Conservatives and Christians More Inclusive, Tolerant Than Progressives?
It certainly seems so
This week has been very revealing in terms of what conservatives actually think and what progressives imagine we think. The “big” question that kicked it all off was “would you attend a gay wedding?” This was, apparently, supposed to separate the knuckle-dragging haters on the right from the sophisticated and pious leftists. John Nolte writes:
Another Republican presidential hopeful, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, made all kinds of headlines when he said something that would not surprise anyone who has spent any amount of time with a conservative Christian — that he would attend a same sex wedding. Out here in the real world this is a dog-bites-man story. Nevertheless, our media considered it as newsworthy as the sinking of the Titanic.
And that’s the problem. As surreal as it seems to most of us on the right, the leftist media and progressive groups actually believe that we have such hate in our hearts that we wouldn’t support our own friends and family members should they be gay. This is, after all, a very different question than whether or not gay “marriage” should be legal. At least it is to us.
This fundamental misunderstanding of conservatives seems more than a simple political weapon designed to rally progressives against those (supposedly) intolerant, nasty Republicans. The conviction with which they approach such topics–so certain that some candidate’s willingness to attend a gay friend’s wedding will instill in the base a violent disgust–suggests that they really believe their own myths about us.
They can’t see anything but their own bias, so when Ted Cruz attends a reception hosted by conservative gay businessmen, leftists go nuts. To them, the fact that Cruz attends functions hosted by gay businessmen doesn’t show that he’s not “homophobic” or that he doesn’t “hate” gay people.
In fact, in some way that I can’t quite fathom, it seems to mean that the gay businessmen are somehow culpable in Ted Cruz’s “hate.” Or something. From Hot Air:
I actually predicted yesterday that that NYT story would hurt the businessmen more than it would hurt Cruz because I remembered what a gay conservative once told me. Conservative are more likely to accept me as gay, he claimed, than gays are to accept me as conservative . . . . It used to be that many straights viewed gays as so far beneath contempt that they wouldn’t want to shake their hands or invite them into their living rooms. Fifty years of the gay-rights movement has changed that, not universally but enough that the GOP’s leading “true conservative” candidate for president would be willing to attend a campaign reception in a gay businessman’s home. An ironic monument to “progress”:
Then we cap off an interesting week with the Diane Sawyer interview in which Bruce Jenner came out . . . as a conservative Republican. The startling thing was not that he’s a pre-op transgender person but that he’s a conservative.
The left, as you can imagine, were not happy, according to Ed Morrissey: “Tolerance? Not so much. Prior to the interview airing, progressives on Twitter offered lots of support for Jenner, and plenty of predictions about how conservatives would heap scorn on Jenner. After Jenner truly came out, their tone changed considerably . . . “.
The Blaze has some of the vitriol on Twitter that was flung by the tolerant left when they learned that Jenner is a conservative Republican who has the audacity to “believe in the Constitution”:
Even Sawyer herself was shocked and horrified to learn this news; her voice rises significantly as she asks, “Are you a Republican?” as if she can’t quite believe her ears. From Aly Weisman’s Bruce Jenner: I’m a transgender Conservative Republican:
When Sawyer asked if Jenner cheered when Obama became the first president to even say the word “transgender” in a State of the Union address, the 65-year-old replied that he “would certainly give him credit for that.”
“But not to get political,” Jenner continued, “I’ve never been a big fan, I’m kind of more on the conservative side.”
“Are your a Republican?” Sawyer asked in response, to which Jenner replied, “Yeah! Is that a bad thing? I believe in the constitution.”
“Do you think that would be an unsettling thing for some people in the conservative wing of the party?” Sawyer asked.
“I’ve thought about that,” says Jenner, adding that neither political party has a monopoly on understanding.
Here’s the video from the Weisman piece:
There may be some in the conservative wing of the party who are unsettled by this, but all things considered, I have to agree with Nolte’s assessment:
Unlike the elite media, conservatives and Christians are the true liberals. We’re the ones able to separate one’s politics and identity from one’s humanity.
Bruce Jenner is about to discover that conservatives and Christians will be much more tolerant towards his transitioning than so-called progressives are of his political beliefs.
