What do you do with a problem like Milo?

By: American Decency Staff

 

Jesus said in Mathew’s account, “First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.”This little parable was used to condemn hypocrisy, judging the sins of others while ignoring one’s own sins.

This is a heavenly principle with endless application, particularly (for our purposes) in today’s political climate.

Conservative Christians have a log in our eye. Actually, I’m sure we have many, but the one I’m talking about is named Milo Yiannopolous.

Milo was a prominent figure in the 2016 Presidential campaign due to his politically incorrect way of speaking and his shattering of stereotypes as a gay, millennial, conservativesque public figure.

Yiannopolous deals harshly and satisfyingly with the common enemies of the conservative movement, giving the impression that he was, in fact, a conservative (even if he never claimed that label for himself).

He came into the news most recently when his speaking engagement at UC Berkeley was canceled due to violent protests. Many conservatives used this occasion to praise Milo for exposing the intolerance of the left and even President Trump spoke up to denounce Berkeley’s handling of the situation.

Yet, these silver linings come with some very dark clouds.

The legendary Ben Shapiro, formerly of Breitbart- where Milo Yiannopolous is senior editor – shared some highlights of Milo’s disqualifications:

“…earlier this month he characterized a Jewish BuzzFeed writer as a “a typical example of a sort of thick-as-pig s**t media Jew”; he justifies anti-Semitic memes as playful trollery and pats racist sites like American Renaissance on the head; he describes himself as a “chronicler of, and occasional fellow traveler with the alt-right” while simultaneously recognizing that their “dangerously bright” intellectuals believe that “culture is inseparable from race”; back in his days going under the name Milo Wagner, he reportedly posed with his hand atop a Hitler biography, posted a Hitler meme about killing 6 million Jews, and wore an Iron Cross; last week he berated a Muslim woman in the audience of one of his speeches for wearing a hijab in the United States; his alt-right followers routinely spammed my Twitter account with anti-Semitic propaganda he tut-tutted before his banning (the amount of anti-Semitism in my feed dropped by at least 70 percent after his ban, which I opposed); he personally Tweeted a picture of a black baby at me on the day of my son’s birth, because according to the alt-right I’m a “cuck” who wants to see the races mixed; he sees the Constitution as a hackneyed remnant of the past, to be replaced by a new right he leads.”

But his latest travesty should be enough for anyone with a conscience to hop off the Yiannopolous band wagon.

In spite of the serious issues listed above, the Conservative Political Action Committee had invited Milo to speak at their annual event. That’s when video surfaced of Mr. Yiannopolous defending one of the few atrocities that both the mainstream left and right still condemn: pedophilia. Here’s a sample of his comments:

“This arbitrary and oppressive idea of consent which totally destroys, you know, the understanding that many of us have of the complexities and subtleties and complicated nature of many relationships. You know, people are messy and complex, and actually, in the homosexual world particularly, some of those relationships between younger boys and older men, those kind of coming-of-age relationships, the relationships in which those older men help those young boys to discover who they are, and give them security and safety and provide them with love and a reliable — a sort of a rock for when they can’t talk to their parents.”

Now, I want to be fair.

Milo says he worded his opinion poorly – he says he didn’t mean “boys” when he said “boys” and he was talking about post-pubescent boys, not pre-pubescent.

The problem is that he thinks that it makes a difference whether a child is sexually developed or not as to whether they should be able to give sexual consent to an adult. Abuse doesn’t depend on the development of a victim, it depends on the ability of the recipient to give consent. A minor is too young to understand the implications of sex, that’s what makes it an abusive relationship, even if they were to agree to the abuse.

Since the video of this interview has gone viral, Milo Yiannopolous has been dropped from the CPAC roster, lost a book deal with Simon and Schuster, and Breitbart employees are reportedly threatening to quit if the publication does not disassociate itself from Milo’s brand. These are all very good things. Conservatives need to distance ourselves from these perverse ideas.

But the problem is that our movement was close to this man and his ideas in the first place.

When Milo was stopped from speaking at Berkeley by the protestors, he was on something he called, “The Dangerous Faggot Tour,” in which he went around being as offensive as possible to the left.

He’s built a name for himself by giving a platform and credibility to the kind of people who approve of the holocaust and believe America is for white people

How did the intellectual offspring of the “Moral Majority” have ties to this guy in the first place? Because he calls the people we don’t like mean names?

Milo’s story shows us the consequences of conservatism unbound by morality.

Christians in the conservative movement, at least, should know better. The Bible’s commands to “love our neighbor as ourselves” and “live at peace with all men” do not stop at politics. There is a way of debating which respects the image of God in our political opponents and that is the way that Christians must follow.

Let us pray that Milo Yiannopolous finds true repentance, and let us live up to God’s standard in how we deal with those we disagree with.

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