Bob Vander Plaats: Anti-Civil Rights Hate Monger
Tuesday, February 8th, 2011
By D. VanThournout
In an earlier time, Bob Vander Plaats would have been rabidly pro slavery, today he’s rabidly anti-gay rights. Next he’ll be rabidly anti-legalization of marijuana. Fact is, he and everyone like him will always be on the wrong side of history.
Civil rights are something that we have to pay for with blood, sweat and tears. And fear based hate speech is something we not only have to listen to, but respond passionately and articulately to. We cannot let our government’s policies, constructed by the people to ensure the common good, to dispense hate and lies via constitutional amendment. If we did, it wouldn’t be the Iowa I know and love.
But that is just what hate puppet Bob Vander Plaats wants. Hate and lies masquerading as legislation.
There is always a civil rights battle being waged. Slavery, Jim Crow, heterosexism, the war on drugs, all of these are rooted in intolerance. It is fear based politics.
Iowa is being inundated with money and hate leading up to the 2012 elections. As an organizer I understand how this works. The more time on the ground with your message, the more likely you will win the election. Over the course of the next couple of years Iowa will be flooded with insane amounts of (Koch brother) money spent lying about everything from gay rights to global warming and beyond. This isn’t just about unseating Obama (though that is part of their agenda), it’s also about health care, liberals in general, tolerance and most currently equality for the LGBT community (and of course anything else good that I left out).
It’s All About Equality
Lets think about that for a moment. What in this word is so hard for people that claim to be Christians to understand? Who do they think has any more right to be home to dinner with their family? Who is born into this world illegally, in gods eyes? Not that I’m a believer, I’m an atheist. But still, I’ve been steeped in religious culture and I know there is a great lie going on when people that profess to be followers of Jesus (love your enemy anyone?) spew hateful rhetoric about how gay people are less than human, are killing themselves and us, are perverts, are curable, or the best one, that gays are why god is going to destroy the world.
After considering this for many years, I’ve come to the conclusion that the only real fight is the fight for equality. It lies at the root of every important social issue. Hunger, poverty, education, jobs, women’s rights, the environment, gay rights, prohibition (you name it), I believe they’re all rooted in in-equality (or keeping us un-equal).
Recently Bob and the others drumming up the hate for the 2012 elections have recently re-branded themselves as a “family” advocacy group called (of all things) The Family Leader. These people are trying to seem reasonable. It’s a complete fabrication, they are as insane, intolerant and hateful as the people that went on a witch hunt in Salem burning “witches”. Most likely women who just didn’t agree with them and their puritanical beliefs. Deny yourself they say. You’re not gay, we can cure you... if not, we can beat you to death, or perhaps you’ll do the right thing, and kill yourself. Your lifestyle certainly is, since if your gay your life expectancy goes down 30 or more years. Gay people are lucky to make it to 40. And of course, my personal fav, hanging around gay people is worse than second hand smoke (if that doesn’t make them sound silly I don’t know what does)... all according to the fine folks at The Family Leader. They’re real pieces of work.
Pushing hate and in-equality, that’s Bob’s game. What do you think of that Iowa?
If you ask me, Bob protests too loudly. I don’t think he trusts himself to live in a society that is tolerant of each others differences. He’s certainly not ready for my dream world where we actually work in loving cooperation with each other to help each other realize our collective visions. Too bad, It’s a nice vision.
Instead, Vander Plaats starts his 99-county tour of Iowa in Leon and spoke to half a dozen people there about various and sundry flavors of hate to carry us through to 2012. Impeach the judges that “forced” equality upon Iowans he says in so many words.
These people are grasping at straws. They are hateful, and completely unhinged, but they are dangerous nevertheless. We liberals and supporters of equality need to be active in this conversation starting right now. We can’t let these horrible people go unanswered. We need an organization that dogs every step The Family Leader takes on it’s campaign to make the LGBT community into second class citizens.
Where I got my information:
Jeremey Hooper of goodasyou.org has assembled a movie that explains These people very well. (first link below)
Iowa group stooping to junk science and hate groups to smear lgbts
Vander Plaats seeks support for family advocacy group
Bob kicks off the hate campaign