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Comments
“The conviction with which they approach such topics…suggests that they really believe their own myths about us.”
Wul, duh.
Collectivists live in an artificial UNreality of their own very careful crafting. Get that clear. Say it until it sinks in.
Without that realization, you cannot begin to cope with Collectivism. You’ll simply read or view stuff and scratch your head in confused wonderment.
A BIG part of how they view the world is through their “projector”…which is the image of their OWN conduct projected onto you and me, their own attitudes, etc.
And this is what’s funny; we can live happily with people who disagree with us, but who will not seek to impose on us.
They CANNOT live happily with people who disagree. We are a constant threat to their UNreality. And imposing that on us is ESSENTIAL to them.
So what you’re saying is haters gonna hate, right?
More “totalitarians gotta total”.
….ish.
I bow to your superior intellect. 🙂
..”the elite media” and “collectivists” are gonna hate……
You somewhat summarized EVERYTHING that’s wrong with the “progressive” mindset.
I thank you for that.
And, boy! Will I be quoting this.
But here’s the thing, Rags, Dem operatives actually know the difference. There’ve been Dems on the record saying that they only use the race card because it rallies their base; heck, we have Harry Reid gloating that his lie on the Senate floor about Romney not paying taxes was part of the reason he lost (I’m not sure about that, but Dirty Harry sure seems to be).
The Hillary Clintons and the Elizabeth Warrens know what they are saying is mostly crap fodder for their adoring masses (i.e. the voting base promised unicorns and happy rainbows under the cowboy poet sky). They know it. It’s the ones who don’t that worry me (ahem Obama, cough Diane Sawyer).
The people who are dim enough to buy into something that even they must know started as Alinsky- / Soviet- style propaganda . . . they’re dangerous.
The “Collectivists” and “elite media” are truly the chained-all-their-life-in-the-cave people of Plato.
“The Allegory of the Cave (also titled Plato’s Cave or Parable of the Cave) is presented by the Greek philosopher Plato in his work The Republic (514a–520a) to compare “…the effect of education (παιδεία) and the lack of it on our nature”. ….
“Plato has Socrates describe a gathering of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall by things passing in front of a fire behind them, and begin to designate names to these shadows. The shadows are as close as the prisoners get to viewing reality. He then explains how the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on the wall do not make up reality at all, as he can perceive the true form of reality rather than the mere shadows seen by the prisoners.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave
It’s time all of this microaggression by conservatives, against the fragile progressives, comes to an end. If conservatives can’t avoid offending, they should at least give trigger warnings so the offenderati can be prepared.
Exploding liberal heads can be messy.
I think we should give them all nice plastic bags for their heads. You know, as a sign of our sensitivity to their angst.
For the extremely environmentally sensitive, we should substitute nice bags made from baby seal bladders.
The soy milk of human kindness demands no less….
The Left, such as it is, is always all about control! “They” cannot abide the individualism, and its associated freedoms, that conservative politics desires and tries to achieve.
The Left truly does want more leaders of its people’s band, those magnificent and gifted ones, like Attila and Mao. Plus, substitute the words “socialism” in place of “segregation” and Gov. Wallace would have been a true hero to the Democrats.
“There may be some in the conservative wing of the party who are unsettled by this,”
There’s one over on the Twirchy tread that sounds like she goes to Westboro. She even likes to use incomplete, out of context, bible quotations. Saying that everyone that disagrees with her on this are Satan’s spawn.
http://hotair.com/archives/2015/04/26/gofundme-yanks-sweet-cakes-bakery-campaign/
Looks like “gofundme” is demanding some competition…
I think we should provide it.
As a conservative, I’m more than happy to have Bruce Jenner join our cause. His gender issues are his own business. I just wish every other American had the good sense to support the constitution — no matter what gender they are, or want to be.
You sir, are not a conservative – you just play one from your keyboard. Jenner is a disgrace and an affront to his Creator. Such people deserve minimum pity and no celebration/publicity.
Well, just FYI, I agree generally with Observer.
As to Jenner, I pity the foo, as Mr. T would say. But his pathologies are his own, and he’s paying for them (in every possible way, it appears).
