Burnt Orange Report

Republicans Welcome Vicious Bigot to Pray at Convention

By Andrew Dobbs

I've been referring to the GOP Convention this year as the largest simultaneous crossdressing event ever held in American history. I think it is funny that the only true conservatives speaking in prime time slots (besides Bush and Cheney) are a Democrat- Zell Miller- and a very vocal critic of Bush- John McCain. Still, looks like they shoehorned in a fanatic, just to keep the mouthbreathers happy- Sheri Dew.

Who is Sheri Dew, you ask? Well she's giving the invocation to begin the convention and she is a Mormon activist and speaker. Dew, who is unmarried and has no children, had this to say about homosexuality in a recent speech:

Lining Up With Hitler or Against Him

This escalating situation reminds me of a statement of a World War II journalist by the name of Dorothy Thompson who wrote for the Saturday Evening Post in Europe during the pre-World War II years when Hitler was building up his armies and starting to take ground. In an address she delivered in Toronto in 1941 she said this: “Before this epic is over, every living human being will have chosen. Every living human being will have lined up with Hitler or against him. Every living human being either will have opposed this onslaught or supported it, for if he tries to make no choice that in itself will be a choice. If he takes no side, he is on Hitler’s side. If he does not act, that is an act—for Hitler.”

May I take the liberty of reading this statement again and changing just a few words, applying it to what I fear we face today? “Before this era is over, every living human being will have chosen. Every living human being will have lined up in support of the family or against it. Every living human being will have either opposed the onslaught against the family or supported it, for if he tries to make no choice that in itself will be a choice. If we do not act in behalf of the family, that is itself an act of opposition to the family.”

At first it may seem a bit extreme to imply a comparison between the atrocities of Hitler and what is happening in terms of contemporary threats against the family—but maybe not.

That's right- gay people (who, by the way, were killed by the thousands by Hitler for being an affront to public morals) are like Nazis. If you support the rights of gays and lesbians you are just as bad as those fuzzy-headed Germans who supported Hitler in the 30s. How fucking sick is that? Choosing to spend the rest of your life in a loving, monogamous relationship with a person who happens to be of the same sex versus killing 12 million people, ending anything resembling human freedom and trying to conquer the world for fascism. Seems about the same to me.

Her logic is that homosexuality presents a threat to the family that will undermine our civilization and Hitler also threatened our civilization so we're talking po-tay-to po-tah-to here. But haven't we straight people undermined the family too? I mean, here we have a society with no gay marriage to speak of and our divorce rate hovers in the upper 50% range. We have child abuse and child neglect and kids keeping bombs in their rooms and their parents never know about it. Our society is in trouble already and the idea that letting an entire group that for decades was forced to live secret, often deceptive and dishonest lives finally move into a life where they can be committed and loving in a public way is somehow going to be the straw that breaks the camel's back is lunacy. Sheri Dew is not only mistaken, she is a bigot, and I am sickened to know that a major party in this country would even seat her as a delegate, much less let her petition God for His grace. Shame on the GOP for letting her stand on their stage.