Not really. After all, while everyone may be created equal, everyone’s level of talent, skill, entrepreneurship, and willingness to work is not. Indeed, attempting to guarantee equality of outcome requires a limitation on liberty, inasmuch as you must prevent people from working harder and doing better.

You see, Counterveil, your problem is that taking advantage of those individual liberties is work. Instead, you want to live in a state of perpetual adolescence in which you can do whatever you want and hand off the bill to your parents. The Obama Party realizes this, which is why their value proposition to you is to replace Mommy and Daddy with the government. To help you in this, they’ve invented a fiction that anyone who has more than you do stole it from someone else and is “exploiting” and “taking advantage” of them; therefore, they need to be punished and have their wealth given to you instead.

In your Obama Party world, it is immoral that someone who stays in school, works hard, and does a good job should make more than a pot-smoking slacker who sleeps on their parents’ couch and will go looking for employment “tomorrow”. Your solution is that the government must punish the former individual and give their money to the slacker, because obviously the former individual is exploiting and taking advantage of the slacker.

It isn’t all about gay marriage or abortion.

I guess most of the negative influence of the religious evangelicals in your party is limited because the very people in the party with power who could wield it are too busy banging other women than their wives (see: “The Family” organization members like Ensign and Sanford (if you don’t know what “the Family” is, look it up because it’s a glaring example of exactly what I’m talking about regarding the people who have influence in the party)).

And when you step away from national politics and focus on the policies of local/state politics, you see a lot more of this influence. Admittedly those are limited to most of the Southern and some Midwestern states, but that is irrelevant.

And I still am confused as to how the liberals/progressives oppress your right to free worship? Where’s the oppression on the other side?

P.S. As a man working on authentic joy in true Christian understanding and motives, I must admit to all I am a horrible sinner. The second I judge anyone on the “his sin is greater than my sin”, I fail. To not offer the blessings of His Word to those I honestly believe may benefit from it, would be selfish and very un-neighborly. To force my belief on anyone makes my honest beliefs just so much dung.

Keep me learning guys. This is a great blog. Rant out.

How do we go about identifying these people and what do we do about them? What should we fear most in their beliefs?

It is also obvious that none of these alleged perpetrators belong to organized Christian movements; all of which roundly condemn violence against gays.

But if you can cite even one example of a leader in the evangelical movement or a single minister advocating violence against gays, I’m willing to to hear it out. And don’t give me any of this, vague “but they create an atmosphere” bullcrap. Unless you have really strong examples of Christian leaders making specific statements demeaning gays as less-than-human, then that bullcrap is just a dodge to admit you don’t really have anything.

The left-wing media has no trouble mocking gay stereotypes and ridiculing homosexuals. But no one whines about them.

For example, there are constant new challenges to pro-choice rights. Most Republican and conservative politicians aren’t shy in their desire for a complete overturn of Roe v. Wade including John McCain. Many prominent Republican and conservative leaders would go so far as to require cases of incest and rape go to term. It’s a desire of Republicans and conservatives for the state to intrude into a personal medical and moral decision. The 2004 party platform stipulated the desire of a “Human Life Amendment” to the constitution.

It was three Republican appointed supreme court justices that dissented in the Lawrence v. Texas sodomy ruling, supporting the “right” of states to regulate the personal sexual behavior of individuals in their own home. A number of Republican dominated state legislative branches were determined to keep sodomy laws in place.

H.R. 3396, better known as DOMA, was authored by a Republican. and cosponsered by 118 congressmen, 102 of those were Republicans. Only one Republican voted no. This was a bill to institutionalize a particular ideology onto American society, contracting the liberty of the individual.

Compare that to the recent introduction of H.R. 1283 which seeks to repeal DADT. It’s written by a Democrat and of 168 co-sponsors only 1 is a Republican. DADT established punitive action for the public disclosure of sexual preference, not for actual sexual activity or, further, sexual activity that was found to be disruptive to fellow soldiers. It’s essentially punitive action for a thought crime, something Republicans and conservatives are usually so against in what they consider unnecessary hate crime legislation. “To protect our servicemen and women and ensure that America’s Armed Forces remain the best in the world, we affirm the timelessness of those values, the benefits of traditional military culture, and the incompatibility of homosexuality with military service.”

