Love, Know Thy Neighbor More Sin Than Salvation

Okay, life in our culture and the Internet have so gotten bizarre I may just give up. Here's what's happening my my state this morning; see if you can make sense of it:

GAY MARRIAGE
A church names names of gay-marriage foes

A Florida church launched a campaign this week to identify supporters of a proposed state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage by publishing the names and addresses of 400,000 Florida residents in 60 counties. . .

Gary Debusk, pastor of Christ Church of Peace, said the church began the ''Know Thy Neighbor'' effort Monday to encourage dialogue and prevent voter-signature fraud. As the head of a congregation that supports same-sex marriage, Debusk said he also wanted to add a new perspective to a debate that he said has been dominated largely by religious conservatives.. .

The website, knowthyneighbor.org/florida, is linked to the church's home page and contains a searchable database of names. The names on such petitions are part of the public record, according to the Florida Department of State.

Christian groups . . . have denounced the website as a misguided effort to intimidate activists.

''It's a gross invasion of people's privacy,'' said John Stemberger, president and general counsel of the Florida Family Policy Council, an offshoot of James Dobson's national Christian conservative group Focus on the Family.

Stemberger argued that, if Christian conservatives published the names and addresses of gay-rights activists, they would likely be condemned as hatemongers.

''A lot of people would be outraged and say it's a hateful, un-Christian gesture,'' he said.

Lisa Owens, a nurse who lives in Pasco County, said she was furious when she learned from the Florida Family Policy Council that her name and address had been posted online.

It's impossible to read this story without whiplash!

Isn't this side crying foul the same side that patented the technique of using personal privacy and constitutionally protected freedoms like freedom of assembly, expression, religion, etc. as a devastating political weapon against the rest of us? Haven't these same Christian conservatives who now feel privacy-victimized themselves conspired to out, hound, and brand for life if possible, all manner of folks and choices and lifestyles they deem sinful and therefore undeserving of equal privacy and freedom under our constitutional law? Michael Schiavo comes to mind. Doctors and pharmacists. Lovers and lechers and liberals, teenage girls (and boys) and preachers, teachers and parents, musicians, authors, artists, cultural creatives of all kinds, politicians, scientists, the list is endless . . .

I really squirmed at that NYT story June 3, about "internet outing" as a frightening form of -- um, what to call it -- moral stalking by social mob? A weapon of mass destruction of, by and for the people?

"Online Throngs Impose a Stern Morality in China"
In recent instances, people have scrutinized husbands suspected of cheating on their wives, fraud on Internet auction sites, the secret lives of celebrities and unsolved crimes. One case that drew a huge following involved the poisoning of a Tsinghua University student, an event that dates to 1994 but was revived by curious strangers after word spread that the only suspect in the case had been questioned and released.

Even a recent scandal involving a top Chinese computer scientist dismissed for copying the design of an American processor came to light in part because of Internet hunting, with scores of online commentators raising questions about the project and putting pressure on the scientist's sponsors to look into the allegations.

While Internet wars can crop up anywhere, these cases have set off alarms in China, where this sort of crowd behavior has led to violence in the past. Many draw disturbing parallels to the Cultural Revolution, whose 40th anniversary is this year, when mobs of students taunted and beat their professors. Mass denunciations and show trials became the
order of the day for a decade.

So it's not homosexuality or any form or expression sexual or otherwise, nor technology nor any particular form of religion or politics I'm most worried about. I live smackdab in Hurricane Alley and that's not my biggest fear either. I'm thinking today that, if and when the world ends, self-hatred projected onto others will be the indisputable cause.

We had every reason to see it coming, too, but seems like we're frozen by that deer-in-the-headlights paralysis as the truck barrels down the highway. . .trying to drag other deer out into the road to take our place seems dumb but I guess we're animals after all . . . and getting behind the wheel is no improvement, the truckdriver's doomed to lose control and crash, no matter which deer it hits, don't we all know that by now, what are we THINKING? . . .are we thinking at all?

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