Laurie Higgins of the Illinois Family Institute asks:
"Why view photos from Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen? Why view photos of lynchings? Why view photos of aborted babies? Why view the photo of the young napalmed Vietnamese girl?"
For the same reason you should watch this video of my "loathsome" appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher last July:
Many conservatives do not fully realize the evil nature of the enemy we fight. And merely describing it does not adequately convey how profoundly wicked it is. Without a fuller apprehension of the nature and extent of the evil, many Christians are complacent and silent. Often it is only an encounter with such evil that generates a proper response from Christians.
Watching me on Maher = an encounter with evil, says Higgins, on a par with viewing photographs of concentration camps and lynchings. But some Christians don't want to watch Bill Maher talking to the "infamous homosexual 'anti-bullying' bully, Dan Savage." Even some dues-paying members of the Illinois Family Institute, an SPLC-certified anti-gay hate group, were upset with Higgins for urging them to watch me on Maher. This reluctance on the part of even some Christians to look evil square in the face—whether it takes the form of genocide, lynchings, or gay dudes on HBO cracking jokes—causes Higgins to despair:
"What dupes and cowards Christians are."
Not all Christians are dupes and cowards. But the ones who follow Laurie Higgins sure are.