In the current debate on healthcare, we see as a nation that we pay the highest amount of money for less than average quality of care. Our pharmaceuticals also cost the most of any industrialized nation in the world. And yet we see Republicans, who overwhelmingly receive the majority of healthcare lobbying dollars fighting to not only deny reform but to eliminate restrictions altogether. I don’t see how this is an expansion of liberty except in allowing those of means to continue to take advantage of the less fortunate. Over and over again, despite the rhetoric, we see more prosperity and “fiscal responsibility” for the whole under Democrats leadership. A true free market is a myth that allow Republicans to take advantage of the system.

I pose the same challenge to Republicans. Where do you see legislation created by Democrats that have somehow infringed on your individual liberties? How have you personally, negatively been affected by what you consider infringement on personal liberties? From my examples above, as an openly gay man I wouldn’t be able to serve in the military, continue to be denied marriage to the spouse of my choice, state governments would still have the option of imprisoning me for have sex with a man in my own home, and finally I should expect sub-par, expensive health coverage because of the collusion between Republican leaders and the healthcare industry. And god forbid I was a lesbian who was raped or sexually abused by a relative and happened to become pregnant if Roe v. Wade wasn’t in effect. Is there no moral dilemma to you when “individual liberty” means that only some and not all people in our society might benefit from those “liberties?”

If we take some people at their word, then yes, they do want to deny freedom to gays. Take others at their actions (just read Box Turtle Bulletin’s hate crimes section), and it is obvious some intend to harm us for no other reason. If the Kerns and Moores are being denounced by mainstream conservatives, then please, say so.

As for the life bit: after my grandfather said “I’d rather kills gays then look at ‘em, and therefore you must not be gay” … well, I broke ties with him. I’ve been a bit sensitive about it since. The sentiment is still real, though.

So really, I am trying to learn more. That’s why I’m visiting here frequently. But it’s impossible to pick out the salient points from the chaff when some comments are met with “dirty leftist liberal gays LIKE YOU” instead of clear, informative responses.

Dude, honestly, get a grip. There is no one in the Republican party or the conservative Christian community who wants to deny you your freedom or your life. You are trapped in a liberal hallucination. The only people on the American political landscape who support killing gays are leftists, who support the right of women to abort their unborn gay children, should a “gay test” ever be perfected (ironic, isn’t it, that a conservative Christian would fight tooth and nail to save the life of an unborn gay child?). When you finally see the light, come on over to the right side, we’d be glad to have you… and we don’t bite (except on request).

Unless you’re talking about the Islamist fanatics courted by the Obamacrats, then this is pure paranoid delusion. Stop being such a drama queen; No one in the Christian Right is out to kill you.

Matt Shepard was killed by drug-addled tweakers; not Christian fundamentalists. The left depends on gullible saps like you who fall for the boogeymen they create.

The environmental nutjobs give me the willies, too. Please don’t go putting words in my post that aren’t there. I didn’t pretend to think ALL conservatives are a threat to anything. You can’t possibly construe anything I wrote as claiming such a thing.

But this denial of the existence a political factio who would gladly deny me my freedoms (and perhaps evnen my LIFE) does bother me.

It’s a lifestyle choice, dig?

What I love though is the POV of so many on the left that, in a nation founded by folks eager to practice theri religon in the public sphere, an American has no right to make decisions about his or her politics if those decisions are informed by faith. It’s almost like the First Amendment never even existed.

For what it’s worth, that’s the only instance I can think of.

amazing V here is something about the Schiavo Palm Sunday Compromise:

One senator who voted with the rest of the unanimous Senate but later came to regret that vote was future president Barack Obama. In the primary debate on April 26, 2007, in a presidential candidates debate, he characterized his vote for the bill as his biggest professional mistake and that the Senate deliberations “left the Senate with a bill that allowed Congress to intrude where it shouldn’t have.” At the February 26, 2008 debate, he admitted that his vote was a mistake and that “As a constitutional law professor, I knew better”.

At the same time, the so-called Schiavo memo surfaced, causing a political firestorm. The memo was written by Brian Darling, the legal counsel to Florida Republican senator Mel Martinez. It suggested the Schiavo case offered “a great political issue” that would appeal to the party’s base (core supporters) and could be used against Senator Bill Nelson, a Democrat from Florida, because he had refused to co-sponsor the bill. Nelson won re-election in 2006 wiki