Right Wing "Moderates"

Very interesting post by Fred Clark at Slacktivist on the role "moderate" evangelicals play in the culture wars:

It would be a positive thing if these moderate mainstream white evangelicals, these Very Nice People with their emphasis on civility, were able to provide a challenge to the vitriol, dishonesty and power games of the culture warriors.

But unfortunately, that’s not the role they play most of the time. Most of the time their smiling civility doesn’t provide a challenge to the culture warriors, it provides a cover for them.

He makes a good point.

And a thought: If a bigot is someone who demeans and discriminates against a group of people without any rational reason -- say because of religious belief -- how to these "civil" evangelicals rank? Is it possible to have a Very Nice Bigot?

And that just naturally leads to Maggie Gallagher, the queen of the self-styled "civil" participants in the culture wars. She's now slamming Gov. Chris Christie for signing a bill outlawing "ex-gay" counseling for minors, and she's either very sloppy about it, or deliberately lying. Her opening paragraph is . . . illuminating:

Due to staff error, a statement on Chris Christie’s signing a bill banning all professional counseling for minors unless it is gay-affirming was issued without my consent, or knowledge. I dislike using language that portrays gay people as “homosexuals” who are “tormented” by same-sex desires. For myself, and I speak only for myself, I consider this language condescending to both gay people and to men in general. Among other things, as far as I can see for most men, of whatever orientation or state in life, being tormented by sexual desire is pretty much the human condition for long stretches of life, rather than an unbearable cause for condescending pity.

First off, the "staff error," also known as "it's someone else's fault," which is a staple defense of so-called "conservatives," a/k/a, the party of personal responsibility.

And do I have to comment on her apparent attitude toward men?

This is where she goes totally off the cliff:

Governor Chris Christie has just put his name to a bill that uses the power of government to strip both parents and teenagers of the right to seek competent, professional help to live their life in accordance with their own values. The bill does not ban a specific kind of destructive therapy; it is a blanket ban on any licensed counseling professional helping any teenager who does not wish to act on gay (or transgender) desire. Not only efforts to change orientation but efforts to change behavior are forbidden, under penalty of law.

Governor Christie just endorsed a law that thus excludes many gay teens who wish to live in accordance with Bible-based values from the circle of care; he has outright banned chastity as a goal of counseling. His bill is not only anti-religious, anti-liberty, and anti-family, it is anti-science because it does not permit scientific knowledge to evolve in the hands of competent professionals.

None of that is true. None of it. The last part is hysterically funny: orientation-change therapy has been condemned by every major medical and psychological professional organization in the Western world because it is not scientific, its practitioners are not competent, and it has been shown to be damaging to those who undergo it. Besides, it doesn't work.

Gallagher either didn't read the bill, or she doesn't care what it really says.

Via Box Turtle Bulletin.