What is the best way to fight against the political power of the right wing Christian extremists?

[Angry Mollusk]

I support a person's right to worship any god- or no god if they so choose- but in recent years I have seen the Bush administration veer to the radical right, and practically become a marionette of the militant Christian Republican zealots. These people are contemptuous of freedom, they demand obedience, and oppose dissent. Issues such as opposition to abortion and gay marriage are thinnly guised movements to force their twisted version of Christianity on eveyone..I had a friend who was savagly beaten by 2 religious nuts because he doesn't worship Jesus.

I'm gay, and have been on the recieving end of threats of violence, and actual violence from radical christian Republicans who called me and my partner every awful name under the sun. These people preach hate....
I don't want to sink to their level, but there must be a way to fight back. How? If the radical Christian Republicans had their way, my partner, me and all gays would be shipped off to death camps....
I wish i could dismiss the Christian right as just a bunch of religious nuts that should be ignored- but they have political power and infliuence- Bush's war on science, war against sex education, distain for gays, and opposition to abortion and stem cell reasearch is all about obeying the radical Christian fringe...
How can we fight back?
I am convinced that many of these Christian zealots support the war in Iraq because Muslims are being killed, and because they are hoping this war will lead to the apocolypse when Jesus comes back- Very scary stuff...

If Obama or clinton are elcted, will they be able to force these Christian right wing extremists back under their rocks?

I'm just tired- I'm tired of these people saying I'm not human, or calling me a deviant. I work hard, pay my taxes and am a good person. Yet time and time again, these right wingers have wished death upon me...

And to think I thought Jesus preached peace, compassion and charity...

[Enrique]

1. Bush actually let them down

and the rank and file is pissed at him and at their own leaders.

They're at a low point in their power. The answer to your question might be to let them destroy themselves, as they've been doing with Ralph Reed, Jack Abramoff, Tom Delay, etc.

[depakid]

2. Ridicule

Marginalize them and relegate them back to the fringe where they belong.

NEVER enable or legitimze their irrational beliefs and point out thier hypocrisy at every turn

Now, if only the Democrats had done that over the past 25 years- America wouldn't be in the sorry shape it in....

[elleng]

3. Dr. George Lakoff (books etc.)

may be of help.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Lakoff

[whistle]

4. Fight back with the truth, expose their lies, corruption and hypocrisy

[Richard Steele]

5. I respectfully refuse to answer that question. nm

[KG]

6. re-education camps.

seriously though, don't expect help from a dem. president. if you've noticed, the dem candidates have been all too happy to pander to the evangelicals.

[Mythsaje]

7. Thankfully most religious folks

aren't on board with the more extreme line of thinking. They can be positively influenced by simple human interaction. Getting to know people who are different as people can bring them around.

The crazies are really on their last legs and I think they know it. The younger generation has become FAR more accepting as a general rule than my generation, and especially my parents' generation. I'm hoping the bigotry starts to fade completely as the old guard starts dying off.

There was a lot of homophobia among my peers. I remember it. I had a friend I think was gay and once he was old enough, he just fell out of contact with the rest of the group--probably afraid how we'd take it. We would've been cool with it, but the environment in general was just so touchy that I understand why he'd have been afraid to come out to us. I would've happily stood up to defend him, but he had no way of knowing that my own travels had introduced me to all sorts of people, including gay and transgendered folk. I learned fairly early on that people are people--gay, straight, black, white, brown, or whatever. Everyone deserves to be treated with civility and respect. Except assholes. They get what they ask for. :D

The kids these days impress the hell out of me. I work with a lot of teenagers and people in their early twenties and we have a few openly gay co-workers and it's all cool. No one treats them any differently than anyone else. The only one who's shown any issue with it at all was a young jock who objected to a gay customer (a friend of one of the employees, as a matter of fact) grabbing his ass. HE, I think, is a bit homophobic, but I don't blame him for getting upset about being grabbed. No one should think it's okay to just start grabbing someone else's butt, no matter their sexual orientation or gender.

But he doesn't object to working with gays, and gets along well with everyone. I think that's an improvement over a lot of the people of my generation, who would've been far nastier about it for no other reason than the plain and simple fear of anything that made them question their own sexuality.

My niece, when she was living with her grandparents at the age of 15, wrote an essay about gay marriage (over the objections of her grandmother) that basically said it was no one else's business and that we should all just butt out. Basically.

What we need to do is keep marginalizing the crazies. We need to keep pointing out how crazy they are, and how their attitudes are hurting everyone. Homosexuality isn't just going to go away. It's always been here and always will be. Using religion as an excuse to treat them like shit is an abdication of personal responsibility. We all have to live together and the ONLY "cure" for gayness is the kind practiced by madmen and savages in places and times we wouldn't want to emulate. Gays are our brothers and sisters and children and neighbors and co-workers and friends and they deserve the same chance at happiness that any of us have and no one's religion has the right to deny that to them.

Or so I see it.

[artemisia1]

11. Great post. /eom

[leftofthedial]

8. we should stage the rapture

they could all disappear overnight and no one would even question it.

[Perry Logan]

9. I'm for taxing the churches. That would drive most of them out of business in a snap.

If the religious folks want to control the government, it's bloody well time to start taxing their asses.

[WilliamPitt]

10. Canvass neighborhoods, sign up new voters, drive people to the polls...

Politics is nose-counting in the main, and the GOP base has all their noses pointing towards the voting booths on election day. They make up 25% of the electorate that actually votes consistently.

Think about that.

You're a GOP candidate for president. You make sure to say all the right things about fetuses and Jesus. When you get out of bed on election day, you can already count on being halfway to victory; with the base on your side, you only need 26% of the national vote to win.

Bush & Co. didn't fall out of the sky. They were installed by the single most reliable voter base in the history of the universe (with a little nudge from the judge, of course).

So. Wear out some shoe leather. There are more of us than there are of them. If we out-body them, we win.

Dig this:

http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/58/18168

Each volunteer was given a specific goal: so many doors per day, per week, per month. They wore out the shoe leather in Troy, Alstead, Swanzey, Keene, Dublin, Jaffrey, getting people to talk about what concerned them in the upcoming election. If people weren't registered, they explained how to register. They let people know that New Hampshire allows same-day voter registration, and if they wanted to, they could go down to their polling place on election day, register right there, and vote.

It worked. On election day 2004, Cheshire County saw the largest voter turnout in recent memory. Some 6,000 unregistered voters came out, people who had not been targeted by any other group because they were not on any voter roll. They registered, and they voted. Cheshire County went blue, and for only the third time since 1948, New Hampshire was won by a Democratic presidential candidate.

One county.

Go go go.

:toast:

P.S. Telling fundies about Constantine and the Council of Nicea does a good number on their brains. "You mean Christmas isn't December 25th? There is no God!!!"

;)