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"Whose side are you on?"

by Glenn Reynolds

DON'T MAKE ME COME DOWN THERE! threatens a billboard I see around town from time to time. It's signed "God."

The Rev. Fred Phelps thinks that divine retribution is already upon us because we're too nice to gay people. "God Blew Up The Shuttle," he tells us with one of his signs, which also tell us that "God Hates America" and "God Hates Fag Enablers." I find that kind of hard to believe—killing six million Chosen People won't bring about the wrath of God, but letting two guys get married would? I realize that it's presumptuous of a mere mortal to pretend to understand God's purposes—but, then, that's not stopping Fred Phelps, is it? Fortunately, his rallies are sparsely attended, as the "church" he heads consists only of his family—and others, even others who oppose equal rights for gays, avoid him like the plague.

It's not fair to tar all religious people, or even all fervently anti-gay people, with Fred Phelps' extreme beliefs. But it would be, if they were marching alongside Fred Phelps, and showing up for marches that he organized. When you do something like that, you associate yourself with the people in charge, like it or not. And that's what's going on with the anti-war protests in Washington.

The protests are organized by a group called ANSWER, which has been described by David Corn of The Nation—hardly a neo-McCarthyite—as an essentially Stalinist group. (ANSWER supports North Korea's Kim Jong-Il, too). As Michelle Goldberg of Salon—also far from neo-McCarthyite—reports:

"Many of the thousands of people who travelled from across the country to march on Washington Saturday were afflicted by a similar disconnect between the slogans they were rallying behind and their own sentiments about the situation in Iraq. Some said they recognized that a unilateral American departure from the country could be as destructive as a unilateral American invasion, but they wanted to demonstrate their opposition to the Bush administration's policies in the Middle East. The End the Occupation rally, co-sponsored by ANSWER, a front group for the Stalinist Workers' World Party, and the more moderate United for Peace and Justice, seemed the only game in town. Many apparently decided to pretend that "end the occupation" really means "bring in the U.N.," despite ANSWER's blunt and repeated avowals that it means nothing of the sort."

What does ANSWER mean? According to Goldberg:

"Unlike many Democrats, ANSWER isn't confused about where it stands on Iraq. According to an ANSWER pamphlet, Counter-revolution & Resistance in Iraq, 'The anti-war movement here and around the world must give its unconditional support to the Iraqi anti-colonial resistance.'"

And while ANSWER hasn't said that "God Hates America," I saw a photograph of an ANSWER protester carrying a sign that read: "The Destruction of the USA is a Necessary Condition for Peace." In other words, they're not really anti-war. They're just on the other side. Like Fred Phelps, they think that America is too evil to survive.

Most people who opposed the war and who want to bring the troops home, of course, aren't neo-Stalinists like the ANSWER crowd. They don't hate America, and they don't want America to lose. Many even recognize that actually bringing U.S. troops home would be a disaster for America, and a bigger one for the Iraqis. But they willingly march at rallies organized by those who do want those things. (And, given the coverage that ANSWER has gotten over the past year, there's no real excuse for not knowing.) By comparison, most people who think homosexuality is immoral don't think that "God Hates America," either. But they didn't show up to march with Fred Phelps.

As someone who thinks that anti-war and anti-gay activists are equally misguided, though, I have to wonder: Why is it that the anti-gay folks are demonstrating more care in their associations than are the anti-war folks? Goldberg, quoting an activist, thinks it's because the anti-war folks feel that nothing that they say matters anyway, because no one is listening: "The cry 'end the occupation' is 'an expression of impotence, an inability to make distinctions. In this case, impotence and omnipotence are two sides of the same coin. You can think anything because it won't matter.'"

But it does matter. As an older breed of activist used to say, "Whose side are you on?"

Glenn Reynolds is a law professor at the University of Tennessee, and writes for InstaPundit.com, MSNBC.com, and TechCentralStation.com.