Those poor, bullied NOMmers

by Rob Tisinai

Our opponents have gotten quite skilled at co-opting the language we use. Maggie Gallagher and NOM in particular excel at this, calling us hateful, intolerant bigots for daring to disagree — loudly — when they question our basic human worth.

Now this tactic seems to have trickled down to their followers.

On Tuesday, the Human Rights Campaign delivered a 150,000-signature petition to Boyd Packer, a Morman Elder. Here’s what it said:

Dear Elder Packer,

I’m appalled that you chose this moment to deliver a sermon saying same-sex attraction is unnatural and same-sex unions are immoral. You have risked further alienating LGBT youth and potentially contributing to suicides of even more vulnerable young people. You’ve told them that their very identities are “impure and unnatural” and you’ve incited the violence and bullying that often drives them to suicide by repeating lies disproven by both science and the experience of millions of Americans who know their LGBT neighbors and care about them.

I hope you will cease putting young people in real peril and acknowledge the scientific truth: sexual orientation cannot be changed, nor should it be.

You know what NOM supporters are calling this?

Bullying.

I kid you not. Here are a couple comments from NOM’s Facebook page.

And I thought homosexuals were “anti-bullying”. I guess not. Just goes to show how stuck on stupid they really are.

Bullying is a two way street……when gays and lesbians bully others to change their thinking it is still bullying.

Yeah, bullying. The strategy here is obvious — and dangerous. Bullying has led to well-publicized gay suicides, wrenching any normal human heart and making decent people wary of our opponents’ casual, horrific, anti-gay propaganda. Our opponents can’t surrender that propaganda, though, so their only option is to trivialize the concept of bullying itself. It works like this:

• A petition is bullying.
• Expressing disagreement is bullying.
• Petitions and disagreement are American traditions.
• Bullying is an democratic tradition, an American tradition, an American ideal.
• Opposition to bullying is bullying!

Think that’s ridiculous? That’s not the path they’re on? Think again. Our opponents are already pushing the meme that opposition to intolerance is intolerant. That opposition to anti-gay bigotry is anti-religious bigotry.

In fact, we see another of these Orwellian turn-arounds in that same comments section. NOM supporters believe that the act of delivering a petition is an assault on their liberties.  Here’s a sampling of their comments:

Whata!? I’m not a Mormon, but this is outrageous. This could set a terrible precedent on religious freedom.

How dare the HRC think they have the right to change the faith of an entire religion??! Joe Solmonese is Satan’s Lil helper! This is a perfect example of the evilness in this world. Evil is being shown as righteousness and righteousness is being called evil! SO SICK AND SAD!!!! Stay bold and pray for discernment!

It just goes to show that the activists will not simply be happy with legalization os SSM. They will continue until the government forces all churches to accept and include their lifestyle in each religion’s belief system. This is why the fight is so important.

Are we not living in America anymore? Cause last I heard America had FREEDOM of SPEECH meaning that we could say what we want and not have to re-tract what we said. So why must Elder Boyd K. Packer re-tract what he spoke? Did America all ready leave the earth and I missed the memo??

That’s right folks. Exercising our freedom of speech violates the principle of freedom of speech. But even that commenter didn’t go to this extreme:

How astoundingly egotistical for anyone to walk up to someone ELSE’S religion (leaders) and demand that they change THEIR belief!!! (Because that person doesn’t like/doesn’t agree.) DUH!
Thats the most ridiculously laughable thing I ever heard.

Then again, on reflection, its not so far away from Islamic terrorists who demand you change to their way or thinking (believing) or they will kill you.

Signing a petition is not so far from becoming a terrorist. Given how many signature-collectors linger outside my local grocery, I wonder how this woman manages to buy her milk and bread.

To be fair, NOM’s leadership didn’t write these comments. Their own official statement is pretty strange, though:

It’s kind of an extraordinary moment. LDS Elder Boyd Packer reiterated the Mormon church’s long-held view that sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman is wrong. HRC President Joe Solmonese, perhaps egged on by Judge Walker’s ruling that religious beliefs hurt gays and lesbians, decided to attempt to change the LDS church’s religious doctrines, delivering a petition signed by 150,000 folks telling Elder Packer to change his faith’s tenets. This is weird, strange new territory. A signal of where the gay rights movement is headed?

Good Lord, this is unprecedented! If our ancestors had allowed people to question the religious beliefs of others, our nation might have ended up with a new faith forming in the early nineteenth century, and we might have later seen this religion struggle to reconcile its marriage doctrine with American law, eventually becoming a church fourteen million members strong — in large part by sending out missionaries to knock on the doors of nonbelievers and question their religious beliefs.

And NOM and LDS surely wouldn’t have wanted that to happen.