Compassion v. Hate
I've always enjoyed posting on message boards, but because I enjoy a nice debate, and too many people don't really comprehend what a debate is, I find myself often without one to post on. The one I'm currently using (other than a few I run myself) is one run by what would be considered some "extremist" Christians. By "extremist" I'm using the media's definition, which is actually laughable, since other than a handful of nutcases that few people really consider Christians, what the media portrays as "extremist" Christians are simply those who believe the Bible.
Anyway, the topic of Iran's treatment of homosexuals came up, and the response was rather interesting. "Extremist" Christians are often accused of hating homosexuals and wanting them executed. But the tongue-in-cheek response to the issue of Iran's death penalty for homosexuals was "Let's start with the adulterers..." What the poster meant was sin is sin and if society is willing to tolerate executing people for adultery (and what society ever did within the past 500 years?) then they can talk about execution for other moral sins.
Several years ago I participated in a message board specifically for debating religion and homosexuality. In was a lively discussion. One morning, though, the debate was interrupted as terrorists flew airplanes into buildings--that would have been September 11, 2001. One of the homosexuals who posted frequently and also lived in New York, wrote to say that while he was okay his "partner" was missing. Immediately the Christians that had been debating him, sent notes of encouragement, concern and told him they were praying for his friend's safety. While there were other homosexuals and Liberals who participated, defending homosexuality as moral, they oddly remained silent. Finally the man posted that his "partner" had managed to contact him, and he was okay. After that, though, the "fire" had gone out of many of the homosexuals who posted, because they saw that rather than being hate-filled bigots, those they were debating against were more willing to show love and compassion than those taking their side. The debate never again rose to the level it had, and the site itself closed down a few months later as the company hosting it closed down in the wake of 9/11.
We are now in a war against people that see all homosexuals as criminals needing death, and all women as chattel to be hidden and subdued. While the term "extremist" means little when referring to Christians, it marks a wide difference between mainstream Islam, and those that use it to further violence and bloodshed. But isn't it interesting that the Left are so willing for us to cut and run, and abandon those they claim to have such compassion for?
Few noted that while Matthew Shepherd became a martyr for "hate crimes" the reality was that those that killed him received a more lenient sentence than the vast majority on the right wished for. The two murderers, indeed, should have been executed for the crime. It was the "compassionate" left that pushed a prison sentence instead.
As I noted on my blog a while back...
Now, me, when four Black girls beat three white women while shouting racial slurs, I would call that a hate crime, but the police, using their amazing powers of "discernment" labeled it a mere assault, and the girls were given minimal sentences.
When a homosexual man raped, stabbed, strangled and beat a coworker who he knew was a devout Catholic, because he disagreed with her religious views, then stuffed her bloody body in a crawl space under the floor of his apartment, I would have thought it was a hate crime. But no, the police said it was just another murder.
When three self-proclaimed Satanists burned nine churches to the ground, me, in my naïveté assumed it was definitely a hate crime. But no, the police in their inimitable wisdom declared that it was merely a college prank.
When a gunman, shouting anti-Christian slurs, murdered nine church members in a Fort Worth church, I also, foolishly, assumed it would have been hate crime. But, once again, the police declared that the incident was definitely not a hate crime, but simply the act of a deranged man.
In the news a while back Senate Democrats attached their so-called hate-crime amendment to an appropriations bill for our military in Iraq, attempting to hold our troops for hostage to force an unconstitutional law down America's throat. Those in the Middle East that enjoy hanging homosexuals benefited as military appropriations were held up. It passed the Senate, which forced Bush to veto it, and therefore delayed funding for the troops. Bush wisely vetoed it every time, because law enforcement has demonstrated, as I pointed out above, that "hate crimes" are arbitrarily and capriciously determined, making them meaningless and abusive.
Ultimately neither the House nor the Senate were willing to show true compassion, both for the troops as well as for Americans who will suffer from a bad law that should never have made it out of either house.
America needs more protection from the "compassion" of Liberals than from the "hate" of those that Liberals themselves obviously hate.
Posted by Danny Carlton at April 11, 2008 8:15 AM