I hope that we Americans don't bury our heads in the sand until we find ourselves suddenly staring at a bill in Congress that mandates the death penalty for LGBT people here -- along with abortionists, and other groups of Americans as well.

I'm sorry Patricia, but you're sounding as crazy as them. The Christians are not taking over our government. Calm down.

Witches Brew is a poor choice of colloquialism, Patricia. These same lunatics are conducting witch hunts and murdering children suspected of witchcraft

I posted this elsewhere a few weeks ago:

Yesterday, I was in Europe having coffee with a colleague in Paris before leaving for New York. Our discussion, by and large about tedious elements of International Law, turned to the situation in Uganda and the lack of a US response to the proposed "Final Solution of the Gay Question" there.

She pointed out to me that the US could not afford to point the finger as it had not only tolerated the export of evangelical intolerance but had encouraged it as an official foreign policy from the era of Ronald Reagan onward, resulting in the deplorable rule of Fujimori in Peru and various Guatemalan right wing movements as well as a creeping infestation of the Mexican Government.

In that era, it was all about combating communism and ending the influence of left-wing clerics supporting "Liberation Theology" The US was actively involved in brokering what kind of religions would be supported in South American nations in order to attain a foreign policy goal. Were the US to condemn Uganda strongly now, the States might be embarrassed as other instances of US expansion of the rule of their First Amendment "The Freedom to Worship Jesus in Whatever Right Wing Evangelical Fashion That A Person Might Choose" would eventually come up and prove to be a liability to American political interests south of the Rio Grande.

My colleague is both Cuba and Venezuela friendly, so I expected part of the next phase of her argument, that part of the appeal of the Castro and Chavez governments was their refusal to be controlled or influenced by and by their opposition to US Evangelical groups as "agents of colonialism." She attributed no small part of the US-Venezuela conflict to the work of the Evangelicals and their Corporatist allies in trying to effect a removal of the anti-clerical and socialist administration.
She further pointed out that the problems in the Mexican nation, the long standing civil war between indigenous people and the mestizo dominated government was the result of the Evangelical churches' inciting the government's frequent and bloody over-responses, as the Zapastista officials are notoriously hostile to the US religious philosophies as an import and equally opposed to those churches support of a non-enlightened despotism of the sort preached by the "Family" of C Street and enshrined into foreign aid bills and laws by their congressional adherents.

She continued "I heard that people are upset by the comparasion of the gays to Africans(Black Americans). They should be. Gays are not the Nuevos Negros, they are the Nuevos Judíos (new Jews). Sooner or later, the killings will begin, and not only in Uganda. And then, what do we do? Who will invade Nigeria, Columbia, Guatemala, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Russia as the Churches see the US and Europe do nothing to stop Uganda? American churches will block any move to intervene and are just waiting for things to get worse in the States to begin such laws there. The danger is from the American's own house, and their Lesbianas y Hombres Homosexuales are blind or worse, indifferent. It may not happen there(in the States) but the Churches will try it there. We could win in Uganda, now, if we were to act, but if we don't, it will be most of the world against the gays and insisiting on the right to destroy them if we do nothing, and that only in a few short years."

In short, she summarised, America created this movement, a colonialisation of religion masquerading as anti-colonialsism. It exported this parasitic infestation of other nations' foreign policy disguised as self-determination by a single American political party and their right wing religious allies. Either American strongly denounces BOTH the policy and their own churches that largely manipulated its enactment, or the US gays and Lesbians can watch, "probably on television in the bars" the foreshadowing of their own possble future as the hangings are broadcast and the casuality numbers rise.

I would really like to see someone follow the money here, because I think this really gets under the surface of what is happening here. Africa is being almost buoyed in places by relief money, and much of it is not going to long-term sustainable development but to HIV issues. However, the most at-risk populations are being jettisoned in the HIV work, with LGBT people being criminalized and people who advocate for them being targeted. This is the most extreme example of a bigger picture, with (for another example) organizations that help sex workers also being disqualified for funding due to political pressure and concessions.

What we have is PEPFAR and such funneling money toward Africa, while anyone who might provide competition to Christianist organizations are being systematically excluded or obliterated from being able to handle any of it. How much of this funding to control the spread of HIV is being rerouted into evangelism in the same kind of guise that abstinence-only education takes? How much of it turns into proselytizing in Africa, and how much of it slips into the pockets of churches back home?

I really wish someone with the connections would follow the money. If we could do something about how the money is being funneled and abused, we could very well see a change in what's happening in Africa.

WRT "it's not coming here," I don't necessarily see Africa's situation alone foreshadowing anything specific, but other conditions (convergence of American nationalism, mobilized military era, drive to marry Christianism with nationalism and government) are pointing toward the *potential* for a new dawning of fascism, and the teabagger phenomenon and expected hard right swing aren't encouraging.

I think this is good enough reason as any to warrant the caution in the closing paragraphs, even if Africa alone isn't.

A powerful and informative piece Patricia.

It is unfortunate that journalists covering the activities of US based antichristians (like Warren) and antichristian politicians (like Inhofe) have not highlighted the real motivation for the anti-gay campaigns in Africa.