Anybody who loves the Constitution is part of my tribe.
My troll woke up…finally. Another foo I pity…
Is Jenner advocating depriving you of life, liberty or property through force or fraud?
Your comment, though posted as a reply to mine, is not in any way responsive to it.
Why did his Creator make him feel so much at odds with his body? Why does the Creator make little girls who insist they’re boys when they have barely learned the difference and who are distressed at being made to wear feminine clothes? Why does the Creator make hermaphrodites?
When the Creator makes people without legs, is it wrong to give them artificial ones? When the Creator makes people without hearing, is it wrong to give them cochlear implants? Etc.
Your comment indicates that you take no responsibility for anything you are. Nobody “made” him defective; he just likes being defective. My comment said essentially that the most merciful way to deal with him bastardizing his celebrity is to deny him publicity. As long as he thinks his attitude is not his responsibility, he won’t try to get treated for his mental illness. People who put him on TV are no different than the freakshows of the traveling circuses of the 1800s.
I bet nobody directs his attention to those guys who have mutilated their bodies and regretted it shortly afterward. A lot of them are dead by suicide and the notes some left talk about how it was all a deception.
Go ahead and justify letting someone irrevocably damage and/or destroy himself. You’ll sleep fine in your self-righteousness.
The universal psychosis is hypocrisy-saying one thing and then doing another-which is to say that one is not, “loving your neighbor as yourself”. Just ask the white-washed tombs.
One pedestrian way to put the vast delta of societal acceptance in our culture, at least from a Christian perspective, is to say, “Progressives prey on you. Christians pray for you.”
Now, extrapolate the following statement of Nolte’s to foreign affairs and see that a similar delta exists in current foreign affairs:
“Unlike the elite media, conservatives and Christians are the true liberals. We’re the ones able to separate one’s politics and identity from one’s humanity.”
There are the obstinate and intolerant religious Progressives (Radical Islam) who demand theocracy and there are the true ‘liberals’ who are able to separate church and state and yet hold both in tension as valuable, accountable and necessary. Religion supplies the moral component to the republic. The state supplies religious freedom among other freedoms and their necessary protections.
Radical Islam will not separate church and state. The fallout of their willful and deadly intolerance of a humanity without an Allah tied around its neck will lead to more beheadings and to the greatest war the world has ever known.
Well, all I know is that like any man, conservative or liberal, sometimes I like to feel pretty. How I dress when I’m posting is nobody’s business but my own, yet it is conservatives who would be most understanding and inclusive if they saw the videos.
I know my conservative buds on this site will back me up on this. Right guys? Guys?
As they say, pretty is in the eye of the beholder. Let’s see the videos, Henry.
Personally, I’m not optimistic it will be pretty.
I have three. Pick one: (1) summer chiffon, (2) little black dress, (3)honky tonk bridesmaid.
I have meny others, but you just slow down, tiger.
Well, there went breakfast.
I just heard my chainsaw call my name…
Always repeat this mantra, probably at least 17-times each morning upon awakening: Blog reviews first, then breakfast!
See, issue resolved, neatly too! And, no more “spit up” cleanup necessary.
Unless you are in need of diet aids.
Mission accomplished.
How do you look in puce moo moos? We need some selfies.
Just for you Henry:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mL7n5mEmXJo
??? I am NOT the mumu sort, thank you very much. Harrumph.
Love me some MP.
How about a Kenyan caftan? I think those are uni-sexual…or is that bi-sexual? Mono-sexual? Oh well……..
Bob Rivers has your, er back.
https://youtu.be/r9URPvejWHk
I’m married to a German. She knew a cop who was a transsexual. As a matter of fact, this woman made the transition while on the force. I can’t imagine the crap she had to put up with.
But I digress.
We had an informal reception and my bride decided to invite the transsexual woman. When she got the invite, she insisted, and I mean INSISTED, that she play the music at our party.
Hey, whatever. I was good with it.
The day arrived and she showed up for the reception. One of the nicest people I have ever met. Truly happy for our wedding. Friendly. Open. Very giving.
Dressed very nicely IIRC. Nice dress.
