I posted the other day about how far some on the Far Right will go to confront the growing acceptance of Gay, Lesbian, Bi, Trans and Queers and Full Equality. My partner read the post, and it made him cringe just to think about it. “This is terrorism” he said, and there is no real way to protect yourself, is there?

My point was not to raise fear and promote victimhood. My point was that as activists seek full equality (and of course we should) we have to also recognize that there must be a similar and prevailing cultural movement of acceptance. This doesn’t mean to wait for Equality, but it does mean to recognize that simply getting laws passed and court cases won isn’t the whole answer.

When  Religious Extremists and those on the Religious Right more generally call Marriage Equality, the hill upon which they will die, what does that mean? Is it false rhetoric, or just how far will people go, and what will be the impact? Consider what has happened since the passage of Roe v Wade. As recently as 2009, a doctor willing to provide abortions was assassinated, and many conservative legislatures and governors have bulldozed through laws to effectively make it impossible for a woman to seek a safe abortion. Screw a Supreme Court decision- those opposed to a woman’s right to make choices about her own reproductive health, have continued to erode what is legal. Will we see this type of guerrilla warfare against LGBT Equality?

So, I spent a few evenings researching racial violence, focusing on what was happening around the time of the Little Rock Nine , and looking at the History of lynching. Can you believe that the last reported lynching is as recent as 1981? I was a Junior in college at the time. I was only two weeks old at the time of the action in Arkansas. How is it that in those 24 years, a level of rage and hate can continue to smolder, fester, and cause such pain?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDglb9vdvo0[/youtube]

In 1981, a trial of Josephus Anderson, an African American charged with the murder of a white policeman, took place in Mobile. While Anderson was convicted at a subsequent trial, this one ended without the jury reaching a verdict. The mistrial upset members of the United Klans of America who believed that the reason for the lack of decision was that some members of the jury were African Americans. At a meeting held after the mistrial, Bennie Hays, the second-highest-ranking official in the United Klans in Alabama, said: “If a black man can get away with killing a white man, we ought to be able to get away with killing a black man.”[3]

The same night other Klan members burnt a three-foot cross on the Mobile County courthouse lawn. Bennie Hays’ son, Henry Hays (age 26), and James Llewellyn “Tiger” Knowles (age 17) drove around Mobile looking for a victim.[4][5] Picked at random, they spotted Michael Donald walking home from getting his sister a pack of cigarettes. They kidnapped him, drove out to a secluded area in the woods, attacked him and beat him with a tree limb. They wrapped a rope around his neck, and pulled on it to strangle him, before slitting his throat and hanging him from a tree across the street from Hays’ house.[4]

This is the growing push for an American Theocracy where the religious views of a few are more important than the laws of a nation. While the Virginia Pastor will serve 27 months for the kidnapping, at his sentencing, he made it clear that he could do it again, and in a statement since then, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, endorsed this illegal behavior as the only acceptable way for a Christian to respond.

Miller told the judge he ‘couldn’t promise’ that he would never again help a parent smuggle a son or daughter out of the country. He saw, as so many of us do, a vulnerable child–and a government bent on redefining family law to the exclusion of the actual parents. ‘I give myself unto you to do with me as you see fit,’ an emotional Miller told the court. To many of us, the pastor’s predicament seems extreme–but a day may come when we all have to make a similar choice.

But under an administration as hostile to faith as this one is, Christians may soon find themselves in the same position of breaking an unjust law. Will you have the courage to do what Kenneth Miller did? Don’t wait until the moment is upon you before contemplating this. Are you willing to accept the penalty instead of compromising your principles?

The best defense against these extremist zealots, is to continue to broaden cultural support for acceptance of all LGBT persons. The more acceptance and respect are the cultural norm, then the more the extremists are at the fringe and less comfortable acting out in illegal and dangerous ways.

Photo by: By kalebdf