Only 1 Hitler GroupIn my book, there’s only one group of people who can rightfully be called “Nazi/Hitler”:
“christians”.  
From one side of their mouth, they brag about how loving, caring and compassionate they are.
From the other side, they go running to the government they hate so much, trying to have a group of people they hate exterminated.  They’ve tried it with gay people a couple times already, and with their rising hatred of Atheists/Agnostics (the people who’ll REALLY crash their titanic business racket), don’t be surprised if they sneak around and try to do the same with them.  
And a good percent of those Atheists/Agnostics are the same people the lunatics chased off from the church, for not being “TRUE christians” (AKA discriminatory, pro-choice, violent against gays, etc.).
Plus there’s no Hitler-like propaganda machine quite like “christians” – whether it be their far-right politicians, chick tracts or their other various comics and videos targeted mainly at indoctrinating children.

SOME ChristiansAlthough, granted, few practicing Christians seem willing to stand up against the hatemongers, and “silence equals complicity.”

Institutional Christianity might be a better way to put itor even “fundamentalism” (be it Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Hindu, atheism, etc.).  

And I’d add the modifier……conservative to the “Christians” thing. I still wouldn’t call them Nazis — they haven’t actually tried to kill millions accross their part of the world lately — but I get what you’re saying.
It’s certainly not all Christians though, which is why I believe you used quotation marks around “christian.”
But, I consider Allyson Robinson and Peterson Toscono (for example) to be truly wonderful LGBT Christian people.
Personally, I’m a “small c” Christian woman myself — Kind of post-Christian in my thoughts on Christian dogma regarding God and Christ. But that said, some faithful folk who belive in God can be — and are — pretty wonderful folk.
Painting with too broad a brush can itself be troubling though — which goes back to attempting civil political discussions. How do you have a discussion with a Christian who could now be, or end up being at some future date, your political civil rights ally?

Indeed, there are many people of faithwho are supportive of the LGBT community, especially up here in Maine. And when they take a stand and speak up, they have greater influence within the Christian community than some like me.
I have learned, through the course of the past year, to discard my own broad brush, THINK, and go with a much finer tipped brush… and wish to publicly apologize to those that I offended with my past misuse of the broad brush approach. It was wrong, and I am sorry.

someONE, not some…

I don’t think the Nazi/Hitler comparison can be made against the Episcopal ChurchOr the Society of Friends or the UUA or the UCC or MCC, and there are many Congregationalist, Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran and even Baptist congregations that have openly and actively embraced diversity. When you go beyond just gay issues, there are many more Christian institutions to whom the Nazi/Hiter comparison is grossly unfair: the Peace Churches, the sanctuary movement, the whole gamut of social justice causes over the last 150 years.
For all the press they get, right wing fanatics really do represent a minority.  

Fox WannabeesReally dumb people are watching how people like Bill O’Reilly act, think that it’s wonderful, and are trying to emulate it.  In other words, the lessons about how to interact that most people learn in kindergarten never really happened with some people.  They hid as much as they could, except when with like minded people, but now being an asshole has become a fad with them that they are embracing.  They think that they are showing everyone how smart and cool they are, and some people agree, but most of us just see big babies.

The Hitler moustache and ObamaThe thing with the Hitler moustaches has been going on for decades. Many politicians have had the Hitler moustache drawn on their faces — mostly Republicans. People did it to Nixon, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Dubya, and now Obama.
Bill Clinton never seemed to get this treatment. I don’t know why. Perhaps he was just too much of a jolly Bubba for it too look right on his face (as the ad below states he would look more like Oliver Hardy). No one would take a comparision between Clinton and Hitler seriously.

So, after years and years of seeing Republicans compared to Hitler, they are turning the tables.
Perhaps this will kill this practice once and for all.

Just as Hitler references are outside most discussionsThe models of Jesus and even MLK aren’t very realistic, either.
There is evidence Jesus could LOSE IT. A temper can flare up a market place, have all it’s tables turned over and whip those who so disgusted him. MLK wasn’t ever known to lose his temper publicly, but it took a toll, with him being discouraged and depressed at various points in his life.
There are some subjects and positions which are so diametricly opposed that people from different sides simply aren’t going to convince the other, and it will just end with a battle royal.
Take Steven L Anderson praying for all queers to be dead, and claiming we all mollest children.
There’s NO civil response to that.
Take the Stormfront or Neo-Nazi positions on Blacks, Jews, and queers, nothing any of us say or do (in those groups) would sway them in the least.Being human, swearing at them, while not civil, is perfectly rational.

