(Apologies in advance to true followers of Christ's message of inclusion, respect, humility and love.)
Now, I get it that preachers like Bishop "I WANT the gays mad at me!" Wellington are just worried about their juicy "faith-based" buyoffs drying up. They've got to stage a hysterical freakshow to draw the public's eye from the GOP's dismal record. I get it, and I don't take it personally. I'm not talking to the greedy opportunists who cash-in on the antigay witch hunts by day and party with Jeff Gannon and Ken Mehlman at night.
I'm talking to those of you who dutifully show up for the witch hunts. To you Christian foot-soldiers who tell yourselves you're doing the right thing.
Now, a good number of you "purists" are just sociopaths who need a target--you're bullies, sadists, voyeurs, and control freaks. To some of you, an antigay crusade is a great pornographic game of S&M with no safety word for your victims. To some of you, an antigay crusade replaces those old cross-burning rituals and negro-hunts you miss so. Some of you simultaneously repress and engage your own homoerotic feelings by stalking and harassing or "counseling" and "saving" gay people. There's little hope of reasoning with the likes of you, because your motivation is so damage-related.
For the rest of you, you need a big dose of that "tough love" you so believe in. Here's some honesty.
You're collossal, tragic dupes. Seriously.
Ask yourselves why addressing poverty is not the biggest message from the pulpit, even though Jesus commanded you to care for the poor over 300 times (he mentions homosexuality a grand total of never). And if marriage is in such legal jeopardy, why isn't the demand from the pulpit for the outlawing of both adultery and remarriage, or at least the outlawing of "no-fault" divorce? (Jesus said: "Anyone who puts his wife away and marries another commits adultery; anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery." Matt 5:32). How about this: please name one heterosexual marriage that was destroyed or endangered because some longterm same-sex couple across town finally got domestic partner benefits. Anyone?
Here's the truth. The neocons and their store-bought religious minions have found an ingenious way to rob you blind. They see you as stupid sheep that they can send into a swoon with disingenuous "I'm a man of God" hogwash, and who they can mortify and fascinate with horror stories of predatory gays and bloodthirsty Muslims around every corner. Anything so you'll sign your brain and checkbook over to them for "protection." They realize that many of you are materialistic, shallow social-climbers who feel empty inside and need a way to feel like you are moral and belong. They realize that many of you are corporate exploiters and polluters who feel dirty and need to be assured that the world is ending soon anyway and you're on the right side of the coming battle.
They realize that some of you have low self-esteem from losing your job because it was outsourced. They realize there are those of you who feel guilt for shipping your son off to a bogus oil war because you couldn't afford his college. They know some of you feel powerless because your uninsured daughter has asthma from the air pollution in your part of town. They know many of you feel despondent over unpaid bills. They know there are those among you who feel humiliated because your wife left you for someone with more power and money. They know many of you feel vulnerable and just want someone to tell you what to do and think. They salve your wounded self-concept by offering you up queers to feel superior to and scared of. You validate their smug contempt for you when you take the bait.
They also lie about us. A lot. Given that, can I address for the millionth time some of the worst falsehoods they spin about us?
1) "Gays are trying to destroy marriage!"
Sigh. You know, we just want the same social benefits you and spouse # 7 get. Those of us who have been together for 20 years would like the same legal advantages you and "drunk chick I met and married in Vegas one night" get, if you can wrap your brain around that.
2) "Gays don't reproduce, so they must recruit."
No, our gayness doesn't make us want to "recruit" kids or adults. We don't "recruit." None of us were "recruited." We developed just like you did. We realized we were attracted to the same sex at about the same age you realized you were attracted to the opposite sex. Most of us went on hetero dates and were bored, thinking of the same-sex person at the Tinseltown ticket counter. Most of us had several silent same-sex crushes and heartbreaks before we ever had a same-sex date or experience with someone else who had the same attractions we did.
In sum, we weren't lured into "the lifestyle" by a shadowy figure.
Yes, we'd like you to stop trying to use public schools as a platform to tell our young gay brothers and sisters that they are sinful and abnormal. Teaching kids to hate themselves, to want to kill themselves, is not Christlike.
And yes, we do have our own kids, just not by accident. We plan our families carefully and would like the right to insure and protect them. No, we don't try to raise our kids "gay." We let our kids discover for themselves who they are and what they want. Most of our kids grow up straight.
3) Gayness comes from "wounds" related to the opposite sex.
Please join us in the 21st century. Freud is no longer here. We don't have grudges against the opposite sex. We don't have issues about the opposite sex that are blocking our heterosexual attractions. We just don't have heterosexual attractions, or they are very weak compared to our same-sex attractions.
4) Gays are porn and sex-obsessed.
Project much? Is it us trying to pry into your bedroom activities?
5) Gays are promiscuous and have dangerous sex.
Not met too many promiscuous lesbians, myself, nor many lesbians who got an STD from her partner. I doubt gay men are much more promiscuous than straight men, given equal opportunity.
As for dangerous sex, the closet really is the place where most anonymous, unprotected gay sex takes place. And the closet is of your making, not ours.
6) Gays revile God.
Many of us are deeply spiritual people. Many of us are followers of Christ, we just don't share your interpretation of sexual mores. (If you insist on believing we're going to Hell, then fine. I for one will be proud to join Gandhi and Socrates and Sitting Bull and Sappho.)
7) Gays are made, not born.
Oh, for the love of Pete. (Literally!) It shouldn't matter when it comes to rights and respect. But ok. Look, the preponderance of evidence surrounding variation in sexual orientation points to prenatal hormonal influences, and are, regardless, beyond the realm of conscious choice for most people. I cannot tell you the number of straight friends I have who have pined: "Damn! If only I were gay! Then these damn women would stop breaking my heart!" or "That's it. I'm off men. Now, how do I fall in love with women?" But they can't, even as much as they may want to. Most people can't flip a switch and feel attractions on a whim. Most of us are pretty stuck with the tendencies we have.
8) Bisexuals and "ex-gays" prove sexual orientation is a choice.
Um, no. Bisexuals may have more genders to choose between, but their bisexuality itself--their ability to feel for either gender--is generally experienced as innate. "Ex-gays" may change their behavior and identity, but this does not generally give them the power to really enjoy a sexual relationship with a member of the opposite sex, or be free of the deep desire to be intimate with someone of the same sex. Most "ex-gays" either lead a celibate life, or retreat back to the closet for a life of agony, fantasy, unfulfilling straight marriages and "backslides."
9) Same-sex erotic experiences in youth can "make" a child gay.
Adults and teens should never touch children sexually, and it's best that kids be watched closely enough that they don't sneak off and touch each other. But as for same-sex kidplay making them gay, BAH! There's at least one entire generation of "circle jerking" Boy Scouts, most of whom went on to be happily married, divorced, married, divorced, and now living with their babysitters. The point is, most of them, when given the opportunity to have sex with women, never look back. Gay sex is only preferable to--you guessed it--people who already had the tendency to be gay.
Now will you please, please leave us alone and get a freaking life?
One Love,
Rhet