Those Peaceful Christians

I watched Bill O'Reilly last night interview actor Kirk Cameron on marriage equality, an interview in which Cameron said that civil marriage is not susceptible to any change because it is ordained by God. Like many of his fellows, Cameron sees no distinction - because there can never be a distinction for fundamentalists - between civil and religious law. To his credit, O'Reilly asked all the right questions of Cameron, but he kept showing that Youtube of a confrontation in the Castro district, as the bars closed. O'Reilly has not shown any images of the hundreds of totally positive, peaceful protests that went on across the country last Saturday. But that clip, like the Jeremiah Wright clips, are being shown over and over again on Fox to polarize the debate, and to whip up fear among conservative Christians.

But who were those people who decided that immediately after the bruising Prop 8 battle, it was necessary to go into the Castro district to urge homosexuals to repent at the very moment on a weekend night when many bar patrons in a nightlife district would be inebriated or otherwise feisty?

The prayer push was totally within their rights, of course, and should not have been impeded. But I think we can say it was not exactly tactful at such a raw moment. As one of their overly-angry protestors put it, "Why here? Why now?' Well: you get some idea by watching where one of them ended up soon after, at an event in Kansas hosted by Christian Dominionist, Lou Engle, of Joel's Army. He is an advocate of total religious war against "demonic" gay people. And one of the young women who went into the gay neighborhood that night calls for a "mass exodus from the demonic influence of the Castro." Dominionists want an end to the Constitution and reimposition of Biblical law. They truly are the American Taliban. And when they go looking for a religious war, Fox News is there to help them.