And one of the ugliest women I have ever seen EVER. She was ugly to begin with, THEN someone beat her with an ugly stick.
Henry, nothing personal, but that’s what popped into my mind when I read your post.
😉
I think we lost Henry. Sad.
Come to the frilly side, ya big platypussy.
🙂
It’s ironic that the trans-equality movement not only demands conformity, but uses political, social, and economic bullying to shame and prevent men and women from seeking treatment for their psychosis.
Principled tolerance, not selective exclusion. The trans-equality, as well as the selective-child, people are creating moral hazards through pro-choice policies, which they seem intent on leaving to [unplanned] Posterity to reconcile.
Too many labels. Socially approved choices. The social complex is creating a lot of victims in addition to the nearly 100% collateral damage of its abortion industry subsidiary.
It’s rare and encouraging to see a thoughtful debate in a blog comments section. Somebody must be minding the store.
I hope you’ll forgive me for shopping a book, but I think there’s some relevance (which I will attempt to establish at the end).
“Finding Truth”, Nancy Pearcey
http://www.amazon.com/Finding-Truth-Principles-Secularism-Substitutes-ebook/dp/B00QN345NG/
There may be other books like this, but I haven’t found them. A brief review follows.
It’s 373 pages, consisting of 277 pages of text, 46 pages of footnotes, 4 pages of appendix, 4 pages of acknowledgements, 42 pages of study guide, and several pages of index. I would say it’s aimed at the level of a college-bound high school graduate.
The main foundation of the book is Romans 1, from which the author derives 5 principals:
1. Identify the idol
The evidence of God’s existence and nature is all around (and within) us.
“… that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.”
Wanting to go our own way, we have rejected God, and have replaced him with idols.
“Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.”
The first commandment is unsurprisingly the foundation for all the others.
2. Identify the idol’s reductionism
When we replace the source of ultimate truth with an idol we create a worldview, which is like a box into which we try to fit the world. However, no finite box is able to hold all truth. Therefore we suppress the truth.
” For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness …”
We eliminate the part of the truth which doesn’t fit in our box. This is called “reductionism”. Materialists deny the existence of soul, spirit, love, purpose, meaning, etc.
3. Test the idol: Does it contradict what we know about the world?
But we are constantly surrounded by evidence that our reductionism is false. Materialists love their children, find a reason to get out of bed in the morning, etc.
4. Test the idol: Does it contradict itself?
The finite box cannot contain itself. There is no place in the materialist box for reason itself, thus making the arguments of materialists self-refuting.
5. Replace the idol: Make the case for Christianity
Our calling consists of more than simply tearing down false worldviews. We must lead people to the source of ultimate truth and help them apply it to their lives.
Pearcey goes through history describing the sources of the many false worldviews which populate our culture. While I find that part of the book fascinating, it’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea.
Here are the kind of people I think would benefit from this book:
Teachers
Students – particularly those about to enter the challenging environment (i.e. cesspool) of our higher education system
Parents of those students – who have a responsibility to help their children choose a school wisely, and who will be contributing vast sums of money to the “challenging environment”
Church leaders and staff – who will be advising all the above
This book is more about apologetics than evangelism. It is more vaccine than cure. But one of the most pressing issues of today is that the Church is losing its children to the spirit of our age. These arguments will not automatically stop a young person who is determined to commit sin from embracing one of our culture’s idols, but it may make it just enough more difficult for him or her to ignore the truth.
Relevance: Jenner doesn’t fit into the leftist box. Therefore he must be eliminated.
I know a conservative Christian who lent a sympathetic ear to an acquaintance who was having relationship trouble with her lesbian partner, the birth-mother of the child they were raising together. No matter that he didn’t think two women should be “co-parents” to a child; there was a human situation where someone was having difficulty, so he offered what suggestions he could to make it better.
She said he was the only person she had been able to talk to about the problem, and later thanked him for his helpful advice.
I’ve seen the same kind of behavior by other conservative Christians: they may disapprove of your lifestyle choices but they understand that they cannot force you to choose differently, so they’ll treat you in a way that might make your life a little better, not worse.
Of course, that kind of personal charity is not the same as actively supporting the redefinition of a social institution — a redefinition that even gay-rights activists thought was ridiculous until recently.
