Texas Taleban?

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It does prevent them from "imposing their morality" on someone else. But it also protects their right to "express" that morality through speech, or the press, or even through the political process. However, we should be clear that different states and cities have harassment laws, and it is both a legal term and a legal protection for those who wish to express an opinion and those who don't want to listen to it, as welll as to prevent individuals from being bullied by social and religious groups.

 

Maybe, maybe not, but the loudspeaker in the middle of the night is disturbing the peace. There have been numerous noise complaints against the protestors.

Exactly. So are you and so am I.

Actually, I meant 'apparently' as 'vastly contradictory to the expected norm' and 'for reasons I don't understand'.

Actually, no. It's the 'this is directly contradictory to Jesus's teachings' that I'm focusing on. Now, I won't say this hasn't happened before, with all religions, probably, but it's an issue of someone twisting pieces of the religion to fit their beliefs, rather than someone using the beliefs of that religion.

Well, thanks for assuming I'm a hate-filled bigot there, Ragusa. Or, at least, I'm assuming that was aimed at me. No, that doesn't make them 'fair game for a witnessing' any more than meeting someone on the street makes that person 'fair game for a witnessing'. There are some Christians who witness like that, to anyone and everyone they meet for any purpose, and if they do so cheerfully it's not too bad, just mildly annoying. It's not really effective, though.

Nor do most protestant churches. Most protestant churches sit somewhere between Calvanism and Arminianism. Incidentally, I doubt this actually has anything to do with 'communal policing'. I'm about 99% sure that these people would object very loudly to the same kind of intrusion into their personal lives.

And so logically you chose the most extreme example you could find. I know it's a common tactic, but realize it's no more valid than portraying the most violently, agressively feminist lesbians (had a great one on Law & Order: SVU tonight) as an example of the lesbian movement.

The abortion issue is very different because, by our belief, the abortionists are literally murdering people. I'll advocate for a law to make that illegal til the day I die.

Re-read what I posted, Ragusa. There's no ambivalence there at all. I don't agree with their ends, or their theology, or their actions, just the 'they're sinners' part. Everything past that is beyond overboard .

The sinning themselves makes them hypocrites, not heretics. The heresy is the direct and blatant rejection of "Love your neighbor", "bless those who curse you", and a whole slew of passages that say your responsability for your neighbor's sin ends when you tell them that it's a sin. In fact, in some passages, it says you don't even have that responsability unless God tells you to say something.

Code Pink was doing pretty well for a while. Are they still around?

Greenpeace is very active throught the US, and bases a lot of their actions from the US. PETA varies wildly. Some of their stuff is as far out as Greenpeace goes, while other stuff is as routine as the ASPCA.

As for the Bill of Rights, as long as you aren't harassing, disturbing the peace, threatening, etc. you're legal. Legal doesn't mean right or morally justifiable, though.

 

Well, I agree, but that is beside the point. And I was trying to agree with T2, that if we respect each other's rights under our Constitution and follow the law, there should not be a problem for either side as far as freedom of expression is concerned. I other words, we all have the same rights and protections from harassment.


Ragusa's point is about cultural hegemony, and how it may reflect values that are alien to others who may have different cultural or religious values. The Bill of Rights is in place to protect minorty views regarding basic rights, just as it protects all of us, whether in the majority or minority. We are all equal under the Due Process of Law and the Constitution, at least in theory.

 

Oh no, it is sure very convenient to just dismiss those people as mere nut cases. If you think about the constant major political grass roots mayhem (on abortion, on 'Creationism' etc.) wreaked in America over the last decades, it was the Christian right. Find me an example where folks from the other side of the isle have shown a comparable dogged persistence and fervour, and got as much coverage and high tier political support and influence. I can't find one. In methods and tactics the harassment of the swingers practically mirrors the efforts against abortion clinics.

