PJG’s comment yesterday, along with Foodleking’s response, opened my eyes to something that I had not fully considered. So indulge me as I wander back into hatred for another day.
Let’s begin with the dictionary, which defines hatred as “the feeling of one who hates; intense dislike or extreme aversion or hostility.” That’s the definition I was relying on when I wrote yesterday’s post. Yet that’s not the definition that PJG was using.
See, by the dictionary definition, PJG’s observation that my niece was hating people “without knowing it” makes no sense. My niece was pleasant, cheerful, and respectful of someone with whom she disagreed. The “feeling of one who hates” was entirely absent in her, even in response to someone who had that requisite feeling in abundance. All the “intense dislike” and “extreme aversion or hostility” at the Honk-and-Wave was being generated by the guy with a sign decrying hatred. That was the point of the whole post, really – that the Left hypocritically demonizes the Right as a bunch of haters, and they often do so through hatred themselves.
Yet if PJG is correct, and my niece was hating “without knowing it,” what defines hatred? If it’s not a feeling, then what is it?
It’s an idea.
In PJG’s eyes, the very idea that marriage should not be redefined constitutes hatred. It is fundamentally evil, so championing the idea is evil, too, regardless of the demeanor or the ignorantly misguided motives of those who do so. After all, I’ll bet the Hitler Youth had its share of pleasant, cheerful people advocating genocide, even if they didn’t know that’s what they were doing. In fact, cheerful advocacy of evil is even more hateful than belligerent advocacy, because it’s dishonest, too – it masks the foulness of the soul behind the pleasing façade.
This, I believe, is why you don’t see a similar kind of finger-wagging about hatred on the Right. We’re more than willing to acknowledge the good intentions of those on the other side. You want to provide home loans to people in poverty? What a good person you are! But what’s that you say, Mr. Republican? You want to deny homeownership to this young, struggling minority couple? What are you, Satan?
The institutions of the Left have made tremendous progress in advancing the idea that conservative principles are intrinsically hateful and must therefore be silenced. Indeed, Chuck Schumer has advocated yanking conservatives off the airwaves because their ideas are akin to pornography. RFK, Jr., the current frontrunner to become Obama’s EPA secretary, has stated repeatedly that those who question man-made global warming are morally equivalent to Holocaust deniers. In the eyes of the Left, there can be no righteous motive to hold the repugnant ideas of the Right. All conservatives are haters, whether or not they know it.
We are going down a very dangerous road here.
I believe one of the reasons the LDS Church fought back so hard against this kind of malignant intellectual laziness is that they can see where it leads. Once distasteful ideas become contraband, traditional morality of any stripe will constitute hatred. You won’t let your children date until they’re sixteen? You actually expect them to stay chaste until marriage? Look at the damage you’re doing to these young people! You’re sexually repressing them! They have rights, too! I’m sorry, but how can we allow these churches to keep preaching hate?
I’m confident that the LDS Church will eventually lose its non-profit status as they become increasingly out of sync with the changing times. Indeed, I think that’s likely within a decade or so. And that’s just the first step. It will become more and more difficult for my church, or any church, to function unless they are willing to abandon principles that the body politic defines as prima facie hatred.
Thankfully, the Lord is in charge of the universe, not the Democratic National Committee. How’s that for a hateful thought?
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