As we have noted several times before, Glenn Beck seems to make a very self-serving distinction between strangers who hold anti-gay views and are therefore bigots and haters and other people who hold those exact same views but just so happen to be Beck's friends, in which case they are amazing uniters and a true force for good.
Nothing better demonstrates this disconnect that a segment from Beck's radio show today where he praised students at James Madison University for responding to an anti-gay preacher on campus by singing a hymn.
The preacher, according to Beck, was telling the students that they are all sinners who hate Jesus and were destined for Hell. Eventually, the students began singing a hymn, which drowned out the preacher, and Beck was positively giddy.
"This is a perfect example of you do not defeat hate with hate," Beck said. "You defeat it with love."
The question, then, is just what was this preacher saying that was so "hateful" by Beck's standard? And how does anything he said in any way differ than the things that David Barton, Mat Staver, Tony Perkins, or any other Religious Right leader says every single day?
The same person who posted the video of the students singing also posted another video of the preacher before he was drown out and, to our ears, there was nothing said by him that we don't hear literally dozens of times every single day from all manner of Religious Right activists:
Next week, Beck is going to be speaking at the annual Values Voter Summit, which is hosted by a handful of anti-gay organizations, including The Family Research Council, the American Family Association, American Values, and Liberty Counsel, and which regularly features dozens of anti-gay activists as speakers.
So again, what differentiates what this campus preacher said, which Beck qualifies as unmitigated "hate," from what the people with whom Beck is eager to stand at the Values Voter Summit say every single day on their right-wing radio programs?
If there is a coherent explanation of what separates this preacher from, say, the Benham Brothers or Mat Staver or David Barton, all of whom Beck adores, we'd love to hear it.
