Dobson's World

John Aravosis of America Blog ran this item Thursday: Religious right outs high school kid for political gain 2/09/2006.

It's about the American Family Association, a Christian Right group which has gained fame/notoriety by threatening to boycott various corporations over marginal offenses to the sensibilities of their particular segment of the population. I doubt the AFA could pull off a serious boycott, and I'm really surprised every time I hear about some company agreeing to pull an ad based on their threats.

In this case, their propaganda service published a complaint on the Web from two North Carolina parents that a seminar at a program for gifted students made their son think he might be gay. And the article mentioned the names of the parents, which of course identifies their high-school age son as well. Aravosis writes:

Congratulations. You've now made this kid and his sexuality a national story. I'm sure his classmates are very happy to know that he might be gay, and now much of the country knows. Gym class is gonna be a joy now. And walking home after school? Well, let's just say I'll be very surprised if this kid gets to walk home undisturbed. Are you people that frickin' stupid and naive and careless that you couldn't at the very least leave the parents' name out of the article?

But this kind of meanness is really at the core of the authoritarian impulse that largely drives the Christian Right groups. As Aravosis concludes his post:

What would Jesus do? I doubt the religious right hate groups could care less.

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