Some acts are beyond the paleWhen someone is dragged to death behind a car for being Black, or 5 people kicking to death a gay sailor, or a feminine boy so cruelly bullied and ridiculed he commits suicide, or a mother taunting a friend of her daughter online, until she also preferred death.
These acts which any rational person finds horrific, some then continue to heap insult on the victim, as deserving what they got.
If I gave a civil response to such actions, it would diminish me as well.

There is also danger in NOT making NAZI comparrisonsYou read the biography’s and novels of the early days of Brownshirts, or the hearings in Nurenburg, small actions of thuggery and intimidation against scapegoats, the desperation of hunger and fear motivating a population, and small incidental court rulings where judges KNEW what they were doing was wrong….begins the slide into a genocidal nightmare.
Not watching for similarities, not attempting to ward off a disaster before it’s uncontainable….is just how it begins.
The holocaust survivors didn’t write books annually because they wanted a F*CKIN walk down memory lane, they knew it could easily start all over again.

Anyone naive enough to think…NOT IN AMERICANeeds look back no farther than the begining of the AIDS epidemic.
Who could have foreseen a time when doctors and hospitals wouldn’t care for sick people, where their getting sick was was considered vile and even unlawful. Where hospital staff wouldn’t bring the food trays to those dying. Where a boy would be told he couldn’t attend school, and his parents received death threats.

I am partial to “Christianist” myselfI don’t accept the Christianity of anyone who abuses sacred scripture, using it as a justification for bias, bigotry and hatemongering.
Those who abuse Christianity in that way do not deserve to be respected as Christians, regardless of their claims to any authenticity as Christians.  Among the prime Christianists is the current Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, who, since he replaced Cardinal Ottaviani in the 1960′s as the head of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has been the architect of the retreat of the Roman Catholic Church from its encounter with the “Modern World” in Vatican II, and for the hierarchy’s major missteps in moral theology, from Humanae Vitae’s condemnation of artificial birth control, through the various writings about homosexuality and secular marriage, and the sub secretum document on the treatment of transsexual people.
The Roman Catholic hierarchy is responsible for energizing many evangelical Christians (converting them, too, into Christianists), who had previously not focused on the “abortion issue,” to make this a major cause of their theological oppression of women, going hand-in-hand with their oppression of LGBT people.
The leadership of the LDS Church was invited into the Prop 8 fray in California by the Roman Catholic archbishop of San Francisco.
That isn’t to say the Pope is the sole cause – sadly, Christianity has had a long history of moral missteps, but there are also many Christians whose faith has evolved beyond these.  Those who remain unevolved in their spiritual outlook may be fairly be called Christianists.  Among the best books on Roman Catholic moral theology, to the extent it has been oppressive of women, is German Roman Catholic theologian Uta Ranke Heinemann’s Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven, which, I note has both a Nihil Obstat and an Imprimatur.  One might have thought she might have been singled out for discipline in the way that others, such as Hans Kung, have been, but apparently she hasn’t come under Benedict’s malevolent eye.
The “ist” derivation context is something I picked up from Bill Safire’s On Language column in the Sunday New York Times magazine  some time back, and is related to the use of the term “Islamist” to distinguish the “bad” Muslims from the “good” ones.
I do note the recent activity of a group of Roman Catholics who have been critical in the open of their hierarchy in Maine and the way it would rather soend money oppressing people than keeping parishes open or providing assistance to the poor.  (Apparently, we will always hae the poor with us, but bishops really feel the need to oppress and crucify LGBT people’s secular civil rights at the expense of the spiritual well-being of their flocks).

To bring back this question

What do each of us who are politically engaged on some level or another to make political discourse and behavior more palatable?

Damned good question.
Frankly, I am still working on my basic civility skills, and have found that if I WAIT TO RESPOND until I can discuss calmly/rationally/without rancor whatever the discussion point at hand is, I simply STFU and LISTEN.
Some days I do better at this than others…

Hey, Jon Stewart! Can I compare these guys to Nazis?

When you compare people to Hitler, enh, you lose a little credibility.

