The Communists (or more properly cultural Marxists) never had much success in America with its search for a proletariat.
The poor found it too easy to move up the ladder and get rich.
Blacks had suffered just too much, and are too Christian to risk their plight on a tenuous ideology.
Women simply like men too much (naturally) and want babies too much to genuinely move against the “patriarchy” in mass.

Among homosexuals however they have garnered great success.
Both the leadership and the rank and file seem thoroughly invested in this class struggle.
They are the ultimate proletariat – the permanently disenfranchised.
They will never be able to do anything except grossly approximate the family; an institution that the overwhelming bulk of society reveres and strives to emulate (with general success).
They are by the very nature of their orientation (chosen or otherwise) cut off from this cycle of life that all human cultures have exalted and built their societies around.

This is why they are the “permanently disenfranchised” and the “ultimate proletariat”.
This is why they are so easily radicalized and seek to tear down are most foundational institutions. This is why they employ such brute tactics.

Fitz

I met him at a previous event. While I maintain a consistent free speech position (the solution to this is simply to invite him to the party), by watching the event, it should be clear that this guy and his cohort reflect very badly on the Christian conservative side (just look at some of the signs they are carrying).

It's often said by Free Speech advocates, "I support the right of the Nazi's to march..." meaning if I support something so vile as NAZI speech, I support ANY speech. I think we could make a similar analogy here. Note: I'm not comparing those with simple religious beliefs against homosexuality, i.e., following traditional doctrines, with NAZIS. I'm saying, look at the way the beliefs are expressed. For instance, there is a difference between a Protestant Fundamentalist explaining in a civil way his doctrinal differences with Catholicism -- giving the impression that Catholicism is a false doctrine, and unless Catholics reject that doctrine, they won't be saved, on the one hand, AND using the rhetoric that Bob Jones University uses on the other, i.e., the Catholic Church is the Whore of Babylon, the Pope is the Anti-Christ. A similar analogy can be raised re: anti-gay Christian, with the worst offender being Fred Phelps, "God Hates Fags." Marcavage et al. aren't as bad as Phelps, but they lurch in that direction.

When I met him, I asked him what he thought of the death penalty for homosexuals. He replied that since it's written in the Bible, he's not sure that he would be against it, if society had that choice.

I then asked him about similar OT passages demanding stoning to death of Children who Curse their Parents and he replied he wasn't aware of such a passage (he didn't deny it was there; he plead ignorance).

Well look, I'm not endorsing this particular group, and I've no extensive knowledge of their views or methods. Yet, I don't find this as academic a First Amendment issue as Nazi gatherings.

First, it's far too easy to imagine similar tactics among the gay activists being brought to bear against groups that don't walk around singing hymns through megaphones or carrying signs with flames painted on them. That ease is partly on account of:

Second, the public authorities aren't there to assess doctrinal differences. The just-to-be-safe precedent has frightening fluidity. One day posters are "instruments of crime" and marginal Christians are citing scripture as "fighting words," and the next, rosaries are "instruments of crime" and fundamental Christian teachings are "fighting words."

What isn't clear from the WorldNetDaily article (and I don't think that they are an unbiased source), but alluded to by the female police officer at one point, is whether or not the gay activists paid to be there. Was it a planned event with permits acquired from the city? Because if that is the case it would be an explanation for the Christians getting arrested and not the homosexuals. If the Christians had a parade and the gays did the same thing I'd expect the gays to be arrested and not the Christians. (Now I don't want to hear, "but that wouldn't happen because Christians are oppressed and gays always win" whinging, because there have been plenty of homosexuals arrested for disorderly conduct.)

Now, as to the 47 years in prison, well, that's just excessive, and probably the sum of the hypothetical maximum prison time allowed and not at all a reflection on what a judge would sentence.

Michael -
your point is well taken. Outfest is the official Philadelphia gay pride festival/parade. Permits, scheduled rerouting of public transit, the whole shebang. At the major local such event (in San Francisco), such protestors are given a clearly demarcated area to pray in, wave their signage from, and so on, separated from the parade proper by barricades and a line of police officers. Thus, no such incidents - which seems to bother the parade participants and organizers not at all. And the protestors are there every year.

