Prince of Hate

"God hates soft men. God hates effeminate men. If I was in a drugstore and some guy opened the door for me, I'd rip his arm off and beat him with the wet end."
Ken Hutcherson, pastor - Antioch Bible Church, Kirkland Washington

Wow. At this rate, Christopher Hitchen's next anti-religious screed will pretty much write itself. As well it should. American Christianity has a problem in the fact that within its community lurk some really evil, nasty people, who understand that they have divine sanction for spreading hate. They are tolerated because their message - that there is a different set of rules for Christians who, as the "chosen people," are special - makes it easy to see them as only a problem to "bad people."

And to a degree, they're right. After all, even Rwanda during the height of the Genocide was a safe place to be - if you were an extremist Hutu.

"[Art] Caplan draws a wise lesson from the Nazi doctors: Beware the human weakness for moral rationalization. But part of that weakness is the illusion in each of us that we have escaped it."
William Saletan ("Natural-Born Killers" Slate Magazine, 4 April, 2005)