Dire Consequences or the lie of the "War on Christians"

Members of the anti-gay industry are now claiming that churches and pastors will soon find their religious freedoms in jeopardy for speaking against homosexuality -http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/09/14/ap/politics/mainD8K4PFTO3.shtml

What a load of garbage.

Even though the article did not speak to someone with a differing point of view, the author did acknowledge that this ploy is just a way for so-called "pro family" groups to galvanize voters against marriage equality.

For lack of a better phrase, it is the Dire Consequences tactic. The Dire Consequences claim is a reliable ploy in the arsenal of the anti-gay industry. When they can't sway people with logic, they play the "they are out to get us because we are Christians" card.

I devote an entire chapter of my upcoming book on this tactic. I think it is very appropriate to feature an excerpt from it:

One of the most effective tactics of the anti-gay industry is to claim that pro-gay laws will lead to dire consequences. They say that laws created to protect gays would either a: cause homosexuality to be “forced” on everyone, particularly children or b: cause those who supposedly speak out against homosexuality to be jailed. Possible coercion by an “aggressive homosexual lobby” is a constant theme in all their data.

The “dire consequences” argument is an old fear tactic that was used in other battles. Just as white racists claimed that any elimination of Jim Crow laws would lead to mixed couples and “mongrelization,” the anti-gay industry claim that any law or ordinance that protect gays and lesbians from discrimination or give them any form of visibility is a capitulation that would lead America down a pathway to destruction.

The anti-gay industry constantly raise the notion that creating law protecting the interests of gays and lesbians will lead to negative consequences, but it hardly ever provide actual proof as to the validity of the charges. Rather, so-called “pro family” groups use illogical leaping. In chapter three I talked about how Paul Cameron used his “research” to accuse the state of California of not only “sanctioning” homosexuality but also exposing many to the AIDS virus by hiring a gay professor at one of its universities. Cameron made this accusation without any proof that the professor had HIV. He made an illogical connection. Just because the professor may have been hired does not mean that the state of California was “sanctioning” his homosexuality. For that matter, just because the professor was openly gay did not mean he was HIV positive.

In this same manner so-called “pro family” groups create the same illogical leap to form the same incorrect conclusions. They claim that laws protection gays and lesbians from discrimination or that would afford the community visibility would lead to all sorts of bad consequences. Then they list some of the most extreme examples of what could happen while not giving any evidence as to how the hypothetical events would take place. For example:

“ Few public officials and businessmen realize that when they allow the addition of “sexual orientation” to their nondiscrimination codes, they are tying their own hands when it comes to objecting to:
A man in a highly visible sales job coming to work in a dress and high heels;
A woman in a highly visible position coming to work in men’s clothes;
A person of indeterminate sex who insists on using either the men’s room or the women’s room;
A person of either sex who indulges a taste for extreme sexual promiscuity and pornography during working hours despite being charged with representing the company’s tone and character;
A man who frequents prostitutes while on business trips and claims that it is none of the company’s business, regardless of the company’s public image.” - Why Nashville Should Reject the ‘Sexual Orientation’ Law, Robert Knight, March 4, 2003