Mitt Romney has been asked been accused of insensitivity for saying “during a private reception with wealthy donors this year”, that “almost half of Americans as ‘people who pay no income tax’ and are ‘dependent upon government.’ Those voters, he said, would probably support President Obama because they believe they are ‘victims’ who are ‘entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it.'”
But a professor at the University of Utah who is working to destroy Judaeo-Christianity is simply exercising “free speech”.
Lisa Diamond, a psychology professor specializing in the sexuality of relationships, opened the presentation with her thoughts on the anti-gay debate in the United States with the intent to have listeners take a closer look at the traditional patriarchal family construction. …
Diamond opposed the idea that traditional, patriarchal Judeo-Christian marriage is the best option, and said winning same-sex marriage rights won’t do much to further equality.
“We should challenge marriage … I do want to slowly poison and destroy the marriage institution,” she said. “We’re saying that we deserve our rights as long as we are just like you.”
Some audience members understood what Diamond was communicating and why.
“I’ve never heard this point of view but it makes so much more sense,” said Anna Ungerman, a sophomore in health sciences. “Same-sex marriage isn’t the goal — it’s getting rid of the traditional, religious-based marriage structure.”
Dr. Bala Ambati, who sometimes comments on this site, wrote to the University Administration to ask any government funds were involved in the sponsorship of this event and received the vague answer that “these groups enjoy all the protections of free speech guaranteed by the Constitution and University Policy”.
So there.
The concept of ‘civility’ and ‘free speech’ is in practice a very elastic one. For the CEO of a chicken sandwich company to hold views on same sex marriage is considered bigoted and grounds for a national boycott, but to work for the poisoning and destruction of marriage is only free speech. For Randy Newman to produce a music video called “I’m dreaming of a white President, just like the ones we’ve always had …” is simply witty. But for Mitt Romney to say that a lot of people are waiting for the Government Cheese that Barack Obama explicitly promised them is uncivil.
Maybe he should say the 47% won’t receive it, which is even more inflammatory. But either way the Mormon is going to be pilloried. He should be a Salafist. They have all the fun.
Recently “a Tunisian Salafist leader on Monday escaped from a mosque that had been surrounded by security forces seeking to arrest him over clashes at the U.S. Embassy last week during protests against an anti-Islam film.” That would be as if a ‘Christian’ pastor hid inside a church after burning a synagogue. But no outcry is raised because the public is told by the media — not in those exact words — that this is normal behavior to which no one should take exception. We just don’t get the cultural context.
So an unknown Christian who produces a YouTube video in LA sparks world-wide riots and a merits a visit from the sheriff, but an imam who stages a riot just slips away. A Mormon politician who displays irritation in private is accused of being ‘hypocritical’ if he does not conform exactly to an atheist’s conception of Jesus. But a Marxist who potty mouths marriage, Christ, Moses or anyone else is just being ‘edgy’.
Nor do motives count. Even the meanest motives are exalted.
For James Carter, a self-described opposition researcher, releasing videos of Mitt Romney belittling 47 per cent of Americans who pay no federal income tax was personal.
“I don’t like criticism of my family,” the 35-year-old said. Mr Romney has repeatedly used former Democratic president Jimmy Carter, Mr Carter’s grandfather, to make unflattering comparisons about incumbent Barack Obama, accusing both of being “weak” on foreign policy.
According to NBC Dallas‘s Daniel Macht, Carter who is 35 is unemployed. But that doesn’t prove Romney’s point because instead of waiting around for Government Cheese the young Carter “tracked down via Twitter the source who taped Romney speaking to supporters at the closed-door fundraiser” which if it proves anything that the 47%, rather than sitting on its behinds can be out hustling with the best of them for a buck.
This disparity in standards of civility can only raise the question of whether a society can harbor groups with different rules of behavior for very long without one bullying the other. Can two religions, one which believes in turning the other cheek, and the other which believes in bringing more explosive long coexist? Can “atheism” — which we are assured is no religion — live side by side with faiths whose members want to get married and have children and go to church?
Or must some inevitably die under Darwinian competition; aka guns, knives and lawsuits?
The whole notion of Freedom of Speech rests on the idea that whatever befall, government should not take sides in matters of belief — whether that belief is couched as religion or ideology. No sect should be permitted to capture the funding of the state or its moral and legal authority to advance itself. Otherwise the end state of a society will not be one of religious tolerance but religious monopoly, or perhaps duopoly, in which the only remaining sects which are ruthless enough to suppress, murder or drive into hiding their more gentle competitors survive. In a word it will be a society in which the Left and Radical Islam may emerge the only two remaining choices. Then you can select between the civility of the liberal activist or the tolerance of Salafist imam.
That is hellish vision that many Americans came to America to escape. And hell followed after.
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