Do things ever change?

They later described brutally beating him, taking him to the edge of the Tallahatchie River, shooting him in the head, fastening a large metal fan used for ginning cotton to his neck with barbed wire, and pushing the body into the river.

These weren't Muslims doing this horror. They were American whites. The killers were acquitted and have lived out their lives. The year was 1956. The place was the American South. The boy was Emmett Till. His death sparked the Civil Rights movement. The prevalent attitude at the time? Read the killer's confession:

Milam: "Well, what else could we do? He was hopeless. I'm no bully; I never hurt a nigger in my life. I like niggers -- in their place -- I know how to work 'em. But I just decided it was time a few people got put on notice. As long as I live and can do anything about it, niggers are gonna stay in their place. Niggers ain't gonna vote where I live. If they did, they'd control the government. They ain't gonna go to school with my kids. And when a nigger gets close to mentioning sex with a white woman, he's tired o' livin'. I'm likely to kill him. Me and my folks fought for this country, and we got some rights. I stood there in that shed and listened to that nigger throw that poison at me, and I just made up my mind. 'Chicago boy,' I said, 'I'm tired of 'em sending your kind down here to stir up trouble. Goddam you, I'm going to make an example of you -- just so everybody can know how me and my folks stand.'"

Look what their hatred did to him here.

Yesterday, the FBI announced that Emmett Till's body will be exhumed as authorities attempt to determine who killed him. Although the admitted (and acquitted killers) have since gone to their graves, several of their believed accomplices are still alive and will soon, thanks to DNA evidence, face the penalties they have dodged for almost 50 years.

Unfortunately, the same mindset of hatred is prevalent in today's society in the form of the Christian(TM) movement. Indeed, a prominent member of this movement is Paul Cameron, who has advocated for extermination of groups he doesn't like.

"At the 1985 Conservative Political Action Conference, Paul Cameron announced to the attendees, 'Unless we get medically lucky, in three or four years, one of the options discussed will be the extermination of homosexuals.' According to an interview with former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, Cameron was recommending the extermination option as early as 1983." - Mark E. Pietrzyk, News-Telegraph, March 10, 1995.

Who listens to Paul Cameron? Why, the "Family Research Council"of "Justice Sunday" fame, you know, the anti-filibuster friends of Frist! FRC says:

"Psychologist Paul Cameron, who has analyzed the most prominent studies of homosexual households, says that they all have severe shortcomings. Nonetheless, even within these biased studies, greater risks to children raised in homosexual households are evident, Cameron notes."

So, the Family Research Council thinks that a guy who advocates extermination is a good guy to use when lobbying Congress on their wingnut agenda. Nice.

We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. -Ann Coulter

An analysis of this horrific quote can be found here.

These people are big players in the political game in this country, people!

I don't care what group it is, be it gays, Muslims, or bird watchers. Have we learned nothing from the death of Emmett Till?