Christian Persecution Complex

I went looking for some insight after the recent spate of tantrums* thrown by these sore winners in response to Prop 8 backlash and found a piece from Salon from a couple of months ago, more relevant even today.

The right's two-pronged religion of rage and self-pity
Glenn Greenwald
Thursday Oct. 2, 2008 12:33 EDT

The Right in this country -- meaning the faction that followed George Bush for the last eight years -- long ago ceased being a movement of political ideas and is driven by two, and only two, extreme emotions: (1) intense, aggressive rage towards their revolving door of enemies, and (2) bottomless self-pity over how unfairly they're being treated. As their imminent defeat looks increasingly likely (potentially on a humiliating scale), these two impulses are in maximum overdrive, feeding off one another in endless self-perpetuation (the more they lose, the more victimized they feel, the more they rage against their enemies who oppress them, etc.).

The Right's rejection by the public can't possibly be due to anything they have done. It can only be due to some extremely vicious enemy that oppresses them uniquely and so very unfairly.

He also links to another complimentary article:

The strategic rationale for fashioning one’s group as victims is clear: the public sympathy gained from victimhood can mean the difference between political support and indifference or opposition. Victimology allows activists to rally the troops, to build solidarity by conceiving an existential threat from outside.

218 comments worth of analysis as well.

As one commenter put it:

And getting a massive defeat on November 4th will only confirm their persecuted status. And they will love their feeling of being persecuted for every minute of the next four years. For them, feeling persecuted is more important that victory.

So if they’re coming apart at the seams after having achieved victory over the ‘gay menace,’ one wonders what the rhetoric (or worse) would be like had they lost those ballot measures.

It is clear now that their ego-addictions will never be sated. The depth of dishonesty, hypocrisy, and just plain idiocy -- openly expressed -- is truly stunning. Legal recognition of their supremacy is clearly not enough for them, they won’t stop until they've established a constant stream of secular recognition for it too.

It’s starts to make sense then why they literally define themselves by their hatred of gays. They not only need a group to oppress, they need one that is guaranteed to fight back. Thereby justifying, or redefining their oppression as defensive, thus creating a constant loop of ego-gratification. Oppress, wait for backlash, claim victimhood, justify oppression. Rinse, and repeat.

And with “God” as their egos, their will then becomes “God’s will,” and opposition to them is opposition to “God.”

I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.

-Susan B. Anthony

In essence, their will is their religion. Deny them one, you deny them the other, and persecution complex ensues - circumventing any need for introspection or self-reflection, and ensuring that their own self-created delusions of grandeur remain safely hidden from conscious view.

And apparently (save for some of the leaders) they truly are that stupid. I just went through it with my mother the other day. I brought up how Palin didn't know what a VP does, I brought up Iraq and WMD’s. She wasn’t defending any principle or fact of any kind, the only thing she was defending was the ‘fact’ that she was right. Fortunately I was in rare form that day and was able to get through to her that it wasn’t what she believed that was at issue, it was why she believed it. (Though I’m sure we’ll be having that conversation again (and again and again and again…))

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* Jack Black and Hollywood Stars Defame Christ and the Bible; Apology Demanded.
* NoMobVeto NYT ad
* The WND Pat Boone piece comparing Prop 8 protesters to the Mumbai terrorists, which has to be read to be believed.
* Responses to Lisa Miller's Newsweek essay
(and everything in between)