No Mob Veto? Let’s Get Serious About Religious Bigotry

In today’s New York Times was a full-page advertisement paid for by a group of religious leaders, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. It is titled “No Mob Veto“, and ends with this sentence:

“…beginning today, we commit ourselves to exposing and publicly shaming anyone who resorts to the rhetoric of anti-religious bigotry – against any faith, on any side of any cause, for any reason.”

Go read the ad. It may sound harmless enough. Read it again. And realize the title of the ad calls anyone who believes that Prop 8 should not have passed, or should be vetoed, part of a “mob”. Odd, they don’t really talk about that in the ad, yet there it is, right at the top. 

The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty claims it is 

“a nonprofit, interfaith, public-interest law firm that defends the free public expression of all faiths. Our clients have included Agnostics, Amish, Baptists, Buddhists, Catholics, Episcopalians, Hindus, Jews, Methodists, Mormons, Muslims, Santeros, Sikhs, Unitarians, and Zoroastrians, among many others. We have represented religious and civil rights organizations that are on both sides of the same-sex marriage debate.

The Becket Fund does not take a position on whether same-sex marriage should be legally recognized. The Becket Fund does defend the right of religious people and organizations to speak out on the issue—whatever their viewpoint—without fear of intimidation or violent retribution.”

Interesting. In the first paragraph it proudly states it has defended agnostics. In the second paragraph, it seems, it will only defend you if you are religious. It’s own self-description seems ambiguous, written to deceive, or, perhaps, they’ve just had a change of heart. 

Regardless, I also find interesting that a “non-profit, interfaith, public-interest law firm” is committed to “exposing and publicly shaming anyone who resorts to the rhetoric of anti-religious bigotry”. What about all the religious bigotry that is being spewed these days? Will The Becket Fund defend us against that?

Fortunately, The Human Rights Campaign is getting serious and getting involved “to counter the dirty, hateful claims made in the ad.”

More from the HRC’s blog today:

“”Several signatories to the ad are generals in the culture wars,” said Rev. Susan Russell of All Saints Church (Epsicopal), Pasadena, CA.  “They lied about gay people in the campaign, and now they are lying again when they say we are in favor of mob intimidation and violence.  I personally talked legitimately angry demonstrators in California out of such action and every credible LGBT organization called for peaceful resistance to the Prop 8 travesty.”

Bishop Carlton Pearson of New Dimensions Worship Center in Tulsa, OK commented, “As an African-American, I’ve heard this before.  A few frustrated members of a minority group respond in anger to a new indignity and the oppressor calls them anarchists. Satan, sometimes called the Father of Lies, is at work when powerful people seek to dehumanize those who are less-powerful.”

Rev. Dr. Miguel de la Torre of Iliff School fo Theology in Denver agreed, “I am always struck that those in power, those who manipulate the truth to maintain oppressive structures, present themselves to the public as the ones being persecuted.  Make no mistake, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty is a powerful organization with an agenda of imposing a narrow religious view upon the rest of America.  As we Hispanics say, ‘que vergüenza’ (what a shameful act).”

“Calls for tolerance of certain religious viewpoints rings hollow in a world where religion often stands by tolerating violence perpetrated on God’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender children,” was Rev. Dr. Erin Swenson’s reply.  Dr. Swenson is a Presbyterian minister and psychotherapist in Atlanta.

When did the LDS Church become the victims?  It’s hard to believe but that is exactly what they are trying to become.  They’re continuing to spend an excess of dollars in an attempt to mislead the public and transform their image.  But the truth is that this is the same church that conducted a national broadcast to every temple calling on members to organize and write checks to the Prop 8 campaign.  The same church that donated more than half of the $40 million behind Prop 8, even though California Mormons represent just two percent of the state’s population.  Yes, it’s the same church.”

Thoughts? Post them here. Want to take action? Visit The Human Rights Campaign.

UPDATE: 12.09.08:
Here’s what Dan Savage has to say about No Mob Veto:

“Except, of course, on the issue of gay marriage—then you’re free to assemble your own mob and veto the constitutional rights of a tiny minority. And if that tiny minority group decides that it’s had enough and takes to the streets to protest your actions, then you point at a few isolated incidents where someone may have crossed the line and claim that you’re the ones who are actually being persecuted.

No Mob Veto = bullies who got their noses bloodied acting like the whiny-ass crybabies they really are.”