A Good Year for the Outlaw

So James Dobson, the vile leader of the wrongly-named “Focus On The Family”, is pretty upset at John Conyers’ bill regarding Hate Crimes. Is the bill perfect? Of course not, it’s hard to find a perfect piece of legislation. But it’s a damn good start. And Dobson’s anger is ironic, as Stephen Colbert succinctly put it to words last night, in that perfect Colbert way:

 ”…this law could discriminate against Conservative Christians by taking away their right to discriminate against homosexuals…”

Check out the hilarity here:

 http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/player.jhtml?ml_video=86308

 A couple of months ago, Colbert hosted author Chris Hedges, and they talked about Hedges’ new book “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America”.

Here are some quotes by Hedges from that interview:

“Well, because what they have done is pervert, destroy, and hollow out the actual heart of the Christian religion. I mean look at the little empires that people like James Dobson or Pat Robertson run. They are despotic, Third World fiefdoms where these guys fly around with bodyguards and Lear Jets and amass hundreds of millions of dollars taken from — people who live on the margins of American society.”

and this:

“I mean the image that they present of Jesus and of the Christian is essentially a warrior cult. I mean, it is that obsession with violence, it’s that notion that America can use its imperial power and use its violence to create a Christian society. They condemn other ways of being other religion as satanic, I mean, they’re constantly blasting Islam, nominal Christians, liberals, it is a message that’s deeply anti-Christian and I think filled with a lot of bigotry and a lot of intolerance.”

I have to agree with Hedges wholeheartedly here. I have stated before, I am agnostic, I haven’t made up my mind. But I HAVE made up my mind about the Dobsons and Falwells and Ted Haggards of the world. They do more to HURT christianity than they do to help it. Reasonable folks like B.J. Aberle and C.J. Summers, whom I’ve had civil discussions with, should not be lumped into the group of fundamentalists that are ruining the country right now. And the good christians who have their hearts and minds in the right place should denounce these vile creatures like Dobson.