’s how people are taking the bishop’s remarks. Here’s Zack Ford at Think Progress, spurning the prayers and good wishes of Baptist leader Russell Moore, because Moore upholds the biblical view of sexuality, but embracing Bishop Lynch:
One religious leader, however, actually demonstrated that there is another option. Bishop Robert Lynch, who serves the Catholic diocese of St. Petersburg, Florida, didn’t try to reconcile the beliefs his Church espouses. He took responsibility. … The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has dedicated millions of dollars to opposing LGBT equality over the years. Bishop Lynch may be the first actively serving member of that organization to admit that these efforts may have had consequences for LGBT people.
Ford goes on to list what conservative Christians must do, including:
If people who share Moore’s beliefs reach out to their LGBT neighbors now or in the future, they should consider that what they want us to feel might not be the same as what we actually hear.If you want us to feel love, then do not tell us our sexuality is wrong or that the only way to be right is to be celibate. What we hear is actually that we are unworthy of love.If you want us to feel equal, then do not try to justify refusing us jobs, housing, or goods and services in the name of your religious beliefs. What we hear is that we deserve to be treated as second-class citizens.If you want us to feel community, then do not tell us that you cannot condone our marriages. What we hear is that our families are not welcome to share a neighborhood with yours.If you want us to feel dignity, then do not tell us that we cannot be transgender or try to tell us what bathrooms we can or cannot use. What we hear is that you aren’t actually interested or invested in understanding who we are or supporting our wellness.
And so on. Otherwise, “sympathy without affirmation rings hollow; it is unworthy of our gratitude.” Ford, good progressive that he is, says “do not encourage us to demonize Islam or pass the blame onto terrorism.” Of course not, even though the mass murderer was an Islamic terrorist. We must remember who the real enemy is here: Russell Moore and people like him. People like me.
I don’t know how widely shared Ford’s view is among the LGBT community and its allies, but I suspect it is general, and it is sincere. What Ford and those who agree with him are doing is demanding that we give up what we believe to be true, or nothing we say about love, respect, and the rest of it matters.
I believe this will be the line that emerges out of Orlando. And the campaign will happen because it’s in the playbook. GLSEN has over the years managed to get its teaching programs mainstreamed in schools under the guise of stopping bullying and making schools “safe.” The stated theory is that if you really want to stop bullying, you will teach children that there’s nothing wrong with homosexuality, transgenderism, etc. That is to say, it’s not enough that kids be taught respect and tolerance; kids must be taught that what orthodox Christianity says is not only wrong, but by implication makes schools unsafe.
It has been an extraordinarily successful campaign. And we are about to see it scaled up to the national level. Any Republican politician, and any religious leader, who opposes what the LGBT activists and their allies in the Democratic Party want is going to be tarred as having the blood of Orlando victims on their hands.
I anticipate the comments to this post: “How dare you worry about how this is going to affect your community when we haven’t even buried the victims yet?!” And that reaction, however inadvertently, is part of the campaign. Zack Ford, Rep. Beyer, Bishop Lynch and others are using the Orlando atrocity to advance goals, political and religious. I don’t doubt their sincerity. Nor do I doubt, not for one second, how effective they are going to be.
Now we will see the price individual Christians are willing to pay to remain faithful. Now we will see how many Christians have the inner strength to obey Jesus’s command: “But I say to you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which spitefully use you, and persecute you.”
When I talk about the need for the Benedict Option, this is part of what I mean: the need for orthodox Christians to come together in thick communities to keep our faith, to help each other through things like what’s to come, and to remind one another that no matter what, we cannot return hatred for hatred. That is forbidden to us.
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ACLU blames Christians for Islam Terrorist attack at Pulse Gay Club
Evangelist Anita Fuentes Shows Daily Caller Article
ACLU BLAMES CHRISTIANS FOR ORLANDO TERROR ATTACK
Liberals Blame Christians for Orlando Gay Bar Mass Shooting (Which Was Done by ISIS Terrorist)
CHASE STRANGIO, STAFF ATTORNEY WITH THE ACLU'S LGBT & AIDS PROJECT, BLAMES CHRISTIANS
EUNICE RHO, ACLU ATTORNEY ALSO BLAMES CHRISTIANS
ACLU Blames “Christian Right” for Orlando Muslim’s Mass Murder
It seems that the American Civil Liberties Union, a group that was previously known to be Communists, are claiming that the Christian right is responsible for the murderous actions of a follower of Muhammad at a sodomite night club in Orlando that took the lives of fifty people.
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QUOTES:
“You know what is gross — your thoughts and prayers and Islamophobia after you created this anti-queer climate,” ACLU staff attorney Chase Strangio tweeted on Sunday morning. But Strangio — who “spend[s his] life fighting Christian homophobia while being loved & supported by [his] Muslim family” — and his colleagues connected the shooting back to Christians and Republican politicians who oppose gay marriage. “The Christian Right has introduced 200 anti-LGBT bills in the last six months and people blaming Islam for this,” Strangio tweeted. “No.” Another ACLU attorney who specializes in religious liberty issues scolded Republican lawmakers who tweeted out their condolences. “Remember when you co-sponsored extreme, anti-LGBT First Amendment Defense Act?” the ACLU’s Eunice Rho tweeted at Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and other Republicans.
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QUOTES:
“You know what is gross – your thoughts and prayers and Islamophobia after you created this anti-queer climate,” Strangio tweeted.
I spend my life fighting Christian homophobia while being loved & supported by my Muslim family. Fuck your take on an entire religion.— Chase Strangio (@chasestrangio) June 12, 2016
Catholic News Agency reports that ACLU member Eunice Rho assailed Republican lawmakers for offering prayers for the victims and wounded after the shooting. Rho said they were promoting the “extreme, anti-LGBT First Amendment Defense Act.”
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