Playing The “Hate Card”

There are people in this country who advocate silencing traditional and conservative views in the public square. In doing this they are attacking a key right the First Amendment was designed to protect. The free debate of controversial ideas is a right, as well as a tradition, in the US. The strategy being used to shut down free speech may be described as “Playing the Hate Card”. Rebecca Hagelin provides us with an interesting example:

[Recently], the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a long-standing civil rights group, added more than a dozen new organizations to their list of hate-mongering groups. Neo-Nazis? KKK-spin-offs? Muslim or Jew-haters? No. The new “haters,” in this era of sexual license, are those who maintain that marriage has an intrinsic meaning–the union of man and woman–that simply cannot be extended to homosexual couplings. Crying “hate speech,” the SPLC denounced “anti-gay” groups for spreading “falsehoods” that say children do best when raised by a mom and a dad, as opposed to two dads or two moms. “Falsehoods” that support traditional marriage are now “hate speech,” thrown into the same filthy bucket as KKK and Neo-Nazi ideology.

The view that marriage means one man and one woman and that children flourish when raised by a married mother and father is rooted not only in biblical teachings but also in common sense; it’s a truth proven by science as well as centuries of lived experience. But children know that “hate” is a bad thing, and no one wants to be labeled a “hater.” It’s not hard to imagine the pressure tactics that our children soon will face: keep silent or risk being slapped with the label–“hater”–that will define them socially for years.

The label of “Hater” quickly shuts down reasonable discussion or open disagreement. And that’s the real point: to intimidate proponents of traditional morality into keeping silent. Put differently, it’s to lock traditional morality in the closet so social engineers can be free to redefine marriage as they wish.

Maggie Gallagher, an articulate defender of marriage, warns that by playing the “hate” card, the homosexual lobby wants to “’shut down the scientific debate’ on statements of fact” about homosexuality and to “control what ordinary people can say and think” about marriage, sex, and morality.

Read more here. . . .

A Few Thoughts From Larry Elder’s The Ten Things You Can’t Say In America

Cover of The Ten Things You Can't Say in America

Actually, I only point out five categories of unpopular or politically incorrect thoughts and facts that secular-progressives would have us ignore.

“Hate crime legislation forces us to place greater value on some victims because of race. By all means, we should prosecute bad conduct. But if I’m standing at an ATM machine and a Ku Klux Klansman hits me in the back of the head with a brick, the operative word is not “Klansman.” It is “brick.” — P.27

“Good motives aside, white condescension does more damage than good. White condescension says to a black child, “The rules used by other ethnic groups don’t apply to you. Forget about “work hard, get an education, posses good values. No, for you, we’ll alter the rules by lowering the standards and expecting less.'” Expect less, get less.” –P.68

“The Heritage Report further showed that children born outside of wedlock were more likely to engage in early sexual activity, and themselves have children out of wedlock. The report further stated, “Compared to children living with both biological parents in similar socioeconomic circumstances, children of never-married mothers exhibit 68 percent more antisocial behavior, 24 percent more headstrong behavior, 33 percent more hyperactive behavior, 78 percent more peer conflict, and 53 percent more dependency. Overall, children of never-married mothers have behavioral problems that scores nearly three times higher than [those of] children raised in comparable intact families.” — P.162

“People in Canada wait in lines for hip replacements. According to an orthopedic surgeon in Ontario, the wait for an office appointment is four to eight months, and another twelve months to twenty-two months for the surgery.” — P.183

“Thirty-One states in America allow citizens to carry concealed weapons, nearly all, first requiring both a permit and training. In all, thirty-one states, the murder rate declined. True, most categories of crime in America are declining, but the states that allow citizens the right to carry concealed weapons saw even bigger decreases in homicide.” — P.272