By Sheldon Greaves

Germany. Surplus tanks, remnants of the East German Army for sale at a site near Bautzen.

Quite a few years ago, author Sam Keen wrote a thoughtful, deeply penetrating book called Faces of the Enemy that introduced me to his concept of “surplus evil.” Keen observed that individuals and groups who sought to divert attention from their own internal darkness would generate excess evil to use in de-humanizing the “other” for purposes of political unity in the face of manufactured demons, or to justify cruelty and atrocity that would be unthinkable without the proper preparations.

A recent article on the Think Progress blog relates an interesting, but not altogether surprising aftermath of the war to stop gay marriage. The title of the article, “After Losing On Same-Sex Marriage, Conservative Christians Find A New Enemy,” tells the story. At the end of the war, a new kind of “surplus” is loose, looking for a new purpose:

For decades, conservative Christians who oppose LGBT equality have singled out the federal government or secular atheists as their preferred enemy in public settings, blasting both groups for supposedly attacking “traditional marriage” or infringing on their religious liberty. Yet in the months surrounding the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision to legalize same-sex marriage across the country, right-wing Christians have become increasingly willing to cast blame — seemingly hypocritically — on a group they have often dismissed or outright ignored: Progressive Christians, especially those who support marriage equality.

Let’s not kid ourselves. For the truly powerful in Washington, the whole anti-gay thing was an emotional wedge issue that was designed to bring out the worst in conservative supporters. It was part of a much larger trend that began shortly after Goldwater’s defeat to change the nature of elections from reasoned discussions about policy to playing straight to the gut. The theme on the right for the last few decades is that there is always an enemy, always a crisis, always an existential threat whether it was communists, intellectuals, liberals, environmentalists, civil rights activists, hippies, or gays. The circus was designed to keep the rest of us chasing our tails. Those of us with a conscience could not abandon the fight against gay bigotry because even though it was a manufactured “threat” to “American culture,” people were getting hurt, even killed.

But gradually, over time, Keen’s surplus evil was became weaponized fear. With the Gay marriage battle over but for a few fading pockets of resistance, that surplus rhetorical weaponry, like all that Soviet military hardware and technology after the Cold War, is loose wreaking havoc. It is a cautionary tale that will almost certainly be lost on those who need most to understand it. Conservative politics in America has relied increasingly on not only native ignorance, bias, and fear, but worked industriously to generate, manufacture, and perpetuate it. Like other weapons we casually release into the world, it is too often the case that those who do so will find themselves on the receiving end of those same deadly tools. The rank and file conservative Christians were played like pawns in this game, and are just as expendable.

If the report on Think Progress represents the real trend, the choice of targets is interesting; fellow Christians who, and let’s be real here, exhibit far better compliance with the teachings of the New Testament and its associated interpretive literature from the early church than their new antagonists. But the trend is clear; they are on the losing side, one bereft of both intellectual rigor and moral authority. They can answer to a brighter spirit, or be consumed by their own darkness.

The GOP in particular in this election cycle is caught in a malestrom of ignorance and fear of their own making. We can only hope they don’t drag the rest of us down along the way.