red fuzzy jesus

Coveting Thy Neighbor's Professional Salary

It's been a while since I emailed Peter.  He had a hissy fit about something I posted a couple months ago which ended in an email that said "I'm done with you," followed by two more hysterical and verbose emails.  This week, however, he put up a rather odd post about the salaries collected by various equality advocates.  Last year sometime AFTAH posted a fund drive soliciting donations and then it was never mentioned again.  Peter asked for $100,000.00 for his "group", barely hiding the fact that he was begging his sheep for a salary he hardly deserves.  The fund drive was never again brought up, which makes me assume Peter was far from successful in sucking money from the faithful.

Now he posts bemoaning how much money the head of the HRC makes.  Can you imagine any professional posting the salaries of their competitors and whining?  I would say this lacks dignity but compared to Peter's bathhouse "investigations" and sex party "exposes" this sort of post is really quite highbrow.  Here's the thing to remember: Peter didn't go to school.  He's an "expert" just because he says he's an expert.  He wants a large salary but he doesn't want to go through the training and testing that justifies a large salary.  Those he covets are the top people at non-profits.  Had they used their law school educations to work for private firms they would be making millions.  Instead they choose to make less in order to apply their skills and knowledge to the greater good.  If Peter didn't make himself into some messenger from God to the undiscerning he would be pumping gas.

That may be harsh and elitist but it's true.  Young people work very hard and then wait anxiously to hear if they were accepted into a good college, graduate school, medical school, or law school.  They spend years of their lives being critiqued and shaped.  They write papers that are torn apart and stay up all night studying for exams so that when they are done they have years under their belt to back up their assertions.  They also usually take out thousands of dollars in student loans for which they need a professional salary at the end.

Peter bypassed these steps and just appointed himself an expert in law, biology, psychology, medicine, childhood development, theology, sociology, and political science.  His qualifications are Bible verses he selectively interprets.  His credentials are nothing more than a desire to collect money for one's personal prejudices.  Not everyone needs to have a high degree or professional expertise.  There is a lot of respect for those who go to work day in and day out never getting the praise they deserve.  There is a dignity in putting in an honest day's work to support one's family.  Peter doesn't want an honest day’s work commiserate with his qualifications.  He wants the cheers and jeers of his fellow men to make him feel important.  So he runs a hateful blog that he calls a "group" or "organization" and posts that he doesn't make as much as other leaders to which he is not comparable. If it weren’t for all the slanted stories and outright lies about people he has never met I would say this is disgusting.  But, again, for Peter this is pretty highbrow.

My email to Peter is below:

I find it mildly comical that you take issue with professional salaries.  None of the dollar amounts you posted are really that high in the DC area.  Most first-year attorneys start with six figures.  The men and women in your post have extensive training in the areas they practice.  Most went to top tier law schools and now use their qualifications to work on 5th and 14th Amendment issues such as due process and equal treatment under the law.  If they had gone a more traditional route they would be partners in law firms and making millions.  They take a salary cut to work for equality.  You however lack any formal training in the areas in which you profess to be an expert (other than personal prejudice and claims of being a spokesperson from God).  You know that if you did not make a "profession" out of bigotry your career aspirations would be quite bleak.  So you settle for the pseudo-celebrity of the religious right echo chamber while the rest of us work years to hone expertise.  If your ridiculous claims about "behavior" really have merit then please submit an article to a peer-reviewed journal in some field, any field.  Put your assertions to the test rather than hiding behind a comment-free blog.  Tout your training in Biology, Medicine, Psychology, Law, and Politics.  You have none.  You're a charlatan dressing up bigotry as some sort of political or legal advocacy when you have neither the depth nor training to justify such a "career".

Changes

After years of posting primarily long-form articles on RFJ I have decided to change it up.  I don’t have a lot of time for personal writing and often I would rather post quick, short thoughts on an item at hand.  It doesn’t mean I will never post long articles.  But, I have had several long articles that I have been editing and tweaking since January.  All the while the page goes un-updated.  I would rather the site be updated more often with briefer posts. 

Persecution Complex

Since the election I have noticed a sharp increase in victimhood coming from the religious right.  While a tactic they have used in the past, there seems to be greater frequency of it recently.  Here are some examples:

This link leads to the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission.  On it they claim, “Christian bashing, the last acceptable form of bigotry in America, is alive and well and growing more intense and hysterical by the day.”  Yes, that poor oppressed minority, American Christians, just don’t feel safe leaving their houses. 

This article from the Dominionist One News Now features former actor Kurt Cameron claiming, “Attacks on [Christian] faith are an opportunity.”  What attacks?  He doesn’t specify.  It’s just the usual political opposition to their agenda.  If you oppose their political priorities you, of course, are attacking the faith of Christianity.  They cannot differentiate their faith from partisan politics.  The article does not provide any examples of Christians getting fired from their jobs, harassed on the streets, beat up, denied insurance or marriage license so one wonders what “attacks” they are really enduring.

This one takes the cake.  It’s an hour long video about Christians being “silence”.  Playing the part of the oppressed, again, they claim somehow that Christians are being kept from speaking out.  How is that possible?  The religious right is the most vocal activist coalitions out there.  They claim they are being silenced by potential hate crimes legislation.  However, Christians – all religions – have been covered by hate crimes laws for forty years and never once have they been used to silence speech.  And, hate crimes laws protecting sexual orientation are already on the books in many states and most urban areas.  Again, no sign of Christian oppression but that doesn’t stop them from playing the victim. 

There are dozens more examples among the typical RR sites.  Because the fundamentalists no longer have Bush in office and aren’t getting everything they want from DC they act as if they are the objects of bigotry and suppression.  The truth is, with few exceptions, it is nearly impossible to get elected in this country without claiming you’re a Christian.  Christians have a network of churches across the country that they use – illegally, considering tax exemption rules – for political mobilization of the faithful and thoughtless.  Stop crying.  You can’t be a solid majority and pretend to be oppressed.  People oppose your political agenda because W. did everything you said for eight years with disastrous effects.  That’s not oppression and it is an insult to real minorities to feign oppression.