The deaths of Margaret Thatcher and Pastor Rick Warren's son, Matthew, brought
about the fact that the Left can be as vitriolic as the right - and no where
else can vitriol be slung as freely and contemptuously as online.
USA
Today:
Thousands are responding to Pastor Rick Warren's grief with
compassion but others use the moment to attack him and his Christian message.
Twitter users speculate Rick Warren's son was gay, as motive for suicide
Southern California Pastor Rick Warren has been vocal about his
anti-gay views, though there is not official indication his son, Matthew
Warren, was gay. A statement on the 27-year-old's sudden suicide Saturday said
he "suffered from mental illness resulting in deep depression and suicidal
thoughts.'
Overtly hating a "man of the cloth" is almost taboo in other
countries, but in an America whose history has been dotted with charlatans,
extreme Bible-thumpers and SPLC-condemned "Christian" groups recently
bullying their way into politics, it is surprising that Rick Warren has been
able to keep his benign public persona and his backhanded humility.
The hate-filled reactions to Warren's son's suicide, while despicable in their
timing and intent, show the animousity America has had for opportunists like
Warren: the Saddleback campus (complete with skateboard park), the awards of
"Purpose Driven" to nations such as Uganda, the confusing P.E.A.C.E.
plan have not had the thunderbolt effect Warren seemed to envision. His
thinly-veiled Fundamentalist and Reconstructionist views came out in speeches
to the Arab world and commercials for California's Prop 8.
And several hundred venomous tweets* were enough to set off a firestorm of
Christian Right reactions:
Equality Matters
Fox News' Megyn Kelly whitewashed the extremism of one of America's most notorious anti-gay hate group leaders, suggesting that pro-gay activists are actually the intolerant ones.
In fairness, Megyn Kelly pointed out that some things should be inviolate when it comes to grief, but asking the leader of a hate group to analyze such hatred is patently ridiculous. Of course Tony Perkins is going to scream "Hypocrisy!" And w here Kelly qualified her statements with "some", Perkins used his pulpit to insinuate "all." Kelly knew that ... and let it pass.
In Kelly's attempt to coalesce the Twitter remarks around gay marriage, she
automatically skewed the conversation in Perkins' favor (this was, after all,
FOX News). The piece did not concern itself with the legitimacy of the
hate. Rather, it concerned itself with the legitimacy of the people who hated
Warren.
The Legitimacy of Thatcher Hate
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