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Monday, December 13, 2004

THIS is smaller government?
Posted by Jill | 11:00 AM

There's something in this lameass idea to offend true conservatives AND cultural laissez-faire liberals (emphases mine):

What should we do with US classics like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof or The Color Purple? "Dig a hole," Gerald Allen recommends, "and dump them in it." Don't laugh. Gerald Allen's book-burying opinions are not a joke.

Earlier this week, Allen got a call from Washington. He will be meeting with President Bush on Monday. I asked him if this was his first invitation to the White House. "Oh no," he laughs. "It's my fifth meeting with Mr Bush."

Bush is interested in Allen's opinions because Allen is an elected Republican representative in the Alabama state legislature. He is Bush's base. Last week, Bush's base introduced a bill that would ban the use of state funds to purchase any books or other materials that "promote homosexuality". Allen does not want taxpayers' money to support "positive depictions of homosexuality as an alternative lifestyle". That's why Tennessee Williams and Alice Walker have got to go.

I ask Allen what prompted this bill. Was one of his children exposed to something in school that he considered inappropriate? Did he see some flamingly gay book displayed prominently at the public library?

No, nothing like that. "It was election day," he explains. Last month, "14 states passed referendums defining marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman". Exit polls asked people what they considered the most important issue, and "moral values in this country" were "the top of the list".

"Traditional family values are under attack," Allen informs me. They've been under attack "for the last 40 years". The enemy, this time, is not al-Qaida. The axis of evil is "Hollywood, the music industry". We have an obligation to "save society from moral destruction". We have to prevent liberal libarians and trendy teachers from "re-engineering society's fabric in the minds of our children".


Read the whole thing. It's horrifying.

At one time, this would be the kind of raving from an obvious closet case that we'd laugh at. No more. These guys are deadly serious, and they feel strongly that Bush owes them one. And anything anti-gay is regarded by the Bush administration as a cheap "gimme" they can toss at the fundie closet case wingnuts to stave off their REAL agenda for a little while, until they create enough of a police state that they won't have to worry about it hurting them in the 2006 midterm elections -- things like mandatory Christian prayer in schools, criminal penalties for both doctors and women who seek abortions once Roe v. Wade is overturned, allowing only broadcasts that are acceptable to these people.

All I can tell you is do NOT think that just because you are not gay, it's OK to tolerate this. Gays are the Jews of the Bush Reich, and I am in no way convinced that they are not headed for the same fate once these people get their way. And in a second Bush term, they just might. All they have to do is continue hammering the idea that gay = 9/11. It worked for Iraq, didn't it?

If you're gay, you're already speaking out. If you're not, you cannot afford to be silent on this. Today it's gays. Tomorrow it'll be all of us who are not right-wing fundamentalist Christians.
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