American Family Association president Tim Wildmon yesterday hosted conservative writer Neil Mammen on Today’s Issues, where Wildmon warned that “if President Obama is re-elected again” he will “threaten our religious freedoms” by making hate speech laws to “shut you down if you have anything critical to say about homosexuality.” Conservatives have been warning, dishonestly, of impending hate speech laws for years now, with groups warning of churches being closed and pastors getting arrested and going to prison. While their nightmare vision never seems to come true, Religious Right leaders like Wildmon never fail to make such claims in order to rile up their supporters and stoke fears of equal rights for gays and lesbians.
Wildmon: If President Obama is re-elected again, he will appoint more ACLU lawyer type judges to the Supreme Court and to the federal bench, all right, that will threaten our religious freedoms in this country as we’ve known them. I guarantee you it will. Now President Obama would reject that idea but I’m telling you they will, for instance they will take hate speech, if you speak out against homosexuality, and they will impose that as unacceptable and they will shut you down if you have anything critical to say about homosexuality.
Mammen: Look at this new contraception law thing that they pushed through.
Wildmon: Exactly. Prime example, prime example right there.
