Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Calling Fundies on Their Bullshit

By way of Pandagon, I came across this post by Jim Burroway at Box Turtle Bulletin.

Burroway was reporting from one of those "family values" summits where the panelists devoted their talk to bashing gays and decrying the threat that gay marriage posed to America. During the question and answer portion of the discussion, Burroway relates how a woman named Cathy James identified herself as a lesbian and very eloquently and intelligently challenged the panelists.

You can click on either of the links above to read what Cathy James said, so I won't repeat them here. It is well worth it.

To throw in my own two cents worth, it annoys me when the label "values voters" is used by the media to describe religiously conservative voters. We all have values, whether religious or secular, conservative or liberal. It is our values that inform how we vote and how we conduct ourselves in society. It is not a case of voters with "values" versus other voters without them. Rather it is a matter of competing value systems.

2 comments:

Spanish Inquisitor said...

The ReligioRepubliCons have learned, quite well I'm afraid, how to appropriate language to their benefit. Look at how they throw the word liberal around as if it's somehow a bad thing. They are also the Pro-Life movement, when they are anything but.

To my way of thinking, to say they have values, is to say those values are really skewed.

Andrea said...

Exactly. I just started reading a book about political language and how extremely successful the Right has been in manipulating it. You're right, Tommy - we all have values. The Right's values really suck.