I try not to listen to talk radio. What once may have been "thought radio" has morphed into "hate talk." Far too much of the radio dial is occupied by angry old and young white men longing for the good ol' days of the John Birch Society -- when women were in the kitchen and homosexuals were in the closet, where they belong. (Thank God for public radio.)
Well, this last week was not a good one for those of the reactionary persuasion. Which means it was an especially bad week for a sane person to listen to talk radio. Unfortunately, I found myself in a place where the only broadcast I could get was talk radio. My exposure lasted only about five minutes, so I'm pretty sure the brain cells will grow back.
One caller was confused. He couldn't understand the difference between a vandalized Pride flag flying in Anchorage and calls for the Confederate battle flag to be removed from the grounds of the statehouse in South Carolina (the latter having come after nine black people were murdered during Bible study by a racist who liked posing with that flag).
Note to folks defending the flying of the Confederate flag on public property: The last version of the Confederate battle flag was all white. The Confederacy lost. Supporters, you are not being singled out. As a general rule, we do not fly the flags of defeated enemies of the United States on federal or state government property.
I had relatives on both sides of that terrible war. They bled or died. No foreign enemy ever slaughtered Americans the way we did ourselves. The South, the slave-owning South, will not rise again, as well it shouldn't. Slavery is behind us (if you don't count student loan debt). Flying the Confederate flag puts its supporters on the wrong side of history. It's a rebel flag once carried by insurgents who had to be pardoned to avoid hanging as traitors.
The radio host never explained that the Pride flag was flying on private property while the Confederate flag was on public property. Important distinction, wouldn't you think?
From there, the discussion moved to another ridiculous trope of the last week: Pretty soon it'll be illegal to disagree with anyone except Christians (by which they mean a specific kind of socially conservative Christian).
Here we are, celebrating Independence Day, and people are griping about an expansion of American citizens' freedom to marry -- a result of the simple right to be equal in the eyes of the law. Based on the hyperventilated catastrophizing from some quarters, you'd have thought the statues of Lady Liberty and Lady Justice had jumped off their pedestals and eloped.
When a flag with the rainbow and pink stars came out at a demonstration, a few people flipped their lids. "This is disrespectful to our flag and to my son who is deployed," said one. "Shame. Shame."
Really? How do you feel about American flag-motif underwear or swimsuits? I mean, you're okay with flag wedgies but shocked to see it adapted for a celebration of the pursuit of happiness?
Then I calmed down. Members of the military swear to defend the Constitution and the rights it describes. Those include the right to burn the flag in protest. They include the right of hate groups like the Westboro Baptist Church to demonstrate against LGBT citizens by celebrating the deaths of American service members. The dangerous bigots of the Ku Klux Klan have the right to march through the streets in broad daylight.
You have the right as an American citizen to do things the majority of your fellow citizens find abhorrent. The First Amendment is most important when you say things other people don't want to hear. As much as I detest what the Westboro Church stands for, or the warped ideas espoused by the KKK, I defend their rights under the Constitution.
No, there isn't a war on religious freedom, unless you're referring to the murder of worshippers or the burning down of churches. Yeah. That's happening.
What about the forthcoming avalanche of lawsuits to force Christian bakers to make cakes for gay weddings, you say? (Because it's always a good idea to get your food from someone who hates you.) Well, I expect that will go about like it did when Christian bakers were forced to sell apple fritters to adulterers, Danish to divorcees and muffins to Muslims.
I haven't written about this topic before because on its face it seems so incredibly silly. But there is a serious and dark underside: the effort to camouflage bigotry as religious freedom.
Do you doubt me? Well, try this: Ask your Christian baker for the complete list of the people to whom she can't sell pastry for religious reasons. It's probably hanging on the wall next to the icing station. It'll be a short list -- because the only thing on it is "homosexuals." Next to it you should find instructions on how to interrogate customers to determine their moral fitness to own a loaf of French bread.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that a child molester like Josh Duggar can get a cinnamon roll in just about any Christian bakery in the country, without any curbing of religious freedom.
Maybe we should consider the response of a Jewish doctor working in the emergency room when a gunshot patient covered in swastikas arrives on a stretcher. We all expect that doctor to do his best to treat and heal the guy. That doesn't make him a Nazi sympathizer. It just makes him a doctor.
So, Happy Independence Day, America. Let's all remember we fought for freedom, not against it. And we won.
Shannyn Moore is a radio broadcaster.
The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com