Eh, not always true…

It’s not for lack of doctrine or desirethey haven’t actually tried to kill millions accross their part of the world lately
The only reason America’s christian fascist thugs haven’t started mass killings yet is because they don’t have the cajones. But they’re getting there, if the exponentially rising number of anti-gay, anti-Semitic white supremacist groups is any indication. So far they’ve stuck to brutally murdering minorities in singles or small groups, while the majority of the “christian” community is either silent, or simply disavows the perpetrator as a “lone wolf” nutcase. Please see Dr. Tiller’s murderer, Scott Roeder, or Matthew Shepard’s mormon murderer, Russell Henderson. I didn’t hear too many lds exclaiming shock and outrage that Matthew Shepard had been murdered. Matter of fact, official doctrine from Spencer W. Kimball and Boyd “KKK” Packer encourages violence towards gay men. The official reaction to Dr. Tiller’s murder was a disavowal of Scott Roeder while the troops lauded him as a hero.
Silence from the “mainstream” is complicity. Lack of condemnation is condoning. When the “mainstream christians” are silent, their extreme brethren do the talking for them. The message I’ve taken away from the last 20 years of silent complicity and screaming hatred is that most christians couldn’t care less if a gay person or a transperson is murdered. If “mainstream christians” want to distance themselves from that perception, they need to make that line in the sand a bit more visible.
Don’t give credit where it ain’t due, Autumn.

Tom MetzgerHe called me at my home when I was 15 years old to threaten me, BTW.
I organized a group to prevent the Klan from screening Birth of a Nation when I was in high school. I received numerous death threats and Metzger called me (this was back when people where listed in the phone book) and told me “you people are trying to take away my rights” and that I would “reap what I sow.”  

AMEN!!!!!
I don’t mean to be disrespectful but I submit that the entire premise is a false one and, in my not so humble opinion, is a function of our internalizing the message that we are inferior to “the majority.” To wit: we don’t have the “right” to get angry, we don’t have the right to “fight” back. If women had remained, as they were advised, “ladylike,” they would still be legal chattel, which, of course, they still are in Muslim countries because they have bought into the violent sexism of traditional Islam.
As for “Godwin’s Law”-I loathe the very term. First, it’s inherently hyperbolic on its own for it’s not remotely a “law” even in the sense of semantic or rhetorical “standards.” Wikipedia has been almost totally ruined by the obsessive-compulsive Wike Gestapo [yes, deal with it!], but its explanations here are worth noting exactly because so few who use the expression get it themselves.

Godwin’s “Law” itself can be abused, as a distraction, diversion or even censorship, that fallaciously miscasts an opponent’s argument as hyperbole, especially if the comparisons made by the argument are actually appropriate. The corollaries of the “law” would presumably not apply to discussions covering genocide, propaganda, or other mainstays of the Nazi Germany, or, more debatably, to discussion of other totalitarian regimes, since a Nazi comparison in those circumstances is understandable. It is precisely because such a comparison or reference may sometimes be appropriate, Godwin has argued, that overuse of Nazi and Hitler comparisons should be avoided, because it robs the valid comparisons of their impact.

Anyone who doesn’t believe that the Antigay Industry and the Obama haters aren’t would-be “totalitarian regimes” is mentally challenged.
Another example is “politically correct” which has gone from a worthwhile denunciation of “group think” to a way of trivializing and dismissing anyone who disagrees with the tyranny of the majority.
May I submit “Bedwell’s Law”: success of defeating the enemies of LGBT equality is in inverse proportion to the fear of being thought “not nice.” Civility is a starting point that is justifiably abandoned when met with uncivility, and is rarely a cure for another’s stupidity, whether inherited or willful.
And, yet again:
“It’s not the Earth the meek inherit it’s the dirt.”

Back to the topic at hand…Civil dialogue requires an environment that is conducive to peole acting in a civil manner.
In order to have civil dialogue, both sides must agree that it is in their interest to do. More importantly, the audience must actively condemn those that step out of bounds.
The problem with modern America is that we now have a news media that rewards uncivil behaviour by giving it more attention. A town hall meeting that is conducted in a civilized fashion with all sides respecting the other’s opinion will go largely unnoticed.
Thus the point of the game is not to make the best argument possible, but to be as loud and offensive as possible in order to get attention.
The sad truth is that liberals, by our very nature do not do this very well. We do loud and energized pretty well. However, liberals often have a broad base of support, which makes us sensitive to the things that we say. Our very positions are based on the idea that everyone has some value. Plus we tend to have scruples. Our own enlightenment is used against us by people who have no scruples and only need to please a fairly narrow group of people in order to achieve their aims.

