{"id":7697,"date":"2012-05-19T12:10:12","date_gmt":"2012-05-19T16:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=7697"},"modified":"2012-07-03T19:42:41","modified_gmt":"2012-07-03T23:42:41","slug":"tribalism-and-the-cruelly-weird-idea-of-zero-sum-human-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/05\/19\/tribalism-and-the-cruelly-weird-idea-of-zero-sum-human-rights\/","title":{"rendered":"Tribalism and the cruelly weird idea of zero-sum human rights"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Anti-gay activist Peter LaBarbera said this recently<\/a> on a conservative radio show:<\/p>\n

All of a sudden Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have turned the United States into a pro-homosexual regime and it\u2019s just despicable.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That\u2019s as clear an expression as you\u2019ll find of the zero-sum notion of human rights that underlies so much of the anti-gay religious right.<\/p>\n

The United States is supposed to be<\/em> a \u201cpro-homosexual\u201d regime. Millions of us Americans are LGBT people and our nation is supposed to have a government \u201cof the people, by the people and for<\/em> the people.\u201d For all people. That means a government or \u201cregime\u201d that\u2019s pro-people \u2014 pro-heterosexual, pro-LGBT, pro-everybody.<\/em><\/p>\n

But for LaBarbera et. al.,<\/em> to be \u201cpro-homosexual\u201d must also mean that one is \u201canti<\/em>-heterosexual.\u201d They can\u2019t conceive of any other possibility \u2014 a failure of imagination that comes, I suspect, from defining oneself primarily in terms of what one is against.<\/p>\n

To them, human rights are a finite resource over which various factions must compete<\/em>. They imagine that if someone else\u2019s rights are recognized, it must therefore mean that some of their own rights must be taken away.<\/p>\n

To them, \u201cthe people\u201d is never everybody \u2014 it\u2019s a roiling pile of factions, interests, clans and tribes constantly at war with one another. Thus the government cannot be \u201cof the people, by the people and for the people.\u201d It can only be of, by and for some people and against others.<\/p>\n

I understand how that zero-sum game leads to the sort of high-stakes, fear-driven politics of someone like Peter LaBarbera. But I don\u2019t understand why such folks don\u2019t see that this notion of zero-sum rights is bizarrely stupid and needlessly misery-inducing.<\/p>\n

* * * * * * * * *<\/p>\n

Ed Brayton looks at the \u201cAnti-Sharia\u201d bill<\/a> just passed by the state Senate in Kansas.<\/p>\n

The bill says:<\/p>\n

Any court, arbitration, tribunal or administrative agency ruling or decision shall violate the public policy of this state and be void and unenforceable if the court, arbitration, tribunal or administrative agency bases its rulings or decisions in the matter at issue in whole or in part on any foreign law, legal code or system that would not grant the parties affected by the ruling or decision the same fundamental liberties, rights and privileges granted under the United States and Kansas constitutions, including, but not limited to, equal protection, due process, free exercise of religion, freedom of speech or press, and any right of privacy or marriage.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As Brayton says, it\u2019s not clear \u201chow broadly the language above would apply,\u201d but I would also point out that the Bible is not a domestic, American text. Any legislator or jurist offering a sectarian Christian (or \u201cJudeochristian\u201d) rationale for policy is, unambiguously, appealing to a \u201cforeign law, legal code or system.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, in other words, did the Kansas state Senate just accidentally vote in favor of same-sex marriage?<\/p>\n

* * * * * * * * *<\/p>\n

This is kind of awesome:<\/p>\n

\u201cBoy, 9, stages own protest of Westboro Baptist protesters<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

Nine-year-old Josef Miles and his mother were walking around the Washburn University campus Saturday, which was Graduation Day on campus. As they returned to the area where they had parked their car, they couldn\u2019t help but notice the Westboro Baptist Church protesters picketing in an area where they had an audience.<\/p>\n

After reading WBC signs proclaiming God\u2019s hatred for homosexuals and other assorted groups, Josef asked Akrouche if he could create his own sign proclaiming his different view of God\u2019s outlook.<\/p>\n

His sign, written in pencil on a small sketchpad, read simply, \u201cGod Hates No One.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anti-gay activist Peter LaBarbera said this recently on a conservative radio show: All of a sudden Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have turned the United States into a pro-homosexual regime and it\u2019s just despicable. That\u2019s as clear an expression as you\u2019ll find of the zero-sum notion of human rights that underlies so much of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[17,53,44,52,65],"class_list":["post-7697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evangelicals","tag-equality","tag-gay-rights","tag-gender","tag-homosexuality","tag-tribalism"],"yoast_head":"\nTribalism and the cruelly weird idea of zero-sum human rights<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Anti-gay activist Peter LaBarbera said this recently on a conservative radio show: All of a sudden Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have turned the United\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/05\/19\/tribalism-and-the-cruelly-weird-idea-of-zero-sum-human-rights\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tribalism and the cruelly weird idea of zero-sum human rights\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Anti-gay activist Peter LaBarbera said this recently on a conservative radio show: All of a sudden Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have turned the United\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/05\/19\/tribalism-and-the-cruelly-weird-idea-of-zero-sum-human-rights\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"slacktivist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-05-19T16:10:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-07-03T23:42:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/05\/19\/tribalism-and-the-cruelly-weird-idea-of-zero-sum-human-rights\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/05\/19\/tribalism-and-the-cruelly-weird-idea-of-zero-sum-human-rights\/\",\"name\":\"Tribalism and the cruelly weird idea of zero-sum human rights\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-05-19T16:10:12+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-07-03T23:42:41+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47\"},\"description\":\"Anti-gay activist Peter LaBarbera said this recently on a conservative radio show: All of a sudden Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have turned the United\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/05\/19\/tribalism-and-the-cruelly-weird-idea-of-zero-sum-human-rights\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/05\/19\/tribalism-and-the-cruelly-weird-idea-of-zero-sum-human-rights\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/05\/19\/tribalism-and-the-cruelly-weird-idea-of-zero-sum-human-rights\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Tribalism and the cruelly weird idea of zero-sum human rights\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/\",\"name\":\"slacktivist\",\"description\":\""Test everything; 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. 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