On Tuesday, United States Senator and GOP presidential candidate Marco Rubio (R-Florida), in an interview with the Christian Broadcast Network (CBN), claimed that Christianity may be labeled “hate speech” in the future. His justification? From CBN:
“Because today we’ve reached the point in our society where if you do not support same-sex marriage you are labeled a homophobe and a hater.”
Rubio elaborates further about this “real and present danger“ —
“‘After they are done going after individuals, the next step is to argue that the teachings of mainstream Christianity, the catechism of the Catholic Church is hate speech and there’s a real and present danger,’ he warned.”
— then spins his commentary to reference America’s world influence.
“‘You don’t want to be engaged in every conflict on the planet. We’re not the world’s policemen,’ he said. ‘But I question – what would happen in the alternative? If America doesn’t lead, what happens? Well, what happens is chaos.'”
Unfortunately for Rubio and CBN, as well as large swaths of the Christian Right, Rubio’s “prophecy” has no more credibility than a Harold Camping rapture prediction. The rise of secularism in the United States is not indicative of a war against Christianity or a movement to ultimately equate Christian teachings with hate speech or any of the other asinine things the Christian Right has tried to claim over the past several years.
It is merely an intellectual revolution, similar in many ways to the Enlightenment.
In this writer’s opinion, Sen. Rubio’s posturing in the CBN interview may have has less to do with personal observation and more to do with appealing to a voter base legitimately fearful of secularism. A new Quinnipac poll of Republican voters found 20% undecided in which candidate they preferred, while Sen. Rubio is caught in a five-way gridlock with Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee, and Scott Walker. Rubio’s absurd CBN comments may merely be an attempt to tap into that 20% and pull away from the confederacy of dunces that make up the GOP’s current assembly of Presidential candidates.
But as we all know, comments like the ones Rubio made in the CBN interview are known to mobilize conservatives and continue hostilities toward the growing secular public. Granted, this is not surprising, since research has explicitly shown correlation between social conservatism and intelligence.
