Republicans fear big government, but are the biggest purveyors of it. They gave us the biggest intrusion into our private lives with the PATRIOT ACT. They are, almost daily now, intruding into the medical lives of women. They are using big government to squelch the worker's movement. They are dictating from state capitols what may or may not be said in your child's classroom. They are telling your town what rights they may afford its citizens. They even tell textbook publishers what is and isn't history, even when what they say is entirely false. Republicans even want to tell you how to wear your clothes. Big government is what Republicans do best.

Republicans bemoan "activists judges" who supposedly make law in their own image but research has repeatedly confirmed that there are no judges more activist than the Republican wing of the Supreme Court. Justices Scalia and Thomas have voted more to undo Congressional law and substitute their own visions of what law ought to be than any justices in history of the court. When Sandra Day O'Connor stepped down and Justice Roberts took her place the Republican wing of the court garnered the power to radically remake American polity. They did this no more arrogantly than they did in the infamous Citizens United ruling in which the court handed over our democracy to corporations. Republicans say Democratic judges are activists, but the exact opposite is true.

Republicans fear radical religion, argue against so-called Sharia law. Rather than challenging any imagined intrusions on First Amendment grounds (because that would cede the argument over separation of church and state), Republicans are making preemptive laws to ban any such thing. But the real purveyors of radical religion in this country are Republicans. They want their prayers said in your child's classrooms. They want the law to reflect their narrow religious interpretations, and have even written law to this effect. They want to replace your child's science textbooks with their religious dogma. Republicans are the radical religionists they fear.

As a gay man there's something else I always found interesting. The Republican claim that gay men want to teach your children to be gay, that we want to recruit and convert your children into a life of homosexuality. I used to joke that I was so lonely that I wish the gay recruiters would knock on my door. But the reality is this: Republicans want to recruit your children into their lifestyles. Not only do they want their narrow religious dogma taught in your children's schools, they want their sexual orientation to be taught in your schools. Republicans around the country are arguing against anti-bullying laws on the grounds that such laws would "promote homosexuality." But how so? Well, it should be clear: if Republican's children aren't free to bully your child into submission to the heterosexual lifestyle, your children might be gay.

Republicans promote their sexual orientation, they recruit young people into their sexual lifestyles. They have invented so-called "gay reparative therapy"? And what is this "therapy"? It's a tool used to recruit anxious gays, lesbians and bisexuals into the heterosexual lifestyle. You might be laughing by now. "Ha-ha, I get it straight recruitment." But it's no laughing matter. This therapy kills people (as we saw with the Sissy Experiment on AC 360), and Republicans are deadly serious about it. They want you to be straight even if it kills you. They say they "love the sinner, but hate the sin," but it is clearly a case of loving you to death.

To aid their cause, Republicans have been having their Religious leaders teach the world that heterosexuality is God's preferred sexual orientation, and that any deviance from it is an abomination to God. To attempt to lure people into their sexual lifestyles they talk of AIDS and STDs as God's punishment against homosexuals. I suppose they would say that Job was a sinner. Indeed, the lessons we learn from Job is that the most afflicted is most favored by God.

The truth is that Republicans are the recruiters: they want to seduce your children into their religious lifestyles, into their Randian philosophy, into their sexual lifestyles. Republicans say you do this. They say liberals do this. It's a classic case of psychological projection: you are what Republicans do.

Edit: Awesome, I made the rec list. Thanks. Also thanks to Community Spotlight