There is enough in the history of Christianity . . . . . . that one need not make a point using der Fuehrer as a comparison.
For example, Clement of Alexandria, a so-called “Father of the Church” is a perfect example of someone whose canonization is probably misplaced.  One need only recount the story of the brutal and bloody murder of the head of the Library of Alexandria (who in the ancient world was the equivalent of the Chancellor of a Harvard or an Oxford University in modern times), a remarkable woman named Hypatia.  When she refused to convert to Christianity, Clement had her executed by monks armed with sharpened clamshells, who literally sliced her living flesh from her bones.
As far as I am aware, there has been no movement among Christians to de-canonize Clement.
There is a St. Francis, king of France, very much unlike the gentle Francis of who was canonized despite his belief that any Jew who refused to acknowledge the ever-virginity of the Virgin Mary should be immediately be run through with a sword by a good Christian knight – and he’s still canonized.
The Roman Catholic Church, some years back, went through its list of saints and reviewed them – it’s well known that the popular St. Christopher was acknowledged to have been merely a legendary character and not a real person.  Some of the real persons who have been treated as saints over the years should also be subjected to a critical review.  Perhaps at some point they repented, but unless their repentance is known, it’s inappropriate for them to remain on the roster of officially-recognized saints.
Such a house-cleaning is way overdue.
Popes have apologized to Jews and Muslims for past persecutions.  The’ve apologized for the trial of Galileo, and canonized Jeanne d’Arc. They’re still persecuting and condemning our people.
The attitude of the Nazis toward Jews was not helped by the fact that Jews were often persecuted by Christians, and until the early 1960′s, the blood libel was taught by the Catholic Church, that the biblical account in which the group of Jewish people assembled in Pilate’s courtyard called out “His blood be upon us and upon our children” meant that all Jewish people are guilty as Christ-killers, by a methodology somewhat reminiscent of the promulgation of the Original Sin of Adam becoming a stain on the souls of all, thus requiring the Sacrament of Baptism for salvation.
Persecution of Jews in Europe was a barbaric practice long associated with, tolerated by, and encouraged by Christianity and Christian leaders, just as today’s persectution of LGBT people is spurred on by so-called Christian leaders who also claim a theological basis for their oppression.
In one view, Adolph Hitler’s final solution to the Jewish Question was an example of a Christianist approach to the issue – it isn’t so much that Christianists were like Hitler, but that the culture that led to Hitler was predominantly a Christian one.  Yes, I know ther was a lot of pagan thematics in the evolution of the Third Reich, but the attitudes toward the Jews were Christianity-based.
Christianity has an historical responsibility for the Holocaust that is deep, even though today’s Christians are themselves not personally responsible for it.  The Silence of the Pope at the time was not the only indicator.  Many of Hitler’s willing accomplices were Christians, both Protestant and Catholic.  Yes, some did speak out, and they, too were persecuted.  Many were silent, and too many were participants.

@Michael Bedwell“It’s not the Earth the meek inherit it’s the dirt.”
Awesome quote, I’ll file away

So much for the civility thing …Yes, there is anger boiling over from all sides in this nation today & here in the comments. The Christian hating comments are just as bad as the tea baggers signs on the Mall on Saturday.
The incivility in our society goes far beyond politics — just try to drive legally & responsibly — within seconds, some SUV will be on your bumper giving you the finger. The bumper stickers I see when they cut me off come from every political perspective, could be a Jesus message, an Obama sticker, a peace sign, or a rainbow, so this make me believe that our incivility is kind of universal.
How did we get here? Maybe it was the “Me Generation” which led us into the Regan “Revolution” & “greed is good” & losing our empathy & being top rat in the race & having stuff was all life was about. At least people (after going to the mall) were happy.
Now those days our over & even those of us that didn’t run up our credit card are left holding the bag for the last 30 years. America ain’t the “city on the hill” anymore, either. In fact, we will never be # 1 again. Obama’s job is to lead us through this reality, & a big part of this is to lead us all back to civility. A big part of that is for all of us to stop with the name calling & bigotry, or you’re all a bunch of Hitlers!

