October 13, 2009

How To Expose Bigotry

Imagine if you saw a headline and news story like this one:

DISNEY ELEVATES JEW TO STUDIO CHIEF
A pro-Christian activist says he's not surprised that the Walt Disney Company has named an open Jew as studio head.
Disney announced last week it had named Rich Ross as studio chief. The 47-year-old television executive helped to revive the Disney Channel, and now will oversee all production, distribution, and marketing for the company's live-action and animated feature labels. It is the first time an open Jew has been named to such a position.
Peter LaBarbera is president of Americans for Truth About Jews. He says although a boycott of the entertainment giant (initiated by the American Christian Association) was called off several years ago, the company is still very Jew-friendly.
"The sad reality is that whenever you see a Jewish activist at the top, nine times out of ten they end up pushing that Jewish agenda using their influence to push it wherever they can," states LaBarbera.
"It's the way the Jewish movement ends up influencing the country far beyond its tiny numbers," he explains. "They get in key positions of power, and then they use that power to advance their agenda."
LaBarbera says it is time for parents to get educated and to move away from Disney to Christian-friendly entertainment companies.

You'd be utterly repulsed, wouldn't you? Of course you would. I sure would.

If you were Christian, you'd be a little bit embarassed by that, feel a need to distance yourself from it, explain how these people might call themselves Christian but you don't think their attitudes and statements are consistent with really being Christian. At least, I hope that's what a true Christian would say.

But, that's not how the actual article reads. Mr. Ross may or may not be an "open Jew," but in fact he is (or at least he is being called) an "open homosexual," and LaBarbera's group is not a "pro-Christian" organization but rather a "pro-family" one (although one wonders exactly how much overlap there might be). That is the nature of the people who have gone out of their way to condemn this piece of otherwise utterly prosaic entertainment industry news. Now, you and I might say, "So what if a gay man is running the studio at Disney? What matters is whether Disney produces salable, family-friendly product."

So read the actual article and tell me why it isn't as bigoted as the tweaking of it I set forth above really is. And then, if you're conservative, justify (if you can) continuing to get your news from this source. Or turning to the excerable American Family Association for anything reliable.

Hat tip to Box Turtle Bulliten.

3 comments:

A Potted Plant said...

Religious preference (Judaism, Christianity) is a matter of conscience, not a lifestyle choice. A person might discriminate for or against a homosexual choice of lifestyle, as a matter of preference, and even an act of conscience. But unless homosexual lifestyle itself becomes an act of conscience (How?), your analogy does not stand.

If you mean to assert homosexuality is unavoidable, like being born ethnically Jewish, you could have chosen a clearer way to say it.

CJ said...

That whole website is full of garbage like that. At least we don't see that kind bigotry from MSM outlets.

I don't get the comment saying homosexuality is "choice of lifestyle". Maybe that's true for bisexual people. I don't feel like I have a choice to be heterosexual or homosexual. One of the "choices" stood out to me as unavoidable at an early age.

Burt Likko said...

I'm with CJ. I don't think that homosexuality is any more of a "lifestyle choice" than heterosexuality is. I can't think of a time I ever made such a choice and I doubt anyone else ever did, either.

But what I meant to claim - and to demonstrate - was that bigotry against gays is every bit as objectionable as bigotry against Jews.