Religion Promoting Hate

A worldview can be defined as a person’s or a collective’s beliefs, values or attitudes. The Southern Poverty Law Center has defined a hate group as one with “beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.” Connect religion with politics in P-B with another defining characteristic of P-B, the other and we have a toxic mix leading to self-destructive behavior. Tim Rutten’s editorial provides the facts with which to make our case.

“The Family Research Council [note that the name gives the lie to its true purpose] is an influential Washington-based advocacy group with deep roots in the religious right. Its annual political forum, the Values Voter Summit, has become a nearly obligatory step for ambitious Republican office-seekers hoping to win the support of so-called values voters.” The Southern Poverty Law Center has added The Family Research Council to its list of 930 active hate groups in the United States. Why?

Which fellow Americans do conservative Christians see as the other? Which exhibit unacceptable behavior in the eyes of the morally upright? “…the council has given an increasing share of its attention to opposing marriage equality and open military service by gays and lesbians.”

The council is associated with evangelical Protestantism and easily qualifies as a hate group. “…it has published statistical compendiums purporting to quantify the ‘evils of homosexuality.’ One of its pamphlets is titled. ‘Dark Obsession: The Tragedy and Threat of the Homosexual Lifestyle.’ At various times, its spokesmen have spuriously alleged that the gay rights movement’s goal ‘is to go after children’ and that child molestation is more likely to occur in households with gay parents.”

Under the cloak of religion The Family Research Council has been getting away with violating the civil rights of many Americans that it seeks to segregate, vilify and label the other. The beliefs and values of this organization that it says represent Judeo-Christian values, in fact, do not. This organization, this cancer, which seeks to sow discord and disorder within the American community, is a terrorist organization that should face the surgical procedures of the American legal system.  The sooner the better.

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References and notes are available for this essay.
Find a much more in-depth discussion in books by Roy Charles Henry:
Where Am I?  The First Great Question Concerning the Nature of Reality
Simple Reality: The Key to Serenity and Survival