Still, not Hitlers.Again, Hitler and  the Nazis worked too hard to be as evil as they were to waste as a moniker on people who aren’t killing millions.
Calling Christians either “Hitlers” or “Nazis” diminishes the evil that Hitler and the Nazis actually did.

re: Back to the topic at hand… Yes, but how does one respond to incivility? Because I think that’s the real question. Yes, the media gives a whole lot of press to these people. It really hasn’t changed public opinion on the debate, though. The goal of the tea baggers was to provoke Obama down to their level; he didn’t take the bait. In fact, he has remained civil even while forcefully pointing out the “lies” to the “Joe” tea-baggers of the world.  

Yeah. Sad.I try and get a discussion on political civility going, and istead there is a discussion going on who it’s  appropriate to call a Hiter or who to call Nazis, or about who it’s okay to be uncivil to.
My broader LGBT community has been disappointing me a great deal of late when it comes to how we treat each other LGBT people, and how we treat “the other” who either aren’t LGBT, or are at the intersection of LGBT and other minority groups.

Okay, throwing the threadjacking card down…… on the whole Chritianity discussion. Keori, this is not directed at you per se, but instead at this whole discussion as being way off the topic of discussing political civility.

And on a personal level, I’m pretty disappointed in this whole sub thread, including my participation in it. The point of this diary wan’t to get a discussion going about personal dislike of conservative ‘Christians,’ or any other kinds of Christians. I’m calling it off-topic at this point. Please take this discussion about Christians, conservative “Christians,” and Christianity to an open thread.

I don’t agree.The only group that needs to be called this are Nazis themselves (there are enough out there). I’ve met many more Christians who are actually compassionate, respectful, understanding. Do I need them to be LGBTQ or agree with me? No.
Do I believe there is a specific vocal set of groups who are propagating an extreme misguided form of Christianity and claiming to be “all Christians” while fighting the gov’t? Yes.
That’s part of the ability to voice differences and respecting them. What I have seen lately in US Politics has been a degradation of debate, civility and basic morals. It has nothing to do with the issues but rather one’s ability to yell louder and/or appear more colorful to get on the next news bite. The idea that the President is a “nazi” or that the opposition are “baby-eating lizards” (Canadian political reference) is not about issues but childish name-calling that serves no purpose.
It is this lack of civility and respect that has probably turned off more people to politics and using their right as citizens to vote. I’ll give credit to Obama in that he’s been respectful regardless of the opposition throws at him.
Perhaps if the media took responsibility in it’s part of this and refused to entertain this; and were more of the true journalist that they are supposed to be, perhaps, we could return to civil discussion again?

To which I add a MLK Jr. quote…

Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

The point isn’t about not being angry — anger is what fuels much civil rights activism. But, when we turn our anger into our own version of hate speech or violence, then we become as wrongheaded in speech, language, and behavior as the enemy we are battling.
I’d argue with Ceasar Chavez…

Non-violence is very weak in the theoretical sense; it cannot defend itself. But it is most powerful in the action situation where people are using non-violence because they want desperately to bring about some change. Non-violence in action is a very potent force and it can’t be stopped. The people who are struggling have the complete say-so. No man-made law, no human ruler, no army can destroy this. There is no way it can be destroyed… And so, if we have the capacity to endure, if we have the patience, things will change.

Excuse me, Autumn…
but you’re still oversimplifying even though you say you “get it.” The analogies to Hitler and the Nazis isn’t JUST about literal genocide.
They are about totalitarianism, specifically racist, sexist, homo and, yes, trans hating, antiSemitic totalitarianism. Initially, the attacks on Jews involved taking away their civil liberties [sound familiar?]. Genocide was simply the “FINAL solution.”
It’s a popular myth that gays en masse were targeted for extermination. Oppression of gays and lesbians involved imagining that they could be “cured” but was primarily meant to get them to stop acting upon their same gender desires [sound familiar] not just because such was considered perverted but because it took away from the goal of increasing the German population. In fact, the part of the government responsible for regulating gays was the Reich Office for the Combating of Homosexuality and Abortion.
Finally, I’m shocked at your overreaction to parts of the discussion and abuse of your power as a moderator to inappropriately “throw down the threadjacking card.”

to which I meant to add…
…Jews attempts to simply be “civil” to their oppressors has never worked-before, during, or after the Third Reich.

