Wrestling with Angels

The other day I heard a terrible story. Matt has a friend (who shall remain nameless) who is Muslim. Last Saturday her mosque on Parker Road was the target of a charming group of people who call themselves "Operation Save America." They use two names, depending on whom they're targeting--their other name is Operation Rescue, and anyone who pays attention knows what they're about. Using a portable PA system, they--with the kind permission of the always helpful Arapahoe County Sherriff Department--told good Muslims arriving for worship that Islam is a lie, that theirs is a culture of death, etc.--all of the usual right wing anti-Muslim hate mongering that you can hear on talk radio any day of the week. Except that right-wing talk radio doesn't set up a portable broadcasting truck in front of mosques (not that that makes them morally any better, of course).

I'm no fan of religion--any religion--but I would never presume to spew hate speech at people arrriving for church (Operation Save America's efforts continued on Sunday, when they protested outside of the largely gay & lesbian Metropolitan Community Church, a Unitarian fellowship, and--get this--St. John's Episcopal, the premier Protestant "establishment" church in Denver). They're in Denver, you see, for their week-long annual convention/hate fest. Last year they targeted Columbus, Ohio, I believe, with similar tactics. They're not going home until the weekend--this morning they caused a traffic jam on I-25 by standing on an overpass with pictures of aborted fetuses. It's a wonder they didn't cause multiple wrecks, even a few deaths.

I'll get to my point in a minute, but first I want to say: these people are patently un-American. They believe they're representing a "true" America, but their America never existed, and (if I can do anything about it) never will. Ours is a schizophrenic country, to be sure--founded jointly by hard-boiled Puritans and easier-going (but slave owning) Cavaliers--and these twin foundings have colored much of our civil strife over four centuries. But in our wonderful Constitution is the concept that anyone who believes differently from the majority still has a right to believe (and testify) as he or she wishes. They will change that if they get the chance.

Operation Save America/Operation Rescue hate life. Oh, sure, they claim that human life--the life of millions of unborn fetuses--is their highest priority. But as a gay man I've come to recognize certain psychological patterns that are dead give-aways. Any man who claims "disgust" at gay sex is generally fascinated by it. I should know--I once claimed such disgust when I was young and scared by my own sexuality. Extending that to these anti-life pro-lifers, I'd say that rather than embracing life, they despise life. They scream, they shout, they kill--not because they value life but because they don't value it. To borrow from (very) popular culture: they're Voldemort's Death Eaters.

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I ranted against them just now to get the anger out of my system. Because the central point of this posting isn't that these awful people exist in our society--we've known they do for some time. It's that we on the left don't know how to deal with them. And it's that there is a way to deal with them that doesn't always work in the way we might want it to work, but over time, if we keep doing this, we may cause a societal psychological shift that will benefit everyone.

And that strategy is: don't argue. I can't remember which political book I was reading over the past year where it dawned on me that people on the right--far more than people on the left, but we're not immune--argue for argument's sake. It doesn't matter if they're right or they're provably wrong--they won't stop arguing. It's as though they get stuck in a negative feedback loop from which self-extrication is impossible: if you're right it means I'm wrong, but I'm not wrong, so whatever you say has to be wrong and whatever I say has to be right, even if you're actually right and I'm actually wrong. It's that old binary, black and white thing that the left graduated from (for the most part) decades ago when they realized that Marxism/Leninism was a dead end. Conservatives can't see shades of gray, so when you argue, you can never win. They don't believe in the concept of consensus--only competition. Of course, I sound awfully black & white when I say this, but please refer to an earlier post where I put in a disclaimer about self-contradiction.

How did the mosque handle this challenge? Unfortunately, they chose to fight argument with argument. Matt's friend had a much more practical suggestion: run over to Costco, buy bottled water and cookies in bulk, and hand them out to the Operation Save America people (it was, after all, a day of record-breaking heat--we topped out at 102 degrees on Saturday). Smile at them--be courteous and sweet. Had they pursued this course of action, they might not have changed any minds, but they might just have planted the seeds of doubt. They will come to doubt the wisdom of their leaders when they see with their own eyes that their enemies are no different from themselves. I have this naive, Anne Frank attitude that deep down most people want to do the right thing. The members of Operation Save America and similar organizations and churches are seriously off track, but they're not inhuman. Appeal to their better nature and they might, some day, surprise us.

It won't happen right away, of course. This is the kind of thing that takes years to build. And we may not have years. But if we keep arguing with people who brook no contradiction, we will never prevail.

Maybe this idea sounds like the reaction of the Jews of Europe when confronted by Hitler--I don't know. But the must never give up our ideals--I will never apologize for being gay or secularist or liberal or intellectual or any other label they want to slap onto me. We have to be very firm in fighting these dangerous people, and never forget that if they get their way this country will no longer be America.