<p>ABCNews and the Associated Press reported that the fellow who fired upon the audience at a childrens’ play at a Knoxville church has allegedly stated a dislike for the church because of its “liberal views;” for example, the church supports gay rights and reportedly helped establish a local ACLU chapter.</p>
<p>…I’m waiting for the post that says “that makes it about 1:100 compared to the number of unemployed truck drivers who got killed by liberals and gays.”</p>
<p>I was thinking more of Postal Service employees.</p>
<p>Is “going Postal” a defensible justification? Is “Anti-Unitarianism” a recognized movement? And hey, a lot of my friends are truck drivers so …</p>
<p>I think anyone who opens up like this on a crowd has a screw loose and their own warped sense of justification in their own mind and this guy is no exception. We can’t really make sense of it because it lacks logic to begin with.</p>
<p>Well, I don’t think that “Anti-Unitarianism” is a movement, but I will tell you that some right-wing religious web sites have us listed as a “cult.” And when we visited the UU church in Chattanooga, TN a number of years ago when we were evaluating a potential transfer, the minister told us that her son had been told by a classmate that UUs were “devil-worshippers.” He replied that UUs don’t even believe in the devil, much less worship him, which I thought was a pretty good comeback for a 5th grader. Of course, given the religious climate in that area, NOT believing in the devil is probably regarded as almost worse that worshipping him. :)</p>
<p>I have to say that I am particularly proud that we UUs took down this murderer not with a gun, but with a history professor.</p>
<p>u-u-dad, I disagree with your assessment. There’s a lot of logic behind shooting liberals if you’ve been fed a steady diet of the kind of mindless rant that fills the radio airwaves these days. Logic is the specialty of right wing fanaticism that’s being preached to Americans every day. It’s reason that’s in short supply.</p>
<p>u-u-dad and kluge you both are correct. First is the loose screw and second is the rant</p>
<p>Since 99.999…% of the people who listen to the airwave rants by both the left and the right don’t go out and shoot up whoever they feel internally compelled to I disagree that there’s any logic behind the shootings except in the minds of those few individuals who have something wrong with them - i.e. the loose screw. I also haven’t heard any of the airwave hosts advocate shootings.</p>
<p>The killer’s ex-wife had once been a member at this particular church (which is about 1.5 miles from my home). He held a gun to her head in 2000 and threathened to kill her and then himself. That makes it a tad more personal than simply gunning for “liberals.” He was also upset that his food stamps were about to be cut–you would think he’d be aiming at the other end of the political spectrum over that. I think it all shows that he was definitely not all there.</p>
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<p>Dang… people are confused as heck these days. People continually vote against their economic interest and then complain about it.</p>
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You’re amazing.</p>
<p>I blame Rush Limbagh. And Fox News.</p>
<p>I think it’s kind of dumb to blame pundits who, while I detest their views, have never advocated violence against those who disagree (obviously, if there is some pundit who does, this statement doesn’t apply to them). I also think it’s dumb to blame conservatives, the vast majority of whom are good and honorable people and are horrified by this act.</p>
<p>This one got to me emotionally, though, more than the mass shootings usually do. It hit home. It’s the urban South, where I grew up. It’s a church that supported many causes I cared about, such as gay rights and women’s rights, and founded a chapter of a group of which I am a member. I have never been a Unitarian, but I grew up an atheist in that part of the country, and I certainly remember taking flak for that, and occasionally hiding it out of fear or necessity…and I was fond of Unitarians, who were also a minority group that went against the grain.</p>
<p>Yeah, this one got to me. It was the closest I’ve come to crying over a news story since I saw the 9/11 TV images of people leaping out of windows hundreds of feet high to escape the flames.</p>