Sad? Yeah, maybe.But if you honestly want to promote vigorous discussion, you’re going to have to stop wagging your finger in front of everybody’s faces when the discussion doesn’t go precisely in the direction YOU wish it to go. If you want to be a sad and disapponted victim, that’s your prerogative, but then don’t turn everybody else into your victimizers by default.
Worse, your threadjacking admonition is getting flat out of control. Or, actually, you’re squeezing things so hard to try to control them, that you’re going to end up with nothing but those in your own Amen Corner participating in your threads. Why do you feel compelled to issue such threadjacking charges when the other moderators hardly ever have?

I think you raise a very good pointthat being civil doesn’t mean you can’t be forceful too.  In fact I think that’s the key to dealing with these off-the-rail teabagger types.  Push back, but in a controlled and logic-based fashion.  Taking the high road doesn’t necessitate laying down in it.  I think that is a common misconception that civility = doormat.  Being civil is only half of the equation.  Requiring civility in return from your rhetorical opponent is the other half.

Attempting civility is hard, it’s achieved or not imperfectlyI fail at this, and have had to own when I fail.
Not getting your ego all envolved when flames begin to engulf you, not going back time after time to read what someone else throws at you, and throwing back your own sh*t.
Recognizing there are subject matters which are too slippery (for you) to venture into. There are personalities too willing to push your buttons. There are also disengaged friends, who attempt to cool the situatuation they see getting out of control. Kev did that for me recently, and I didn’t want to heed his advice.
There are things you can do or say that won’t be forgotten or forgiven, and I’ll have to own that too.

While asking for civility and stating your disappointmentOWNING that a subject matter KNOWN to have caused incinderary reaction, and sticking a please play nice sign as the opening post….is disengenuous.
It’s like saying I know I just brought in a pile of fertilizer,  please keep your gas cans and lighters someplace else. Putting out the pile of fertilizer was also a catalyst.

I was doing the reverse – I was calling the Nazis Christianists. . . . . . and not the other way around.  Sure, there was a lot of extraneous material in the whole Aryan Master Race thing, drawn from other sources (such as nordic mythology and quack pseudocience), but the hatred and persecution of Jews was characteristic of Christianity and its teachings.  There are some who continue to profess to be Christian who have not abandoned the blood libel and still believe that “the Jews” of today are still responsible as Christ-killers – a belief not officially abandoned by th Roman Catholic Church until the early 1960′s.
The pogroms and persecutions that have taken place in the name of Christ have killed far more people than the Nazis ever dreamed of with their Final Solution.
There are many Christians who are not Christianists, though, and who are actually civilized enough to be treated civilly and with full respect.  
Those who condemn and marginalize us do not deserve the name of Christianity, even though Christianity has a long, brutal and uncivilized history – for them, Christianist will suffice as a means of separating them from the good Christians.  I have no issue referring to the Pope and his hierarchy as apostate, since they are as apostate to me as I am to them.  Indeed, they would probably hand me over to the secular arm to be burned as a heretic if they still had the power to do so. The history of Christianity is full of examples of this sort of “Christian” behavior.
I do not have to treat with civility or respect anyone who will not treat me with civility and respect.  People whose desire is to deny me my rights forfeit any entitlement to decency – however, there is a certain thin veneer of civilization that I maintain that does not permit me, at least at the present, to go beyond condemning them with words as powerful (and with mort justification) than the vile calumnies they (Christianists, not Christians) heap upon me, and upon people who are, like me, different from their binary expectations of me.
As they would use and have used the force of law to strip me of my rights, I don’t owe them civility (though outside the realm of the discussion, I will be polite to them).  I have already have my own children taken away from me by court order, just because I am who I am. I really don’t have to be more than slightly civil to the kind of people who think they are morally justified in treating me as a third-class citizen, and the civility comes only from a desire to be treated civilly myself as a civilized person.  Strong condemnatory language aimed at the Christianists in such a circumstance is reasonably civil, as long as it is aimed properly, and is accurate.
However, in the interests of maintaining a civilized society, I do not condone violence in dealing with those who would do me ill by legal means, except in self-defense, as long as a civil means of properly resolving things remains available – through courts or by legislation.  When it comes to anything else other than the areas of disagreement, I will treat them as civilly as they treat me.
There is a point, however, at which it becomes morally justifiable to rise up in insurrection. When access to courts is denied, court decisions finally bar us out, or the Constitution is amended to block our rights without reasonable possibility of change, the issue of what to do about it comes up. One would hope we do not wait until they round us up and put us in extermination camps.
From a philosophical point of view, there is the “social contract” theory which underpins the American form of government.  When the social contract has been breached, insurrection becomes justifiable – the whole “tree of liberty” being nourished by blood, of patriots and tyrants, does come immediately to mind.
We are so very polarized in this modern day America, that both sides of our civil rights struggle see themselves as the heirs of the Foundign Fathers, each side sees itself as right and just, and as the patriots, while casting the other side into the role of the tyrants.  
The chief difference is that we can see the rhetoric of NOM and its ilk that seeks to portray their side as the oppressed – we know they’re lying – but their supporters don’t; they see themselves as patriots protecting the social contract as they see it, a social contract that has no room for us.
They are the ones whose intellectual elite are people like Antonin Scalia, whose dissent in Lawrence v. Texas makes it clear that sodomy laws are justified (in their lights) so that heterosexual marriage can be protected against encroachment.  The decriminalization, Scalia knew very well, is inevitably and inexorably leading to the marriage discussion.  It is their “slippery slope” into chaos, while it is our civil rights struggle.
The polarization is not really new – a careful look at American history will reveal, time and again, breakdowns in civility that have led to later changes in the social structure.  The War of the Rebellion was not the only political discussion that turned to violence.
We do not have to be meek as lambs being led to the slaughter.  At least some of us should be throwing stones right back at the other side.  We have (at least in our lights) the moral high ground; acting like it may well mean being willing to point to the other side and painting them as immoral.
The Obama approach of conciliatory compromise isn’t helping – in areas where there are clear choices of right and wrong, compromise with evil is a weakness.

