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12/27/2010

D-A-D-cepTive: Knight shining light on anti-gay armor

by Jeremy Hooper

Robert-KnightIn the wake of DADT repeal, conservative writer Robert Knight is of course upset with gays. That's a given. If there is life and breath, there are flawed, offensive points the Coral Ridge Ministries personality will wish to make about one particular minority population. It's kind of his thing.

But it's not just gays that are roberting his knight this time. No, no. Social conservative figures are also on Rob-Kni's crap list:

"They used only the military readiness argument, which should have been enough; that should be enough for us, especially when we're fighting a war. And they also used timing -- the fact that...we're fighting a war now; it's not the time to do this," he explains. "Well, that implies there is a good time to homosexualize the military. [But] there is never a good time to do away with essential morality."
...
"It's really a matter of cowardice, I think," the senior writer suggests. "[Conservatives are] afraid of the media, and they're afraid of looking as if they're on the wrong side of history -- as if God's moral law can be repealed by anybody. This is not like race or ethnicity; this is not like Jim Crow laws; this is about morality. Sexual behavior has moral consequences, unlike what race you're born [as]," he contends.
Conservatives 'dropped the ball' [ONN]

Mr. Knight wants more condemnation from his friends and fellows? Well we say bring it! We all know that regular talking heads like Tony Perkins talk about us one way on CNN and talk about us a whole other way when the mainstream media's not looking. And that "whole other way" -- filled with suggestions that gays should be deported/criminalized, references to gays as being "held captive by the enemy," and direct comparisons between gay relationships and those that might exist between a man and a horse -- sounds a lot like what Mr. Knight and others on the far-right want to hear. So if this "other way" is how this movement truly feels about us, then the portion of the American public that doesn't follow "culture war" politics (i.e. 99% of the American public) deserves to see and hear it via mainstream channels, the same way those of us who do follow this unfortunate game experience it on a daily basis.

It's just like in the Prop 8 trial, where groups like the Liberty Counsel have criticized the proponents' legal team for not putting so-called "ex-gays" on the stand (for one suggestion). We too would love to see this! Genuinely. We know the whole "change" thing underlies most every argument the anti-gay movement puts forward, as it allows them to work the whole "love the sinner, hate the sin" mindset. So let's see it. Let's put that scientifically-shunned notion on a stand in a court of civil law, where talking points require more than an echo chamber to pass muster. Let David Boies sort it out -- we insist!

But of course we'll never see that in any future level of the Prop 8 epic. And we'll never hear Tony Perkins follow Robert Knight's advice to greet Wolf Blitzer's ears with the most revelatory beliefs driving his DADT arguments. Because while the organized "pro-family" movement might be theoretically resistant to bearing false witness, their common political practices paint a portrait of an uber-malleable witness who'll say and do whatever the hell is most convenient for a particular forum. Which, as strategy for a discriminatory movement in need of deception, makes perfect, disingenuous sense. But when talking about a American that deserves to see all the cards on the table, the most media-trained voices from American "values" crowd have turned the national LGBT rights conversation into one deliberately murky swamp. A swamp that the more honest members of both the pro- and anti-equality sides seem to want elucidated, even if the reasons for seeking such clarity are as different as Knight and gay.

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