10 weirdest right-wing Christian conspiracy theories
Thursday, Sep 5, 2013 07:28 AM CDT
10 weirdest right-wing Christian conspiracy theories
Fundamentalist Christianity is crawling with conspiracy theories, urban legends, and just plain bizarre beliefs VIDEO
By Amanda Marcotte
For the Christian right, having a “faith-based” worldview extends far beyond claims about demons and angels. Unsurprisingly, the world of fundamentalist Christians is absolutely crawling with conspiracy theories, urban legends, and just plain bizarre beliefs about how the world works. Here’s a list of 10 of the weirder ones are currently in circulation.
1) Same-sex marriage is an elaborate scheme concocted by lesbians to entrap men. David Usher of the Center for Marriage Policy managed to cough up a theory that is an outstanding blend of homophobia, misogynist myths about the mendacity of women, and paranoia about the supposed gravy train that is child support. He argues that women will marry each other and conscript men into supporting them by “pretending they are using birth control when they are not.” The men will then “become economically conscripted third parties to these marriages, but get nothing in return,” presumably because the only reason a man would want to care for his own children would be in exchange for sex and housework. He also assumes that the only sources of income women have access to are child support and welfare; the possibility that women hold jobs doesn’t seem to occur to him.
Usher is trying to find a way to justify the increasingly ridiculous right-wing claim that same-sex marriage is somehow undermining “traditional” heterosexual marriage. He has zero-evidence for his claim outside of his belief that women are generally sleazy liars, and will “cheat” men out of the straight marriages they’re entitled to by sneaking off with women.
2) Planned Parenthood is trying to get kids “hooked” on sex. The anti-choice organization American Life League has been peddling the idea for a long time now that Planned Parenthood works like a mythical drug dealer, but with sex. The theory, summarized in this amazing video, goes like this: Planned Parenthood lures otherwise asexual young people into thinking sex is fun (something they are dead certain that you would never, ever think if not for Planned Parenthood). They then trick them into having sex by telling them contraception works, but (evil laugh), the contraception doesn’t work and the young people get pregnant and have to have abortions. Which means profit for Planned Parenthood! This neat little theory requires ignoring both the fact that Planned Parenthood is a non-profit and that the overwhelming scientific evidence shows that contraception does work, but ignoring facts and evidence is what the Christian right does best.
3) Gay men wear special rings for the sole purpose of giving innocent straights HIV. This one was trotted out recently by everyone’s favorite disseminator of Christian right urban legends, Pat Robertson. “You know what they do in San Francisco, some in the gay community there they want to get people so if they got the stuff they’ll have a ring, you shake hands, and the ring’s got a little thing where you cut your finger,” he explained, suggesting there’s a serial killing ring of gay men who kill with HIV for reasons undetermined. Robertson backpedaled, but as Anderson Cooper suggested, only because he got caught.
http://www.salon.com/2013/09/05/10_weirdest_right_wing_christian_conspiracy_theories_partner/
(It gets even weirder, sorry to say!)
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