Another example of how religion tends to cling to archaic and antiquated ideas is embodied by such a person as the Reverend Donald Wildmon, head of the so-called American Family Association. Wildmon's alleged morality group epitomizes the concept of the Closing of the American Mind. For instance, they like to boycott television shows which depict subjects which are outside of their narrow ideology. They do likewise with books and magazines, only they sometimes use underhanded tactics and intimidation to try to get bookstores and other businesses to comply with their petty, old-fashioned, and out of date agenda. The tactics of the AFA are sleazy at best. They don't try to sway voters to their way of thinking, perhaps because they know that most people would never think in their narrow-minded way. Instead, these self-proclaimed moralists use constant harassment to try to bully politicians (some of whom are themselves supposed moralists), corporations, and others to see things their way by giving-in to the morality groups demands. To make matters worse, some of our elected officials are sympathetic to the so-called "family values" which these alleged morality groups claim to practice. (Their underhanded tactics expose them for the frauds they really are.).
Appalling as it may sound, a small minority of vocal loudmouths can wreak a lot of havoc on individual, civil, and Constitutional rights and other liberties we all tend to take for granted, especially if the rest of us don't act or speak up for our rights; and let these bastards get away with what they are doing to this nation on a daily basis. (to be cont'd)
[The original version of this essay first appeared in Eastern Connecticut State University's Campus Lantern student newspaper in the early '90s and in my unpublished manuscript "In Mediocrity We Trust... In Debt We Die" And Other Essays.]
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