Clash or "Rights" or clash of "The Right?"

Clash of Rights?

        As is customary, the two guys who write Jesus and Mo have nailed it all in four easy pieces (or panels, if you prefer.)  Along the way, they have delineated the essential differences  between the  exclusionary Far Rightists and the rest of us including, it should be noted, many, if not most Republicans and others of good faith and intention. It is noteworthy that the difference isn't about economics, national priorities, Heathcare, or anything else which really matters, but about "We don't like (insert favorite prejudice here) even though it has zero impact on our lives, so we don't like you." 

(read 'em all at http://www.jesusandmo.net/ )

       As the cartoon shows, the basic issue here is exclusion and denial by one group of the rights of another group which, in truth, represents no threat to their own rights. As I believe many of the Far Right see the world, it is essential for their emotional well being that they are not only free to believe as they wish, but to inflict that system of beliefs on others who may differ in opinion.

        An example, perhaps (or, sadly, perhaps not) far-fetched in reality, but exactly analogous in principal would be a man in Boston loathing another in New York because one is a Yankee fan , the other a Red sox rooter. They don't know each other, will never be forced to associate socially as friends, and their paths will probably never cross. They might well be persons who, in the absence of this one difference of opinion, might coexist peaceably because their private lives never intertwine. Yet, the sight of the guy in the Yankees hat angers the Sox fan out of all proportion to any real  meaningful sense. He knows him not, but he hates anyway.

       This is pretty much the same way bigots judge persons of different ethnicities,  religious zealots judge gays, and threatened men judge assertive women. None of these persons actually represents any threat to their well being, but some are construed in the recess of those person's minds as representing a loss, either real or imaginary,  of dominance or control in society. It's sad that those who are most engaged in tearing American societal fabric apart have deluded themselves that it is a just cause. Why do they do it? They do it because admitting one's error (for them) threatens their carefully constructed emotional underpinning built of lies, prejudices, half truths and outright unfounded belief in the supernatural.