And it is simply silly to say that, hum, ho, there is no need to bother delving into religious aspects here because 'Repent Amarillo' are just nut cases. Religion is key here. Without religion these people would probably simply vent their anger by, dunno, kicking their dog? They might just be angry anyway? That I give you. But that is speculation. What is certain is that their motivation, just like the motivation of those guys going after abortion clinics, is profoundly religious - nut case, shmut case. If they get their basic theology straight, they can't be all that crazy. In fact, in a peculiar way, they are IMO rather straightforward and logical.

Chandos let that ring through and I think he is right: I gather that an Evangelical Christian faced with these guys finds himself in a similar dilemma as a fundamentalist Muslim faced with the excesses of fundamentalist Muslim extremists. There also is agreement on the basic theology, and profound disagreement on ends and conclusions. That's why I find NOG's ambivalence so striking - I have seen it before on Muslim 'moderate' Islamists. You will not see them stating that Bin Laden for instance, despite all his obvious extremism, is not a Muslim.

And that brings me back to a point I previously made. Apparently, excess is a feature of fundamentalists. With a set of firm beliefs in place - the only reason, I guess, why there are people content with talk, while others want to see action, is that the former think they can still work through persuasion, while the latter think that the situation is irredeemable and persuasion is futile - it is time for action, and because the situation is so dire, action may well be harsh (i.e. they might commit sins themselves) but that doesn't matter because the cause is just. Naturally, the number of the latter is smaller.

Raven Amarillo ministry links to Hal Lindsey of The Late Great Planet Earth fame on their web site. So let's put that into context either, and let's add the theological concept that the rapture is just around the corner into the mix. If that is so, at that time they better make sure that God is not mad with them (or else, just in case it takes a little longer), and you have a rather compelling explanation for all the dogged persistence and fervour. Time is running short! Or with the words of John Hagee: You could get raptured out of this building before I get through finished preaching. We are that close to the [second] coming of the Son of Man! That's a strong motivation.

Poverty? Not here it seems. As I said, the religious motivation is more than enough to drive what they do. And them being sued probably isn't enough. They ought to be visited by the FBI, just like the FBI visited abortion clinic protesters to remind them of what the law and the constitution say on harassing fellow citizens. But then, following biblical law they probably don't care. If this miserable sinful world is going to hell soon anyway, and heaven is waiting, why bother? Do what the (Scofield) Bible says and be on the winning side!

PS: NOG, this post took a little longer, so I didn't read your reply in time. I'll post on that later. As for the extreme example, it was merely the most current one, and it happened to perfectly match the point Chandos made.
PPS: For those interested, when I say Evangelical Christians, in this thread I mean Premillennial Dispensationalists. On that basis I would probably agree with NOG that it is indeed a heresy we're talking about, yet one shared by millions of Americans.
PPPS: Chandos, cultural hegemony isn't exactly my point, even though that probably is an end goal.

 

Interesting debate. I'll stop lurking to comment on a few points.

According to what I know about Islam, to be a Muslim you have to acknowledge that there is only one God and that Muhammad is God's Prophet. That's the basic creed that is part of the Five Pillars (the others are daily prayer, fasting, alms giving and the pilgrimage). As far as I know there is no instance that could excommunicate someone (that's a major difference with Christianity). For a Muslim to say that someone who claims to be a Muslim in not a Muslim could probably be construed as a form of blasphemy.

Excess is definitely a characteristic of fanatics (whether they're religious or non religious).

There is a fine line between telling people how they should live and forcing them to live in a way that follows a belief they do not share. Preaching about religion or sin is most certainly a form of harassment (at least IMO -getting rid of Jehovah's Witnesses can be a pain, I feel harassed every time I run into them) but it gets more serious when you want to force others to live like you do whether it's by outing them or advocating laws that would make them outlaws.

