On Sunday this week, Jim Adkisson saw fit to shoot up a Unitarian church in Knoxville, TN. His motivation? Hatred for liberals and gay people. I believe that this is the fruit of the Right-Wing agenda, promoting intolerance in combination with the right to bear arms and the belief that this is their mission from God.
And my belief is reinforced by the story in the New York Times today, reporting that senior aides to Attorney General Gonzeles broke the law by using politics in their hiring practices. Monica Goodling, who is at the center of the investigation, was caught awarding Justice Department jobs to less-qualified right-wing political hacks instead of qualified candidates who were believed to be gay or lesbian, or who had political leanings that were not in lock step with the Republican agenda.
The American Family Association has been saying lately that don’t want to be accused of being motivated by hate, as evidenced by their recent boycott of McDonald’s. But when the beliefs they espouse are used to justify actions like Jim Adkisson’s last Sunday, I think it’s fair to call things what they are: Violence against gays motivated by hate that is promoted by the likes of Monica Goodling and the AFA.
The conservative Christian Right-Wing is deliberately spreading fear and hatered towards gays and lesbians, and pushing their anti-choice, pro-death penalty, pro-gun agenda on the rest of the world. I’m not generally a conspiracy theorist, but when I hear about people like Monica Goodling, a graduate of the late Pat Robertson’s Regent University’s Law School blatently discriminating against people because she thinks they might be queer, or she thinks they might be pro-choice, I see a conspiracy afoot.
And its feeding the ideology of people like Jim Adkisson who feels he has some God-given right to go shoot up a church on a Sunday. I hope that justice will be served in both of these cases.
Paradoxologies 
I should add that I don’t think the Right Wing Christians want others to go and shoot up churches. I do, however, think that they should take some responsibility for what they say and recognize that it is tantamount to hate speech. Their actual intent may not be to advocate for violence, but I certainly don’t hear much talk from them to the contrary. I don’t hear them talk about love and peace and charity. I read recently that James Dobson made a public statement about Fred Phelps church, basically saying that he was misled. And I’m not exaggerating, the language was about that strong. Fred Phelps is hardly misled. He is a twisted and hateful man, a so-called conservative Christian who really does want to encourage violence against gays and lesbians. He says it out loud all the time, with pride. If the AFA of Focus on the Family want to be perceived as not motivated by hate for queer folk, they need to issue an unequivocal condemnation for the likes of Fred Phelps.
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