There was an incident at a local church a few years ago, where gay protestors showed up to, well, protest an prominent clergyman's visit. Some of them were arrested, for exactly the same reasons as the ones mentioned in the WND article.

Justin - I'm curious as to what point you were making in your "ease is partly on account of" line.

Michael,

Honestly, I didn't hear the female police officer say anything about that. There was a bit of a jumble of talking when she first makes her appearance, so I might have missed it, but it seems odd that she — or any other of the public authorities present — wouldn't simply have asserted that consideration. I guess it's possible that the video's been edited to cut that out, but if it were a matter of permits and such, I'm not sure why the police engaged in all that talk-around about "addressing one group at a time" and such.

Regarding your hypothetical reversal, I'd have to see specific circumstances. Given all the same specifics, I'd say the same thing.

Robert,

That line is meant to suggest that the ease of imagining an expansion of this precedent, as I described, is partly on account of the second consideration: that public authorities aren't doctrinal experts. Consequently, it's easy to imagine an ever-expanding standard for what constitutes unacceptable speech and paraphernalia.

I'd be curious about details of the "incident at a local church," if you're able to find them. I recall one incident in the news in which there was property damage and direct, physical intimidation of people attempting to enter the church. (And there were many more than 11 protestors.) It also appears that you're talking about an event on private property.

The specific incident I was thinking of took place in 1993 in San Francisco, at Hamilton Square Baptist Church. The proximate cause of the protest was an appearance by Lou Sheldon, who had been invited to speak by the church.

There's some ambiguity in accounts - the church's version has it resembling the sack of the Warsaw ghetto, the protestors's version sounds more like the Selma bridge march. I wasn't there, myself.

There was a bit of a jumble of talking when she first makes her appearance, so I might have missed it, but it seems odd that she — or any other of the public authorities present — wouldn't simply have asserted that consideration.

Around 4:10 on the video clip, when she comes on the scene she says "... and they can't do their business which they've paid to (inaudible)." The head of the protesters says "And you believe this to be the law, correct?" And she responds, "I know this to be the law." He then goes on about equal protection.

But, if they paid to have a permit, and they don't want the Christians there bothering them, they shouldn't be there disrupting the event that the city allowed; nor should the people trying to drive them from the paid event be punished for obstructing their signs. He would have an equal protection argument if the city failed to give him a permit to congregate.

I try not to be cynical but if these protesters stood along the edge of the road protesting amicably, they wouldn't have made the news. Their leader even said he'd been arrested for obstructing a road before, which means he knows what he can and cannot do...

Michael,

I'm pretty sure you're misinterpreting the conversation. The female police officer is talking about vendors who've paid to have commercial booths at the event. That's why the Christian guy begins the whole thing about the gay activists' obstructing the vendors' business, as well.

With respect to your cynicism, I don't think there's any doubt that the protestors were looking for publicity. Still, that the leader knows what the group can and cannot do (a point he makes abundantly clear with his continual references to their lawyers' informing them of this and that) seems if anything to make the arrest more egregious. If he hadn't known the law, the group would have never penetrated the human wall. If he hadn't known the law, the group would have simply followed the (apparently) arbitrary demands of the police that they retreat beyond the boundaries of the event. Knowingly not violating the law is hardly an incriminating activity.

I'm pretty sure you're misinterpreting the conversation.

My bad. There was a lot of jumbled cross-talk before and I must have missed it.

It is extraordinarily interesting, from a perspective of media bias, to see how both groups cover the story. 365gay.com reports that these protesters marched directly in front of one of the stages (disruption of an event). The video doesn't show that. A Christian report made sure to mention that they protested among "shirtless gay men in leather", as if every year at my hometown's local Oyster Festival I don't see a bunch of straight shirtless bikers in leather at the outdoor concert. Of course there's no mention of when the police instructed them to move away from the stage to the side that they ignored them and moved deeper into the crowd.

I detest protesters, of all sorts, and thoroughly delight in their subsequent arrests followed by soggy prison sandwiches.

That is a thoroughly nonsensical attitude Michael... unless you happen to be one of those who advocate the crushing all dissent.

Anyway, I don't think the Philly jails would have been able to hold all of those homosexuals who attended OutFest.