[Vision2020] Climate

[Douglas]

Visionaries,

I am grateful to Melynda, Joan, and Amy for condemning acts of public 
malice. I really do appreciate it, and accept Melynda's sincere regret at 
face value. But Wayne is in a different category -- he is against all that 
stuff too, especially since we probably did it to ourselves.

At the same time, please take note. Rod had a cogent point on the issue of 
climate. When the Wrong Group becomes the Evil Group, when the 
Presbyterians become a cult, when the conservatives become the Nazis, why 
are we surprised when some of the less stable on "one side" carry the 
implications of the rhetoric against the "other side?" When Raul published 
the overheated rhetoric of Quinlan and Ramsey on his (university-owned) 
website (e.g. Grant is an "unabashed racist ideologue,"), the unstable on 
your side know how racist ideologues and their fellow travelers are to be 
treated. The problem is, the charge was false, all the way down to the 
ground. Someone needs to take responsibility for the climate.

Melynda was sympathetic with our situation in this because of the form she 
is more familiar with (e.g. "Fags must die."). But you remember, don't you, 
our church's public opposition to the Fred Phelps approach? As some of you 
probably know, we are a church that practices church discipline -- not for 
people who differ with the pastor, or the needy souls who send Vera our 
emails. We practice church discipline for big ticket items like adultery 
and auto theft. And if someone in our congregation took the "fags must die" 
approach, we would discipline them for it, putting them out of the church 
if they did not repent of their malice.

And then all we would have to do is wait for that action to be construed as 
a Stalinist tactic.

Cordially,

Douglas