That is for sure.We’re not at the point where some of us should be emulating Hanna Senesh, but we should be conscious that the struggle for our rights is a matter of a struggle for our rights.  
If we were having a discussion as to whether to hang the TP roll so that it dispenses over, rather thar under, or vice versa, (and then there is the third type that doesn’t care), civility is absolutely justified.  The reason this particular example comes up at Pre-Cana conferences (one of the good things the Catholic Church does – it’s an attempt to prepare people for married life), is that often enough people feel really stongly over which way the paper should be hung – not the most auspicious way to start married life.
In the case of our civil rights struggles, it’s our rights the other side wishes to deny.  
NOM has gotten to the point where they’re casting the issue as one where their rights are the ones being violated.  They realize that we actually have the high moral ground, and they’re trying to shape the discussion to regain that high ground.

Oops.Just got the message, sorry for continuing the discussion elsewhere above.

One last point concerning NAZIsThe people especially Jewish families who fared best aginst the NAZIs were those wise enough to read the disturbing signs early, and got themselves out of Europe.
Knowing when to fight, and when to leave, isn’t just an academic concept.

I like Godwin’s LawI figured that this comment thread was exempt from the application of it, is all.  I will sometimes skate close to violating it in other contexts – as long as one doesn’t use “Hitler” or “Nazi” one is okay.
So, “fascist” is good enough, or perhaps “authoritarian” or “totalitarian” (effectively similar in chilling effect even if philosophically different in underpinnings).
In the discussion about that Washington Post writer and her puff piece on Brian Brown, I didn’t use the word “Hitler” – and even if I had, I wasn’t comparing Brown to der Fuehrer, only writing that the Post writer could as easily have written a puff piece about him.  After all, he was reputed to like small children and animals.
Hitler himself is too often “hitlerized” into a personification of evil in such a way as to obliterate his humanity.
I think the point is that we too often “demonize” an opponent, making them one-dimensional as has been done to Adolph Hitler.  In doing so, we strip them of their humanity.
I might call Maggie Gallagher “Dear Maggot” but that is an almost endearing kind of demonization.  It’s her position that is deserving of ridicule, not her person.
On the other hand, as long as we remember that Maggie might well be kind to dumb animals while she’s sharpening her skewer to stab our rights, we might be able to avoid the worst.
I was almost surprised to learn some nice things about Strom Thurmond after he died.  It reminded me that he was a human being, too.
If we reduce the opposition to being one-dimensional, they lose their humanity – and it becoems easier to be uncivil toward them.
In wartime, it’s very common to reduce the enemmy to a one-dimensional caricature.  It is a lot harder to kill other people when you treat them like people instead of cardboard cartoons. (We even caricature occupied civilian populations when we’re about to abuse them – gooks and hadjis, for example, include the women, children and babies at My Lai 4, or Haditha.)
When we get down to it, the struggle for civil rights and the resistance to the struggle, appears more like a war-situation.  We’ve been demonized already by the opposition, we’ve been demonized historically, to the point where it has taken decades of struggle to emerge from the shadows.   They are still demonizing us – as long as we keep it focused to the actual opposition, a litle turnabout is fair play.

