Millions of you have been jamming my comment boxes with inquiries about the wellbeing of Fred Clark, the Slacktivist, who appeared to have some kind of melt-down Friday.

I’m sorry to report that by Saturday evening, my good friend Fred was doubling down on his mendacious railing.

Okay, I made up the part about millions jamming my comment boxes. And the part about Fred being my good friend. I just follow him because about a third of the time he says interesting and defensible things that challenge me a little or a lot. The other 2/3 is mostly cryptic allusions to something the choir he’s preaching to, or a demographic younger than me, understands. I don’t think he follows me.

In admitting that I made stuff up, I’ve admitted infinitely much more error than Fred has admitted, for Fred has, like a politician caught in flagrante delicto, reinvented what he said and doubled down on the reinvention as if it were the original. The only thing he’s admitted is anger, but is at pains to demonstrate how very righteous that anger was and is.

The original lie:

A white evangelical Christian celebrity got up in public and spouted hateful racist bullshit. That celebrity, further, claimed that this hateful racist bullshit was based on Jesus and the Bible, and that it represented the views of all white evangelical Christians everywhere.

There could be one — and only one — appropriate response.

And white evangelical Christians struggled, and failed, to give that response.

Instead of denouncing the hateful racist bullshit, white evangelicals rose to defend the celebrity’s right to spout hateful racist bullshit without being criticized. And his right to be televised while doing so.

(Emphasis added)

The new version:

Yeah, so, some third-tier bearded TV personality proclaimed white supremacy, compared gay people to terrorists who practice bestiality, and reduced all women to “a vagina.”

And that got me angry. Not because this sad old man said such things — that wasn’t a surprise, so his bile itself wasn’t that upsetting. What got me angry was that Christians raced to defend this man and to identify with him and with his message.

(Emphasis added)

He’s added “reduced all women to ‘a vagina’,” which is a little exaggerated, but “partially true” in Snopes terms.

And he’s added “compared gay people to terrorists who practice bestiality.” The charge that someone “compared” one controversial thing to a second odious thing is, of course, a standard tool (“equivocation” is the name) of demagogues because it sounds damning, whereas the reality may be less indefensible. But Fred makes this one easy: this one’s a lie. The article’s only reference to terrorists has nothing to do with bestiality, and even the “comparison” of homosexuality with bestiality is a mere inclusion of both in a list of sins, as shown below.

“Spouting hateful racist bullshit,” the original exaggeration, now is an outright lie: “proclaimed white supremacy.” Pants on freakin’ fire, Fred.

He still cites not one example of Christians defending any of this, but this time I have no doubt that he could, if he wanted, find someone who defended Phil Robertson comparing homosexual practice to bestiality, if they could be conned into thinking Phil said it. On the vaginas and happy pre-civil-rights blacks, I doubt that Phil has many defenders rushing to identify with him, but maybe Fred will point some out.

As for “defending this man,” what are we supposed to do, Fred? “Exclude him from the blessed community”? Yeah, Fred uses that trope:

Here’s all you need to know about Robertson’s misuse of the Bible: He quoted Paul to defend excluding people from the blessed community.

Yes, the Apostle Paul. Not some other Paul. Paul, formerly Saul of Tarsus. The star of the second half of the book of Acts. The guy who wrote a bunch of letters that we’ve included in the New Testament.

Have you ever read Acts? Have you ever read those letters?

If you have, then you’re one up on Phil Robertson, because there’s no way you could read Acts and read Paul’s letters and then still somehow decide that Paul has got your back when you’re trying to exclude people.

Quoting Paul to defend exclusion is like quoting Tony Soprano to defend pacifism. Maybe you can find something Tony said that you can pluck out of context to make it sound like it might support that. And then you can ignore everything else Tony ever said or did and just elevate that one isolated phrase, repeating it over and over until you’ve convinced yourself that it means the opposite of everything Tony Soprano represents.

First question: Did Robertson really defend excluding anyone (or “compare” homosexuality to bestiality in any meaningful sense)? Are you referring to this, Fred?:

[GQ question:] What, in your mind, is sinful?

[Robertson Answer:] Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men,” he says. Then he paraphrases Corinthians: “Don’t be deceived. Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers—they won’t inherit the kingdom of God. Don’t deceive yourself. It’s not right.

…

We never, ever judge someone on who’s going to heaven, hell. That’s the Almighty’s job. We just love ’em, give ’em the good news about Jesus—whether they’re homosexuals, drunks, terrorists. We let God sort ’em out later, you see what I’m saying?”

(Boldface added to highlight the points at which Fred’s flights of fierce fantasy glance off an isolated word or two.) I’ve squinted real hard, Fred, and I don’t quite see that Phil’s trying to exclude anyone.

Second question: have you, Fred, ever read I Corinthians 5? It’s a short, pointed chapter. Paul seems to me to be telling the Church at Corinth to “exclude from the blessed community”:

• a man who fornicated with his step-mother
• fornicators generally
• covetous
• idolaters
• drunkards
• extortioners
• Oops. Sorry Fred. “Railers,” too. Don’t let the door hit you in the butt on your way out.

There’s more that could be said about that list, but I think the chapter makes it a bit facile for Fred to, er, “compare the Apostle Paul to Tony Soprano.”

See what I mean about how dishonest an equivocal “compare to” can be?

* * * * *

“The remarks made in this essay do not represent scholarly research. They are intended as topical stimulations for conversation among intelligent and informed people.” (Gerhart Niemeyer)

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.