The New Witch Accusers
– by David Matthews 2
A great crime was committed against society.
Dozens of people were accused of crimes they could not commit. They were tortured, humiliated, degraded, convicted based on lies and hysteria, and summarily executed. Spurned on by evangelical self-righteous power-mongers, they sought new victims to torment, believing that what they were doing was not only right, but “God’s will”.
Even when the truth was revealed and the true crime was exposed, justice was never issued. The innocent were not even formally declared such for centuries. The accusers were never charged with crimes themselves. They were allowed to get away with their injustices, and in fact still hold positions of prominence today, even with the knowledge that it is stained with blood.
Yes, this crime predates the United States of America by almost a century. It was committed in New England in the 1600’s. We refer to it as the Salem Witch Trials.
But now a new breed of persecutors have crawled out from under their rocks. Persecutors that have convinced themselves that they too are carrying out “God’s will” when they move to destroy lives and ruin reputations.
Only they aren’t calling their victims “witches”. They’re calling them “gay”.
It’s one thing for a person to come out as being gay, to be willing to accept the self-righteous judgments of those who hide behind theocratic texts to validate their personal hatred. It is another thing entirely to have that judgment made on that person, to be accused of and convicted of being something that may not be. But these reincarnations of Cotton Mather and Reverend Paris aren’t even giving their accusers the opportunity to defend themselves. They are trying and convicting them in the court of public opinion and are demanding that they be punished accordingly.
One persecutor wants Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina to “confess” that he is gay. The persecutor in question firmly asserts that he is an “expert” on the subject and that he KNOWS who is gay and who is not and he is convinced that the longtime US Senator is one such person.
Another batch of persecutors are targeting White House Solicitor General and Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, making hints at, of all things, how she pitches a softball. They are basing their claims on a conservative blogger with a dubious history of plagiarism, who would later apologize and claim that he was merely “repeating a rumor” about Ms. Kagan. But the persecutors aren’t calling it a “rumor”. They are convinced that she is gay and that they want her to admit to it so they can condemn her and bar her from sitting on the highest court in the country because of it.
Of course these persecutors are quick to say that “THEY don’t care” personally whether someone is gay or not. They’re just following what “The Bible” tells them to about the subject. They’re always quick to put the blame on an inanimate object; especially one that they would claim is infallible. But it’s always interesting how they are able to pick and choose WHICH parts of that bible they would follow and then either ignore or downplay the rest. Maybe that’s something for them to ponder after enjoying their pulled pork meal while wearing clothes made of two different cloths.
Here’s a little tidbit for those who still haven’t gotten the message: if you’re picking-and-choosing WHICH parts of a document to obey, then you can no longer claim that you’re just following its instructions. You have FORFEITED the luxury of that excuse!
But it still doesn’t matter, because the damage is already done at that point. The name is already sullied, even if no actual proof or an admission is ever made. And while it matters very little in some parts of society, the accusation of being gay can be considered career-ending in politics, especially when you are representing a dominant political party that is infested with self-righteous moralists who consider even the inference of homosexuality a sign of the coming apocalypse.
Even more disgusting is the two-faced Janus attitude of these new witch accusers, with the first-face telling gays they should “stay in the closet” if they don’t want to be persecuted, and the other face ripping people OUT of those closets whether it is true or not. This commentator cannot even begin to express the level of revulsion over this hypocrisy, and this comes from someone who is heterosexual!
And why be so selective in their persecutions? Why be quick to drag Ms. Kagan or Senator Graham through the mud when you’re forgetting and forgiving about someone like George Rekers, or Larry Craig? If you claim that you’re only “following instructions”, then you don’t have the LUXURY of picking and choosing when you want to follow those instructions, and you certainly do not have the LUXURY of only applying them when they are politically expedient.
Let’s get brutally honest here… it is high time that these modern-day inquisitors be put in their place! This is the TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY, not the Fourteenth! If they want to destroy lives and destroy reputations for their own political gain, then they need to be held PERSONALLY accountable for it! They need to have their reputations, their livelihoods, their very futures at stake when they engage in that kind of destructive behavior; because that is the consequence that they are so flippant to dish out to their victims.
It took over three hundred years for those that were wrongly accused, convicted, and executed to be finally cleared of any misdoing. But justice was NEVER served, and it can never BE served, because the real criminals against the human race retained their reputations, their names, their fortunes, and their positions of power and authority. They were allowed to get away with their crimes. They were, for all intents and purpose, the REAL source of evil of that time!
In order for us to truly learn the lessons of history, we must hold today’s self-appointed witch-hunters to account for their actions. They need to bear the same risks and to suffer the same punishments as those they victimize.
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