Love the sinner, hate the sin.
Dianne Sawyer always looks grimacing from constipation and I’ll bet it went on steroids when Bruce-ums outed himself as a constitution honoring, conservative Republican. OOOOoooooooooooo, Dianne—HoneyBuns—your openness and tolerance mythology is showing!!
CANNOT possibly make this s*** up!!
Did you notice that everybody seems to be blindly accepting as truth what this mentally ill person (who lies about what he is) says? A guy who lies about something as basic as gender somehow tells the truth about conservatism. That’s like a guy cheating on his wife and after she leaves he marries his side girl. Later he is shocked that she cheats on him.
Sorry, I think he was having fun fooling Diane Dumbass Sawyer who has no idea what the real world is like.
One more thing: PLAGAL (Pro Life Alliance of Gays And Lesbians) spoke at Cornell about 10 years ago. The speaker said she got more flak from the gay side than the Christian side – even though gays have no particular dog in that fight.
They’ll have a big dog in that fight if a rainbow gene is ever found. And they’ll be crawling on their bellies swearing they really didn’t support babykilling.
The PLAGAL speaker mentioned that too. Simple logic.
In 1993 there was a play, “The Twilight of the Golds.” It takes place in the near future, when genetic testing can predict the orientation of an unborn child. Mr. and Mrs. Gold debate whether or not they should abort a gay son. It is only a short amount of time before this isn’t science fiction anymore. Today, it is not uncommon in parts of the world to abort a child for being female.
They’d never allow that in the West. Aborting a male child would probably be ok though.
It would seem that “we,” the collective identified as those many who comment on this most excellent blog, otherwise known as Legal Insurrection, perhaps the top legal blog on Plane Earth, have somehow lost the ability to recognize how to do a “reply” to others. It’s almost as though we’re commenting on old fashioned blogs, like that of Althouse, an otherwise excellent, and much older, legal blog.
Rags: I was responding to you, and it was meant to be a somewhat humorous comment, meant to illicit a chuckle and not to offend anyone. But, no, I would never be a troll to your comments because that is not my style. Besides, your comments are usually most deep and quite pithy; some exceptions might apply, as did that one I replied to. Plus, most, but not all, of your comments are such that I would agree with them.
By advised that while this comment is long winded, in a sense, it could have been pared down to a most succulent, concise, and highly targeted reply.
Incidentally, if you ever start your own independent blog, I’ll follow it.
Doug…I think our friend’s I.D.Comment was re-Platypuss.
Nice thought yet not clear at all. Still, you’re correct that he is a valued friend.
Dude, I’m at a loss here. I’ve seen nothing to which I’d take any exception posted by you.
Besides, you may have noted that my hide…and my frontal plate…is thick.
But, seriously, no worries!
Rags…I’ve been working with traumatic brain injured guys for the last 2-years(Hey, it helps make ‘amends’ for 40-years helping make Steaming Piles of TV Trash!!)and the more I’m around the ‘Wackos’, the more I identify with them. ((-:
(*One further observation re-Film & Traumatic Brain Injury Guys: They have MUCH in common with some ‘stars’ I’ve worked with. Hey, just saying..*)
“Another Republican presidential hopeful, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, made all kinds of headlines when he said something that would not surprise anyone who has spent any amount of time with a conservative Christian — that he would attend a same sex wedding.”
How is that not “participating” in the gay wedding? Isn’t Sen. Rubio showing approval for “sin”? At least Sen. Rubio isn’t as close-minded as those stupid bakers we are always talking about here…
Many thanks to the pet troll for providing himself as another example of ignorance regarding Christianity.
Dang it, Gibbie, you beat me to it. 😉
As far as the transsexual issue is concerned, I’ve never been in Jenner’s corner. I wouldn’t stop him, but I believe that the way to figure out what sex you are is to get naked and stand in front of a mirror. Any confusion in your head has to do with other issues besides your genitalia.
But, I’ve never hated the man.
As far as his political leanings are concerned, at least he’s gotten something right, but it doesn’t change my mind about his perceived sexual identity.
Guess that is the difference between us and progressives.