What Hitleresque Thing Did the Liberals Do Now?

The Religious Right isn’t going away just yet. Here’s a quotation from one of their leaders:

“This is just bizarre, and it shows how the teachers with their radical sexual agenda want to start early to reprogram these kids’ minds. They want to undermine the faith teachings that the kids have at home; this is part of a plan,” he suggests. “To me, this is like Hitler with Nazi Germany and the Soviets wanting to get to the youth and change the kids by getting to them at a very young age.”

That was said by Peter LaBarbera, the president of “Americans for Truth about Homosexuality.”

What evil, nefarious event brought on that statement?

The card below — typically meant for middle school or high school students — was accidentally passed out to a classroom of kindergartners in California last week:

The school has acknowledged the mistake and has stated the cards were not appropriate for that age group.

End of story, right?

Nope. LaBarbera contends it’s all just part of our master plan.

I call Reductio ad Hitlerum on this one.

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Richard Wade

Some fundies are coming right out and saying without embarrassment that their freedom of religion is being denied if they don’t have the freedom to practice hate.

So, their orientation is freedom to hate = freedom of religion.

As Richard Rogers said in his lyrics in “South Pacific,”
You have to be taught to fear and to hate.
You have to be taught before it’s too late.
Before you are six or seven or eight
You have to be carefully taught!
Jeff Satterley

Great reference Richard! I never thought about those lyrics before. But actually, I must correct you: Hammerstein wrote the lyrics to South Pacific, Rodgers wrote the music. (Yeah I know, I’m a dork).
justin jm

Holy crap! This group thinks we’re like Nazi Germany? Did Hitler ever say anything against bullying?

I hope telling Mr. LaBarbera he needs a reality check isn’t fascist of me.

I also point out that the academic definitions of “liberal” and “fascist” are mutually incompatible.
Richard Wade

Jeff Satterley,
Thank you! I have been making that error for quite some time about one of my favorite songs. Dorks rule.
efrique

The silliness of this particular episode aside, the response is particularly creepy. I mean beside the whole Hitler and Stalin crapfest, what he’s actually saying in there is:
“we can’t allow any competition of ideas … those impressionable brains of young children are ours”

He doesn’t want anyone interfering with the scheme to teach them to hate. Little kids don’t hate, but if you start in on them young enough, they’ll soon pick it up.
Soitgoes

Turnabout is fair play. Who was it that said “give me the boy and I’ll give you the man”? It seems to me is was one or another christofascist.
noodleguy

Hmmmm…I can’t think of any other places where we program our children with idealogies they can’t possibly stand starting in kindergarten.

“One nation,
Under God”

Oh. Yeah, that.
J. J. Ramsey

Americans for Truth about Homosexuality?

Has anybody else here noticed that when a PAC has “for Truth” in its title, its purpose is usually to peddle lies?
noodleguy

also: Godwin’s Law.

Just had to put that out there.
Pamela

if anyone knows about getting them while they are young, it’s Christians!
cassiek

the “give us the boy” quote I believe is from a Jesuit priest (their founder?)
hoverFrog

cassiek got there first. The quote is from Francis Xavier, opne of the founders of the Jesuit order, and says “Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man”. It’s worth pointing out that Xavier spread his faith in part by destroying the icons of competing faiths so there’s a fine tradition to uphold with modern fundamentalists.

Isn’t it the bible though that insists on raising a child within a faith?
Gabriel G.

We passed out those cards at my high school during Ally Week a few weeks ago. We had a lot of people sign them, but I doubt even half of them actually took it seriously.
llewelly

Ironically, Hitler persecuted homosexuals as harshly as he persecuted Jews; many died Nazi concentration camps simply because they were homosexual.
Jen

I agree the cards are probably advanced for 5 year olds, but talking to them about bullying would hurt why?
Buffy

“To me, this is like Hitler with Nazi Germany and the Soviets wanting to get to the youth and change the kids by getting to them at a very young age.”

Aren’t they the ones who start taking kids to church sometimes right from birth, and can be found handing out tiny Gideon’s Bibles outside the grade schools? Yet *we’re* the ones trying to recruit and indoctrinate the children.

Can you say “projection”? I knew you could!