Compare and Contrast

From Right Wing Watch:

Today on “The 700 Club,” televangelist Pat Robertson reacted to the massacre at an Orlando gay club by making the absurd claim that liberal LGBT rights advocates have aligned themselves with radical Islamists and are now reaping what they have sowed.

Robertson said that liberals are facing a “dilemma” because they love both LGBT equality and Islamic extremism, and that it is better for conservatives like himself not to get involved but to instead just watch the two groups kill each other.

“The left is having a dilemma of major proportions and I think for those of us who disagree with some of their policies, the best thing to do is to sit on the sidelines and let them kill themselves,” he said.

I used to make excuses for Pat Robertson on the grounds of senility. I can't any more -- the man has really become nothing more than distilled poison that comes out every time he opens his mouth. And, like all "Christians," facts have no bearing. There's more at the link, if you can stand it.

Oh, and this is rich:

Ri-i-i-ght.

The antidote:

Like you, I am sickened by the news that a terrorist killed 49 people and wounded 53 more in Orlando. in the most deadly shooting in American history. Naturally, we each ask ourselves, what can you possibly say in the face of horror? But then sadly you realize you know what to say because it’s been said too many times before.

You have a pretty good idea what most people are going to say. You know a president, whoever it is, will be saying. You know what both sides of the political aisle will say. You know what gun manufacturers will say. Even me, with a silly show like this, you have some idea of what I will say. Because even I have talked about this when it’s happened before.

It’s as if there is a national script that we have learned. And I think by accepting the script we tacitly accept that the script will end the same way every time, with nothing changing. Except for the loved ones of the families and the victims for whom nothing will ever be the same.

It’s easy, it’s almost tempting to be paralyzed by such a monstrously hateful act, to despair and say, well, that’s the way the world is now.

Well I don’t know what to do, but I do know that despair is a victory for hate. Hate wants us to be too weak to change anything.

Now these people in Orlando were apparently targeted because of who they love. And there have been outpourings of love throughout the country and around the world. Love in response to hate.

Love does not despair. Love makes us strong. Love gives us the courage to act. Love gives us hope that change is possible. Love allows us to change the script.

So love your country, love your family, love the families of the victims and the people of Orlando, but let’s remember that love is a verb, and to love means to do something.

(Via Box Turtle Bulletin)

Thinking back, I'm reminded of many times that I've heard some of the most dogged anti-gay "Christian" activists insist that their slanders, their distortions, their calls to change something that can't be changed, their insistence that we don't really exist are all born of love. It occurs to me that when your idea of love starts with judgment and ends with condemnation, you've missed the point.

Colbert gets it.