We had an exchange on that subject and I think I understand your view but I can't help pointing out that a law that would ban abortion would be a terrible thing IMO. As it is abortion allows women to have a control over their bodies and it gives them a choice to avoid unwated pregnancies when everything else has failed. Making abortion a crime on religious grounds would be a very serious thing because it would most certainly pave the way for other religious laws that would in turn ban all the practices that are condemned by the prevailing dogma. I could think of birth control, homosexuality (isn't sodomy a felony in some parts of the US?) and the list would probably go on. I'm not saying that you NOG would go that far, I'm just pointing out that groups like Repent Amarillo wouldn't stop until the US would become a Christian version of Saudi Arabia.

People should have the right in this day and age to choose how they should live their lives within the limits of the law without being stigmatized and ostracized for being homosexuals, bisexuals, swingers or because they had an abortion.

This made me think of something that a friend of mine told me recently. She teaches literature at university and during a class on the subject of English literature she was stressing the importance (and relevance) of biblical references in literary analysis when a student walked up to her and started insulting her because that student saw that to mention the Scriptures in such a way was profane and blasphemous.

 

Uh, oh, can we outsource any predictably exhaustive and long winded debate over abortion to an new thread, perhaps called 'Abortion, n-th invocation'?

 

I didn't mean to hijack your thread. It just came up and I thought it was not entirely off topic (if you read what I've posted you'll notice that it was just a part of what I had to say). I'll refrain from posting anymore on that topic then.

 

Oh no, no accusations on my part in that direction. I just know where that leads to. It's a pain in the a** to have to scroll down and at least skim through perceived miles of nuanced and often repetitive elaborations on views on abortion (which is why I have started avoiding the respective threads) to find points on the actual topic here. Also, if I am not very much mistaken, abortion was already and very recently made a topic in the CPAC thread

Why not focus efforts? Even though admittedly my primarily interest was to outsource it so I can better ignore it

 

Chandos, it seems we're on the same page I just have my fingers in my ears going "LA LA LA LA LA."

Ragusa, then why don't we just start a constitutional amendment banning religion? If religion is the problem then we simply get rid of the problem. Of course we should ignore the fact that millions of religious people exist on both sides of the political spectrum. We should also ignore the overall percentages of the religious individuals who engage in these near militant activities -- which could number in the tens of thousands as compared to the hundred million or so that are religious and go to church. Hmmm... one in ten thousand seems to be a considerable minority to me and could be classified as nutcases in my book -- just as I classify muslim extremist as nutcases and not representative of the average muslim. Of course you can view one in ten thousand as a dangerous trend (or one in a thousand for that matter).

IMO, the problem is we as a society don't always view these groups as a fringe element -- and even if we do we are unwilling to take the steps necessary to stop them. Personally I think the city needs to step in and open a harrassment investigation with the potential of showing how these nutcases have violated the civil rights of their victims -- but you're probably not going to get that in Texas. These groups need to treated like the criminal element they are.

 

Feminism, political correctness, animal rights, racial equality. The basics aren't bad for any of those, but all have been taken to extremes, including violent extremes, and recieved massive political support.

Again, you're wrong, and blatantly so. Their justification is religious, but not their motivation. Their motivation is selfish judgementalism, and nothing else. Without religion, they'd probably look more like... the KKK? Nazis? Mao's oppression?

And maybe for the active feminist being confronted with the feminazi extremists?

What ambivalence, Ragusa. This is what really strikes me. I'm not in the least bit ambivalent about them. What these people are doing is wrong. It is a sin. That's as strong a condemnation as I can give on religious terms.

Excess is a feature of human nature, not just fundamentalism.

In that case, all the above is somewhat conditional on your response. Some of it is re-itteration of what I said in the other post.

I think you are attributing a minority of extremism to a majority of a Christian belief. There's nothing wrong with Premillennial Dispensationalism. It's a valid interpretation and perspective. The heresy I'm talking about is 'judge all by your own standards and don't let God sort them out'.

Actually, only Catholicism (as far as I know) has excommunication. I may question whether someone is a Christian or not, or even say that they definitely aren't acting like a Christian, but that has no bearing on God's judgement of the person.