First, you must understand that The Family is NOT a religious institution in any sense of the word. It does not even really have any religious purpose at all. Its sole, real purpose is to utilize antichristian evangelism to enslave the human race. This program, which has been in operation for decades, has begun to bear fruit in Africa, where it has been deliberately focused on whipping up anti-gay sentiment to elect "hollow men" to high government positions, where they will do the biddings of their "master controllers" in The Family, making the human and natural resources of the continent again available for unfettered exploitation and theft from their peoples, to the benefit of western commercial and industrial interests.

The global (mostly American & European) corporatist interests that define the work of The Family intend that, once their puppets are in control across Africa, they will move in with a program of neocolonialism that makes what the British, Germans, French, Dutch, Belgians, Portugese, and Italians did to Africa look like a freedom campaign by comparison. The Family is a supreme representative of active evil on this planet and must be exposed. You will hear people claim The Family does "good". That is untrue in all respects. Motive shows all and this group's motives are completely and permanently evil.

The Family has created a false public image, which it exploits to draw in otherwise well-meaning, but deluded "believers". These men may not initially know what they have joined, but they are soon indoctrinated into accepting The Family's evil leadership and agenda as their own.

David Bahati and Martin Ssempa of Uganda are both known in Uganda's closeted "gay" community as having long been practicing homosexuals themselves. In Bahati's case, he appears to have been primarily a political opportunist, who allowed Rick Warren to convince him that the anti-gay agenda would rocket him to political power, so he decided to exploit the aspect of his personality most responsible for his nearly suicidal self-hatred to gain personal power. He now finds himself one of the most despised people on the planet, who has disgraced his community, his claimed faith, his nation, his continent, and his race. He certainly has no political future on his present track.

Ssempa's publicly displayed personal interest in coprophagy (shit-eating) that he has promoted through his antichristian ministry discloses all there is to say about this non-person. He is very strongly attracting to this fetishism, if not a compulsive practitioner, and, if he hasn't tried it already, probably will soon. I expect he will like the taste very much. (I have nothing against his shit-eating, except as a medical risk and, for some, an aesthetic unpleasantness.) Stay tuned...

Patrica,

I have no quarrel with highlighting the very small group of religious extremists - it is when you encourage fear that we part ways. We do NOT live in 1930s Germany and it is crazy (for you or Tyler) to make that comparison.

Christians that interpret the Bible literally as "God's word" are less than one-third of all religious people in America. The extremists you have warned us about are less than 3%. Sure, they have a crazy agenda, but they have absolutely NO chance of succeeding. Women in America - despite differing beliefs - would never tolerate the loss of reproductive rights or their equality. Just because a few religiously-inspired crazies want to end those rights for women doesn't warrant the kind of sky-is-falling-government-coup rhetoric you dispense.

I agree Bilerico readers are concerned about the future of our Country, freedom and equality. But, the more we promote the extremists, the more influential we make them. MOST religious people - especially Christians, are distancing themselves from the literalists and the extreme-Right fundamentalists. We should do the same.

These groups are NOT gaining more power in the US Congress, they are only gaining more attention - with your assistance. Religious beliefs (to different degrees) now control only 48% of the US Senate and less than 40% of the House. For the last 40 years they have been losing power and there is NO evidence they are gaining power.

I share your concerns about religious fanaticism and along with Sam Harris and others I think the problem is the flawed concept of faith. In his book The End of Faith he accurately describes the threat of faith-based terrorism. Bill Maher closed his movie Religulous with a dramatic warning about the potential of "faith" leading to nuclear terrorism. THAT is a very real problem, one the entire world must eventually come to grips with.

But, I don't share the warnings about radical Christians taking over our government. Without God's help (unlikely), it just isn't a possibility.

The truth is two-thirds of self-defined "religious people" now simply have an appreciation for religion, not an obsession. The LGBT community spends an incredible amount of time, energy and money highlighting, and in the process promoting, the WRONG crowd. We spend very little energy enrolling those religious people that have been willing to embrace basic human principles like freedom, liberty, justice and even equality. Focusing on that majority would help our movement and at the same time continue to marginalize the crazy ones.

Inspiring fear, instead of embracing the very real progress the majority of our fellow citizens have made, isn't helpful. It prevents OUR progress. We should be seeking people to join us, instead of just obsessing about those delusional ones that are stuck in the past.

I appreciate you writing and your comments here.

Hi,

I am new to this blog. I have found this particular thread to be interesting and informative. I don't take anything for granted. There is a lot of reactionary lunacy in R I, where I live, in spite of it's progressive laws and liberal northeast state rep.

I naively linked to an article by Nikolas Kristoff the other day from a five year old Counterpunch article without really understanding Alexander Cockburn's background, or Jeffry Sinclair's.

I found it interesting, however, that D. Gregory Smith, today, had linked to a Kristoff op-ed piece in the N Y Times about World Vision. It made feel my naivete could be somewhat vindicated and what I was trying to say about evangelicals somewhat validated. I think the Kristoff piece in the Times yesterday points out the complexities one should be aware of while remaining vigilant against right wing religious extremism in order not to become a knee jerk extremist, oneself.

Well,

I hope I can be forgiven. I am new. Of course, Nicholas Kristof. God the name is so close to "Nikolas Kosloff". Puts the Kristof piece in a different light. Sorry.