http://www.reandev.com/taliban/

I almost fell off my chair when I read this. Can't believe people actually think like that and say it in the public. America still has a long way to getting gay rights..

Although I normally don't expect anything at all from other people (at least I try), these people positively scare me. Are there any figures that tell the degree of support by the population?

Best wishes,
Your aversion

Depressing,isn't it?
My favorite quote is:
""I would like to outlaw contraception...contraception is disgusting – people using each other for pleasure."

Don't you feel a little sorry for his wife?

I just kept wondering how much these people really know about the religions they are talking about - including their own. Ann Coulter, for example: ""Being nice to people is, in fact, one of the incidental tenets of Christianity, as opposed to other religions whose tenets are more along the lines of 'kill everyone who doesn't smell bad and doesn't answer to the name Mohammed'" . Excuse me, if I'm prejudiced, but I doubt, she ever read the coran or knows anything about the importance of hygiene for the followers of Islam.

Best wishes,
Your aversion

I can speak for Anne Coulter,having read one of her books.She probably knows more than that,but is going to make sensationalist and inflammatory remarks to garner attention.That is her modus operandi.
Many of these people are only interested in what other religious and social conservatives have to say and it limits their perspective and research.Anne Coulter tends to research her material fairly well, but 99% of it is from Conservative sources.A cautionary tale to always read what the other side says,don't you think?
But some of them are just hateful megalomaniacs who very few people even take seriously(like the White Supremacist).

Hi Silibo,

thank you very much for your explanation, although one or the other question remains, since I'm not really in close touch with the societal and political situation of the US. Is the conservative lobby really so overwhelmingly influencing that people feel the need to please it, disregarding what they may think for themselves? As far as I can survey it from across the ocean, I alway thought that the country would be splitted in two comparable equal halfs of conservatives and liberals. Am I mistaken in this point? Maybe I'm slightly too idealistically and academically influenced, but to me the final aim of any research is the attempt to dig out truth (or what can be considered truth at this point, being aware of its relativity), and this isn't done by using biased secondary sources...

Best wishes,
Your aversion

Just from my amateur sociology,I think it would be difficult to say how the United States is divided politically.Some people who are conservative in foreign policy,might be liberal on social issues and vice versa:like a Catholic anti-war activist or a soldier who is pro-choice.
But,I think there is a healthy division of liberal and conservative thought,that is why we pendulum back and forth between somewhat liberal and somewhat conservative governments every couple of decades.
I think whatever conservative religious lobby exists is the cultural "grandchild" of being founded by Puritans and religious extremists who were persecuted in Europe. I think we will always have that aspect to our national culture,but the degree to which it influences people has to do with their educational level and political agendas.

It's disturbing that these people who are in positions to affect or to have affected our lives (like Bush, Bush, and Reagan) think this way. But, I think it's more disturbing that the majority of the people voted then in. That means there's a large percentage of people who agree with all this conservitive hate mongering.

~Jesse Helms (Sen. R-NC)

I don't remember these classes being taught in my grade-school. I feel ripped off!

Pho, this is without a doubt the most frightening collection of quotes I have ever been exposed to in my life. How people can be that willfully hateful and ignorant is beyond me, but that's what some people need to feel big & important I suppose.

Die Aversion, Silibo is right about America being a pretty good mix of political ideals, I think. But, we are definitely in a conservative phase at the moment, so those leaning right are getting more airtime and more arse kissing, because they're the ones in power. Besides, anyone who is out on the fringes of the political spectrum, right or left, is going to get media attention because his/her statements are so outrageous and are--therefore--more newsworthy. (We love to put crazy people on the screen here in the states.) If it seems like there are more right wing wack-a-dos out there than usual right now, it may just be a case of monkey-see, monkey-do.

We have a president who insists his appointment to the highest office was not due to the democratic process, but rather due to God's will. This seems to encourage all the crazy God-nuts to make crazy God related statements.

keep in mind... the people who vote for these people often only have a slim knowledge about what these politicians believe or say or do - many people just get a vague idea about the things the candidates stand for, and vote thusly. So, one person might vote for a Conservative candidate because the fellow has some sort of reputation for being a "good Christian," another person might vote for one of these candidates because the candidate claimed to really care about education... etc. While there is a good amount of rather freaky fundamentalism in north america right now, i imagine that lots of the people who would've sided with the people on that quote page would be at least slighly unsettled to know they supported someone who said stuff like *that*.

-Undecided

David Trosch:
What? I mean, what? I agree with Lady A: this is truly frightening. How can people believe this shite? And preach it?

If anyone doesn't know why so much of the world hates America I would point them to that site. There are so many good Americans that defy the stereotype, but the're drowned out by these people, that would brutally butcher the christian religion to justify murder, hatered and everything that christianity is not.

I am very tempted to turn this post into a sermon about why the bible is about tollerance and understanding. Conversion comes into the process but is never forced.

It's worth knowing, and remembering, that the right-wingers are loud and vocal. They're certainly not neccessarily the majority voice, even for people who do identify with more conservative values, but damned if you can't hear them on the Moon while wearing earplugs.



Lilith

For a start, I think that Fred Phelps would make a beautiful avatar.

Anyhoo, I really only have access to CNN and Fox News, which no doubt skews my perception of US news outlets but I don't think I've ever heard a mention of Noam Chomsky, let alone an interview with him. Perhaps his statements aren't titillating as they tend to involve simple, rationalised statements that don't really promote the same visceral response as these preachers (and I think they'd approve if I considered messengers of God's word above any professional responsibilities they may have).

Surely Greg Palast is interesting enough for American television. I don't think I've ever seen any mention of him either (which kinda fits considering he and his team have won two Project Censored awards =>http://projectcensored.org/).

I don't think the mainstream media is really interested in giving attention to the Left, save for an occasional interview with a representative from the Screen Actors Guild.

With the Right, I think the tactic is to promote discourse so bitter and vile that you're either petrified into loving it or scared to oppose it.

I don't understand what's fuelling the shift back to pre-Elightenment values.

Isn't that sorta like when a NAMBLA rep tells you real boy love doesn't involve force/co-ercion/manipulation? Whilst the ideal may not intend to inflict damage or create a victim, it has a rather bad habit of doing so in practicality.

Despite the principles of the book, the Bible has been a popular ingredient for violence and intolerance.

It's nothing against the book nor to blame its followers for their human fallibleness but I'm tired of seeing the decency of the text asserted in lieu of repairing what's wrong with how people are using the book to justify their abuses.

There's a lot of bitterness between Christianity and I (for various reasons). I don't think there's going to be any sort of reconciliation until the moderates can keep the fundamentalists on a short leash. Those who do not remember the mistakes of the past are condemned to repeat them. I fear the escalating level of military armament indicates we may not have too many more opportunities to repeat the mistakes of the past.

???

"Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. It's no different...More terrible than anything suffered by any minority in history." - Pat Robertson. http://www.infidels.org/misc/humor/lioaca.html

"When lawlessness is abroad in the land, the same thing will happen here that happened in Nazi Germany. Many of those people involved with Adolph Hitler were Satanists, many of them were homosexuals – the two things seem to go together." - PR again. http://www.pink-triangle.org/