After Debate With 蜜桃传媒, a Professor Offers a Bizarre Take
Apparently, it鈥檚 a lot easier to declare victory than to actually win it.
At least that鈥檚 my takeaway from a comment today from Vanderbilt University law school professor Carol Swain, who I debated, along with two others, this Tuesday at the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) convention in Nashville, Tenn. The four of us formed a to discuss 鈥淎natomy of Hate: Free Speech Implications.鈥�
In a at OneNewsNow, a 鈥渘ews鈥� service run by the gay-bashing hate group , Swain, a black religious conservative who claims that Christians鈥� speech is being stifled in America, is quoted like this: 鈥淚 thought it was great to see Mark Potok make concessions and to admit that we have a right to religious freedom and to actually be in a situation where even he has to admit, whether he says it overtly or not, that there鈥檚 a problem with labeling individuals and groups as 鈥榟ate groups鈥� just because they express their religious beliefs.鈥�
Come again, professor? I 鈥渃onceded鈥� that Christians have a right to religious freedom? I 鈥渁dmitted鈥� that it鈥檚 bad to list hate groups? Are you smoking something?
That is a bizarre, Swainsian construct, to say the least. Both I and the Southern Poverty Law Center (蜜桃传媒) have always and vigorously defended religious freedom and the First Amendment, just as I said at the debate, which was recorded for future radio and Internet TV transmission (no tape or transcripts are yet available). And I in no way, not covertly or overtly or in any other way at all, suggested that there鈥檚 a problem with our hate group listings. Just the opposite: I explained repeatedly to Swain that our listings of a few religious right organizations are , like the that gay men molest children far more than their straight counterparts. I pointed out specifically that we did not list groups on the basis of their Christianity, their belief that homosexuality is a sin, or their opposition to same-sex marriage. We list them because they egregiously lie in a propagandistic effort to defame LGBT people.
Swain didn鈥檛 seem to get the distinction.
The professor actually sounds a little confused in her description today of the debate, or perhaps she just doesn鈥檛 remember what happened. All the panelists 鈥� NRB General Counsel Craig Parshall, Americans United for Separation of Church and State Executive Director Barry Lynn, Swain, myself and even moderator Janet Parshall, Craig鈥檚 wife and a well-known talk radio show host 鈥� agreed that religious liberty was important. All of us objected, for instance, to campus speech codes that seek to impose civility at the cost of free expression. As Janet Parshall pointed out, it was quite something to see us all agree on something.
The heat came in the second half hour of the exchange, when Swain led a nail-spitting attack on 蜜桃传媒 and on me personally, saying the government should 鈥渋nvestigate鈥� 蜜桃传媒 and accusing me of trying to 鈥渄estroy鈥� her reputation. (Briefly, she was angry because after she heartily endorsed a that said the concept of racism was merely an excuse to intimidate whites, we found that the filmmaker elsewhere to black men as 鈥淓VIL monkeys who are DESTROYING鈥� America 鈥斅燼nd she continued to endorse it. After that, I told the Nashville Tennessean she was an 鈥渁pologist鈥� for a white supremacist.)
Swain wasn鈥檛 much for accuracy in the debate, just as she isn鈥檛 in her recounting of it. At one point in her attack on 蜜桃传媒, she accused us of listing Focus on the Family as a hate group 鈥� a complete falsehood, when in fact real signs of moderation in that group鈥檚 anti-gay activities. I suppose that shouldn鈥檛 be much of a surprise. Swain was reading directly out of an issue of , a nasty white nationalist magazine that is both obsessed with non-white immigration and notoriously inaccurate, but a place where Swain, who was once a paid contributor to immigrant-basher Lou Dobbs鈥� CNN show, has many friends.
Swain ended her comments to OneNewsNow with an unexpected conclusion 鈥� that Christians should 鈥渘ever become offensive鈥� and instead stick to 鈥渢ruth and love.鈥� If that鈥檚 really what she got from our encounter, I suppose it wasn鈥檛 a total loss.
