Charles Sykes is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, a senior fellow at the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute and a prolific author. In 1992 he published A Nation of Victims: The Decay of the American Character. The book's title says it all.

The May 18, 2005 edition of AgapePress' "Commentaries and News Briefs" (compiled by Jody Brown) featured the following item:

"One pro-family leader is worried that American Christians could be facing a new form of inquisition. Gary Bauer of the Campaign for Working Families senses that anti-Christian feelings are on the rise among some segments of America. He says he is concerned that born-again believers could be facing tough days ahead. 'I'm concerned about the possibility of real persecution in the United States toward conservative Christians,' Bauer states. 'Harper's Magazine this week has a cover story entitled 'The Religious Right's War on America.' So there's a lot of rhetoric out there, very hateful rhetoric, aimed at traditional Christian conservatives -- and that can be very dangerous.' Many Christian leaders have expressed their worry over the increase in 'hate speech' aimed at Christians and the lack of public uproar over it. [Bill Fancher]"

The appropriate heading for the piece would have been "Victimizer Plays Victim."

For Mr. Bauer and the other "Christian leaders" concerned about "hate speech" (a legal definition they have adamantly opposed), I have but two biblical admonitions: "reap what you sow" and "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

The politicized evangelical Christian Right - which Gary Bauer well represents - has been slinging mud and speech filled with hate at gay Americans for decades, as New York Times writer Frank Rich's May 15, 2005 Op-ed "Just How Gay Is the Right?" noted: "The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups, characterizes the religious right's anti-gay campaign as a 30-year war, dating back to the late 1970's, when the Miss America runner-up Anita Bryant championed the overturning of an anti-discrimination law protecting gay men and lesbians in Dade County, Fla., and the Rev. Jerry Falwell's newly formed Moral Majority issued a 'Declaration of War' against homosexuality."

The enduring rhetoric of another "Christian leader" was also noted by Mr. Rich: "The American Family Association, whose leader, the Rev. Donald Wildmon [has] been whipping up homophobia long before anyone suspected SpongeBob SquarePants of being a stalking horse (or at least a stalking sea sponge) for same-sex marriage. So-called research available on the Wildmon Web site for years - and still there as of last week - asserts that 17 percent of gay men 'report eating and/or rubbing themselves with the feces of their partners' and 15 percent 'report sex with animals.'"

The war, the propaganda, and yes, the "hate speech" have continued unabated since then. If anything, they've gotten more vile. Witness Rev. Louis Sheldon. His obsessive-compulsive homophobia is legendary. Since 1972 he's been attacking gay Americans as relentlessly and as viciously as possible. For example, On July 31, 2004, his Traditional Values Coalition web site featured their "Top Ten Reports":

• 1: Homosexuals Recruit Public School Children

• 2: Homosexuality 101: A Primer

• 3: Homosexual Propaganda Campaign Based on Hitler's 'Big Lie' Technique

• 4: A Gender Identity Disorder Goes Mainstream

• 5: Homosexual Behavior Fuels AIDS and STD Epidemic

• 6: Homosexual Sex = Death from HIV Infection

• 7: Traditional Values Coalition Exposes Homosexual Agenda

• 8: Judicial Tyranny

• 9: Homosexual Child Molesters

• 10: Federal AIDS Dollars Fund Homosexual Proms And Fisting Seminars

What's clear from this malodorous list of titles is Sheldon's obsession with using the most vile stereotypes, myths and the distortions they demand in order to demean, smear and stigmatize in any way possible gay and lesbian Americans. His theocratic goal is also self-evident: deny those Americans anything resembling equal civil rights or equal protection under the law.

It's been one year since civil marriage was available to all citizens in Massachusetts, and five years since Vermont recognized same-sex civil unions. None - that's none - of the wild doomsday predictions of the evangelical Christian Right have come to pass. Men and women still marry, the sky has not fallen, and neither society nor the economy has collapsed. What has happened, however, is that self-proclaimed spokesmen for God such as Jerry Falwell, Gary Bauer, Don Wildmon and Louis Sheldon - with encouragement from Karl Rove and the Republican politicians they control - have used "gay Americans" much the same way the Nazis used Jews (and homosexuals) to foster hatred and discrimination that they could then use to advance their own political agenda. That, by now, should be abundantly clear (http://www.theocracywatch.org/).

One can see outside only what's inside. Louis Sheldon's statement that "gays are like Hitler and the Gestapo" was an accurate self-description of himself and his Traditional Values Coalition, as well as his political cohorts. The claim by ethically-challenged Tom DeLay that "He [God] is using me, all the time, everywhere, to stand up for a biblical worldview in everything that I do and everywhere I am. He is training me" is really quite blasphemous and should be an insult to all true Christians. It should also be a wake-up call for everyone. What does Mr. DeLay think "He" is "training" him for?

Fanatical religious leaders and their corrupt politicians aside, there's a basic question that must be asked: Why, when America has insisted for decades that an enlightened society must be inclusive and that a rational culture embraces differences as a source of strength - and after half a century of sometimes feverish efforts to enfranchise virtually every minority group in America - why are "gay rights" even an issue?

Perhaps answers begin in the fact that contemporary America is not yet an enlightened society or a rational culture, but a nation frightened by the application of its own political rhetoric: equal access to and treatment under the law for every American citizen. Karl Rove understood that and, with the help of Falwell, Bauer, Sheldon and Wildmon, used it to turn Americans against Americans.

The reelection of George W. Bush "the uniter" divided the country as never before. "Red" states rushed to pass constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage and civil unions. Indeed, any measure that sought to recognize gay Americans and their families (including the
eight to ten million children being reared in same-sex households) was rapaciously attacked by the allegedly "pro-family" evangelical Christian Right, despite the fact that the Gospels call upon the faithful to work toward a more ethical and just society, and especially to work toward inclusion of the disenfranchised.

Religious fanaticism has long been a part of America. The Puritans sought "religious freedom," but then used religion to damn their own in the Salem Witch Trials. Jerry Falwell, Gary Bauer and Louis Sheldon would have made fine Magistrates in 1692 and, together with Don Wildmon, could have set themselves up as the Court of Oyer and Terminer. Irrational faith-based prejudices and scripted morality were used against virtually every new group of immigrants, especially those who came unwillingly aboard slave ships. You think we'd have learned by now...

The historical good news is that religious fanatics always burn themselves out. The bad news is that before they do, they can do a lot of damage. The time of liberty, justice and equality for all Americans will come, inevitably. Then the "leaders" of the evangelical Christian Right will be exposed for what they are. Future generations will read about them in history books and - with knotted brows - ask "why?"

Executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Matt Foreman said it well: "Rather than reframing the debate away from moral values, we must embrace them. Or more precisely, the utter immorality of the escalating attacks against LGBT people. And, equally, the utter immorality in the failure of so many people of good will to stand with us. People of good will can either rise up to speak for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans, or look back upon themselves 20 years from now with deserved shame."

Mel Seesholtz is a Professor of English at Pennsylvania State University.