About Radical Christian Craziness

Via Dispatches from the Culture Wars:

This was so perfect that I had to edit my speech for Wednesday night to include it. From anti-gay whacko James Hartline and quoted, naturally, in the Worldnutdaily:

"The American Civil Liberties Union has done everything possible to destroy Christianity in the American culture and government. From tearing down crosses on public property to removing crosses and the Ten Commandments from governmental buildings, there has been no greater hate machine against our constitutional right to free religious expression in America than the ACLU!" Hartline said.

Notice how he shifts ground, using examples of government religious expression and then claiming that the ACLU is out to destroy individual religious expression? That's standard operating procedure for the ACLU haters.

This sort of conflation shouldn't come as a surprise when you realize that "Conservative Protestants' Religious Beliefs Contribute to Their Low Wealth", and that education and wealth are good indicators of each other. From the actual paper (free access!):

Low educational attainment is an important reason for low CP [Conservative Protestant] wealth. There is long-standing evidence that religion affects education (Glenn and Hyland 1967; Greeley 1969; Lenski 1961), and recent research shows that CPs complete comparatively low levels of schooling (Darnell and Sherkat 1997; Sherkat and Ellison 1999). CP cultural orientations tend to be at odds with the approaches of nonreligious schools and universities that propagate secular humanist values (Sikkink 1999) and promote scientific investigation rather than acceptance of divine truths (Darnell and Sherkat 1997). ... As a result, educational attainment for CPs is significantly lower than for members of other faiths (Darnell and Sherkat 1997), declining most noticeably after high school (Lehrer 1999).

To some people, the conflation that Ed outlines is non-existent. They only see government interfering with their "God-given" rights (through a "Christian-influenced" Constitution) of freedom of religion. The way to deal with these sorts of anti-ACLU accusations from such Conservative Protestants (wingnuts thought they may be) may well be to follow the advice that Cortunix suggests over at his blog:

Some people only know the language of power. They see conciliation and compromise as weakness. Show strength. If they are sissies hiding behind machismo, slam them hard. You have nothing to lose. Some will convert and come to your side. Some will go cower in the corner. None will hang around risking your anger for very long.

I mean, we aren't trying to "convert the choir" with the issues of public displays of religion; proselytization in schools; accusations of a "homosexual agenda"; the mythology of the United States being founded as a "Christian nation"; and others. Why not use their own tactics of bluster and steam-rolling (which they can understand) against them? (Of course, make sure we have all our facts correct at the get-go.)