Here, we agree 100%

 

Mormons have excommunication. Trust me, I know that one from experience.

 

Ah, I stand corrected, then.

 

Your thread and comments reminded me of the social conservative battle cry, that they will take back, "Their country, building by building, block by block and city by city." I noticed that this particular group has put Houston in the crosshairs because we have a lesbian mayor. When that happened, I did have to call my conservative parents (who live within the city) to make sure that they were still conscious and that they didn't pass out from the shock. They are doing as well as can be expected, I'm happy to say.

 

Speaking of this group's boycott of Houston, has anyone noticed? I mean, they aren't exactly Walmart or anything. If anything, a boycott (a promise to stay away it seems to me) would be viewed as a good thing from Houston's perspective.

 

I don't have much to add over what has already been said. But that was funny. And I agree 100% that having these people stay away from you should be viewed as a positive.

The only thing I want to ask is where, exactly, is the disagreement here? It seems like everyone, even NOG, agrees that what these people are doing is wrong, and that these people have a vastly different interpretation of the Bible than even most Evangelicals. So what the dillio?

 

I first read that as 'So what's the dildo?' and was quite confused (not that I understand dillio either...).

 

Have you ever listened to Howard Stern? I thought it was a well-known expression.

 

What to say? Quite the thread, here, Ragusa. Like NOG, I want to make it crystal clear that I do not any any way shape or form support the harassment being perpetrated by these nutcases. Their actions obviously grow out of their beliefs, but their actions are far from the only outgrowth of such beliefs.

To follow people around and make files on them is highly immoral, though I can imagine that legally speaking it might be very difficult to nail them on the contents of the files ("What? I was in a public place and I saw Edgar Knowles enter a gay bathhouse. I didn't trespass on Edgar's property or that of the bathhouse owner. I just made a note of something I saw in a public place.") It works for the paparazzi, I can imagine these sorts making it work for them. But just because it is legal doesn't make it moral or ethical. The confronting and threatening would be much easier to prosecute as harassment, however, and I think that's the route that should be taken.

I suppose that the files, maps and such could be construed as a conspiracy to commit violence, but again in a legal sense it might be difficult to prove that in the absence of a violent act.

Someone needs to tell these douchebags that their actions hurt the image of conservatives and religious folks everywhere.

Now, as for the thinly veiled assertion that all religious people have this sort of nonsense lurking in their souls, well, that's wrong. Plain and simple. Nothing more to say on that one.

 

I've lived in Amarillo for 23 years now as a Christian. Repent Amarillo was largely unknown to me (as well as most of the rest of Amarillo...I would put money on it) until the news of their swinger's club protests blew up in the news last year. This is the one event that really put the organization into the spotlight. Unfortunately.

This opinion column from the local newspaper in Amarillo is an entertaining read about the issue.

 

I just took a good hard read of the original document Ragusa cited. Granted these people are scary as hell and are froot loops to boot, but so far none of the techniques they have used appear to me to be any different than the anti-fur psychos have used in the past. The "outing" of people's private lives has been a standard tactic used by all sorts of zealots for quite some time (Mr. X has affairs! Mrs. Y lets her baby cry itself to sleep! Angelina knew Brad was married when she humped him! etc etc) such nonsense is hardly the sole purview of religious zealots. In fact, going to the fur whackos, they actually physically assaulted several people (throwing blood on them). According to the article, these Soldiers of God haven't done anything like that yet.

This is not to say that what they are doing is cool. It isn't. But if a left wing group of tofu-eating tree huggers were doing it to some evil capitalists, I doubt we'd be seeing the same moral indignation. We should, though. I would cheerfully vote for a law that prohibited the loud music blaring, the garbage collecting without a court order, the communication for the purpose of embarrassing someone at work, and other such harassing nonsense. But the law would have to apply to everyone. I don't think that we are prepared for that.