A militant is combative and aggressive in supporting a political or social cause, and typically favors extreme, violent, or confrontational methods to achieve their goals. There is a combative and aggressive movement in America that has asserted their cause over the past thirty years and unfortunately for their victims the government has been complicit in their efforts to impose their dogma on the people in violation of the 1st Amendment. Over the past decade, the militant groups’ victims have found the courage, and the 1st Amendment, to push back and they have run up against an entrenched movement that is unwilling to abide by the U.S. Constitution and claims victimhood when they are not allowed to reign over their victims uncontested.
Over the weekend, a leader of the militant Christian movement that has dominated America for a decade started his Fox News show to complain that because “a small, but vocal and militant group of same-sex marriage advocates co-opted religious liberty to force industry and government to go beyond tolerating homosexuality,” A&E suspended a reality show character. Now, it is unclear exactly how a small militant group co-opted religious liberty and forced industry or the government to approve homosexuality, but if Mike Huckabee was trying to scare evangelicals, he likely succeeded. However, it was his use of “militant same-sex advocates” that stands out as blatantly absurd, and hypocritical, but Huckabee rained down fire and brimstone on his viewers to drive home his point that when Christians are prohibited by the Constitution from dominating other Americans, they are victims of “militant homosexuals” and the government.
Huckabee provided examples of what he concluded were “militant homosexuals” and government imposing on beleaguered Christians and asserted “those who force acceptance, approval and activism of same-sex marriage allow no deviation from their views.” He also claimed “wedding caterers and photographers are being forced by government to serve same-sex weddings when it violates their consciences and religious convictions,” and they were forcing him “to embrace a view of sex that is at odds with my faith.” He also included A&E as part of the “militant homosexual” and tyrannical government movement who were insulting and snobbing millions of Americans who hold the same views as he does.
Huckabee ended his fear-mongering and “victim of militants” rant by asking, “are the militant homosexuals so insecure that they’re incapable of tolerating anyone who disagrees with them, or will we one day be told by the government what we can and can’t say or can’t believe? Folks, we’re getting close.” Huckabee, like Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal, Ted Cruz, and every other conservative Christian enraged the Constitution forbids them from “forcing” other Americans to bend to their evangelical will asked his audience “do you remember when America was a free country?”
In evangelical terms, America as a free country is the past thirty years since Republican man-god Ronald Reagan gave them authority to abridge any American’s rights who “disagree with them.” It has been especially bad over the past five years for gays demanding the right to marry the person they love, women wanting to make their own reproductive health choices, and secularists expecting taxpayer-funded government property to remain free from Christian religious displays. According to Huckabee and his ilk, Americans demanding their constitutionally guaranteed rights are combative and aggressive and favor extreme, violent, or confrontational methods to enjoy freedoms conservative Christians want to “force” them to give up.
Huckabee and the religious right should know what true militants are because they have forced gays to stay in the closet to save their jobs, forced women to give birth or endure rape by medical instrument (transvaginal ultrasounds), and forced secularists to look at Christian symbols and displays on government property their tax dollars fund. Where Huckabee really went off the rails was asserting that he, or any evangelical, is forced to accept, approve, and or be an activist for same-sex marriage, or embrace a view of sex that is at odds with his faith, or that government forces wedding photographers and caterers to serve same-sex weddings when it violates their religious convictions. Government does not force evangelicals to approve of same-sex marriage, embrace or engage in sex that is at odds with their faith, or force wedding caterers or photographers to serve same-sex marriages. Doing so would infringe on their religious freedom and unlike the militant religious right, what he calls “militant homosexuals” believe evangelicals have the same religious freedom they expect for themselves.
What Huckabee and the religious right object to is losing what they consider religious freedom to impose their rules on the rest of the population. Huckabee may have convinced his acolytes that he was standing up for Phil Robertson’s freedom of speech, but for the rest of America he was complaining evangelicals are losing their war on the Constitution and Americans’ freedom from theocracy. Anytime conservative Christians are prohibited by the Constitution from forcing adherence to their religious dogmata on other Americans, they claim they are persecuted and this time is no different. But Huckabee went too far this time and accused gays and the government of being precisely what the religious right has been for years; extreme, aggressive, and confrontational and if they could they would get violent.
Born in the South, raised in the Mid-West and California for a well-rounded view of America; it doesn't look good.
Former minister, lifelong musician, Mahayana Zen-Buddhist.
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