I am sorry to have disappointed you, AutumnThere are degrees of incivility – the danger, to me, is painting “the other side” (whatever that is) with too broad a brush.
Not all Christians are evil minions of the Pope or his LDS counterparts, or of Pat Robertson (or some other fundamentalist preacher).  Painting all Christians as evil goes too far.
Painting Maggie Gallagher as evil, within reason, is fair, though I do believe we have to refrain from maing her seem one dimentional – to do so leads to underestimating her.
(Example from the beginning of WWII – American pilots disdained Japanese pilots based on racist one-dimensional stereotypes – in the early going, Japanese pilots proved to be extremely skilled and well-trained, not at all like the one-dimensional short, weak-kneed buck-toothed cartoons with coke-bottle glasses – a lesson that many Americans never did get to learn, since the stereotypes were reinforced in propaganda.)

“If we were having a discussion as to whether to hang the TP roll so that…”
This Toilet Paper Fails Because:
1.) The TP unrolls over instead of under.
2.) The TP promotes uncivil discourse.
3.) I don’t want that nastiness anywhere near my nether regions.
4.) All of the above.

3

You’re right!

To your pointsFirst one, absolute agreement with.
Second one, well, ya already know I’ll have that argument, lol

RecentlyI was extremely civil — above and beyond by my standards.
And I was quite forceful.
Civility is the only response one has.

On Ceasar ChavezWe did death penalty work w/ a guy whose life was turned around by Ceasar Chavez. In the ’60′s, he was a Young Lord, looking for trouble. Working w/ the farmworkers turned him into a pacifist. He went on to start Homies Unidos to help gang kids turn their lives away from violence. Chavez touched many lives. I know I didn’t eat grapes for many years and another friend wrote a great song boycotting Gallo wine. Yet another friend got involved, as a teen, w/ the UFW and now runs our state Sierra Club.
The bottom line is that these ideas create great root structures. And rooted people can stand up to the kind of storms the dying winds make.
For me, it really all is about being rooted (like a tree that’s standing by the water). I get pissed when Guppies pretend I don’t exist & want to use “mono-sexual” at them. I have to take a step back, look around me at my life & my people, have to try to wear the Guppies Italian shoes, then respond. It really is the choosing to talk at someone or talking to them. It starts at respecting ones person-hood.
Last Tuesday was one of those “teachable moments”. The President wanted to tell kids to “straighten up and fly right, (repeat)” & yet we get crazy back. When I get angry in these situations, I’m lucky to have a partner who points out how sad these people are. Many of these people need, at least, some anger management courses. A lack of self worth (roots) leads them to blame everybody else, be it us (Hitler’s book burning), Jews, Blacks, women, … for their own miserable existences. I think Andrew (Italian loafers) Sullivan was correct in talking about shadows (the Jungian term, me thinks, is “transference”).
In fact, J. Edger fought against all the ideas we hold his whole adult life (starting in the Palmer raids at 21); he attempted to “prove” a relationship between King & Ruskin in order to shut down the Great March of Washington (A Phillip stopped that), yet he was a gay closeted CD. Maybe if Hirschfeld had a Washington office in the ’20′s, much of our history would be different. Maybe MLK would have given a speech at Obama’s inauguration & Hoover would have been a member of Mattachine? ATEOTD, it is more how we deal w/ our enemies than our friends, init?
What got me most though was the commenter calling “Tom” Metzger a Hitler. I mean, we all know Metzger was only a white preferentialist who supported the German nationalism of the post WWI period.

You’re CorrectWhen I use quotations and a small “c”: I’m talking about “christians”, as opposed to Christians.
Examples of “christians”: Jerry Falwell, Anita Bryant, Carrie Prejean, James Dobson, Sarah Palin, Joe the plumber, Glenn Beck, etc.
More or less, people who use their “c-status” for their own political agenda, or to get their way.  And it’s almost always used against a particular group of minorities, and they don’t behave like REAL Christians.