I saw a story yesterday that the Satanic Temple of St Louis Missouri is making a legal argument that waiting periods can't apply to a Satanist's right to an abortion. On religious liberty grounds. Apparently Satan doesn't like to be kept waiting 72 hours for the death of a baby.
Another major story from yesterday, of course, is the failed jihad against cartoons in Garland, Texas. At a Draw Muhammad event organized by the American Freedom Defense Initiative, two Muslims opened fire on security guards at the event. Both jihadis were shot and killed by police.
What these two stories reminded me of is a theory of mine. Not so much the stories themselves, as much as the reaction to these stories that I saw on the Left. It's a nice illustration of the theory, so I'll describe the reaction today. It's going to be a longer project than the typical blog post, so tomorrow I'll apply the reaction case to the theory.
First, the Satanists. Over at Slate, leftist Amanda Marcotte quite enjoys the Satanist "pranksters." Their legal arguments have "complicated" the efforts of assumed "conservative" baddies such as Hobby Lobby to make Christian religious liberty arguments. She sums up: "[A]s a public act of trolling, this stunt gets an A-plus. It exposes the double standards of those who claim to stand for “religious freedom,” and it highlights how waiting periods and other restrictions are actually an attempt to impose religious dogma about abortion on those who don't agree with it."
There is more approval to be found on the Left side of the Interwebs: at ThinkProgress, we learn that the Satanists are a "unique blend of activism, satire, and what appear to be sincere humanist beliefs"; The Frisky roots hard for the Satanists and their "glorious act of killing two birds–or rather, two stupid laws–with one stone"; Jenny Kutner of Salon helpfully links to the Satanists' GoFund me effort to defray travel costs (and later Tweeted with the good news that they "got the $$ they needed!").
And so on and so forth.
Next, cartoons. You might think (if you arrived here from another culture, time and place) that the Satanists and the Muhammad cartoonists have a lot in common--activism, satire, "public acts of trolling," sticking their thumbs in the eye of organized religion. But you'd be wrong.
Slate can't get through the first sentence of its report on Garland without telling us that the cartoon contest organizers are reactionary and anti-Islam.
Talking Points Memo is against shooting cartoonists, of course. But lest anyone get the idea that the cartoonists were courageous (or A-plus trolling pranksters!), TPM is mostly concerned that we remember that we shouldn't "valorize people who run hate groups."
NPR gives us "5 Things To Know About The Organizers of Muhammad Cartoon Contest" The first two are variations on the theme of AFDI as an anti-Muslim hate group, the third is a recording of a cartoonist asking if the shooter was a Muslim (video redacted because NPR won't show Muhammed cartoons), the fourth is a review of AFDI's subway ads supporting Israel and against jihad, and the fifth is history of AFDI's opposition to Park 51, the planned mosque on the 9/11 site in Manhattan. If NPR has a similar list detailing views and behavior of the jihadis that it (presumably) finds distasteful, I could not locate it.
MSNBC's (weirdly parallel) list of 5 things we need to know about Garland leads with a long discussion of AFDI's history as an anti-Muslim "hate group". It lists mostly the same facts as NPR.
And so on and so forth.
From one perspective, this makes no sense. We have two groups--the Satanic Temple and the AFDI--organized against what they believe to be the evils of the two largest religions. The activities of either can be characterized as satire or expert trolling, but only the Satanic Temple gets that kind of smiling approval. The AFDI is a "hate group." The difference didn't arise just yesterday. Almost every time AFDI is referred to as a hate group, The Southern Poverty Law Center is referenced as the authority for that judgment. What is the SPLC? Its a Leftist organization which is in the business of labelling "hate groups" for the purpose of calling them such. SPLC identifies AFDI as an anti-Muslim hate group. It does not identify the Satanic Temple as an anti-Christian group (despite what are presumably the best efforts of the Satanists).
Why would the Left side of our media cheer on Satan worshippers while spitting on AFDI? It certainly doesn't have anything to do with any policy affinity between the Left and Islam--Islamic views of abortion (and women's rights, and gay marriage, and so and so forth) are much less compatible with Leftist preferences than anything found in Christianity.
Evil/Power theory will explain mañana. I'm off for Cinco de Mayo lunch with the wife.
