Focus on the fundies: reclaiming their right to hate

A Georgia college student -- a willing pawn, no doubt, of political rightists who love using cases like this to inflame the people who more or less already rule the culture in the south -- has sued to overturn her school's policy against hate speech. But not because it's a free speech issue. Because she sees it as a drag on her right to religious expression.

This girl, and millions of ignorant people like her, see homosexuality as a sin. And their religious tradition -- if not Jesus himself, who is noted for saying to people who would condemn others' immorality "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" -- demands they vocally condemn others for violating their religious codes. They feel the Georgia Tech ban against hate speech against homosexuals to be in conflict with this quaint custom, though you'd think these "Christians" would be able to express their disdain without it rising to the level of actual hate speech.

Anyway, the point is that they see this as a matter of whether they have "the right to be Christian." Yeah, that's how my old man saw it too. He was always ready to let others know when they were deviating. And I was glad when he died.

In a related story (courtesy Mediabistro), the husband-and-wife editors of a pentacostal college's newspaper were fired by administrators last week for giving space to coverage of Soulforce (a pro-gay Christian group headed by a formerly closeted minister who used to be a writer for Pat Robertson).

fundamentalists, free speech, hate speech, Soulforce