Dan Blatt at Gay Patriot asks a question, and I assume he’s asking it in good faith, so I will answer it in good faith:
I wonder (and not for the first time) why those who use such venom in their criticism of conservatives and Christians, must themselves label their critics as haters and their arguments as hateful.
Firstly, a conservative’s definition of “venom” tends to be very different from a liberal’s definition of “venom.” Liberals use humor and sarcasm which is often interpreted by conservatives as “hatred.” But that is a side point, and not the question he was asking.
The reason we correctly call anti-gay wingnuts and their organizations “haters” is that this is not 1845. Every argument against homosexuality and equal rights for gays has been summarily disproven and left out to die on the side of the road. The people who bitterly cling to religious ideologies which they put on pedestals above reality and their own common sense have every resource available to them that we do, starting with Google. They can learn these things for themselves. Therefore, they don’t have any good excuse beyond blind religious devotion [synonym often is "hatred"] for their ridiculous beliefs about and political actions against the gay community.
It is that simple. Dan, you can apologize for your ideological “friends” all you want, but those of us who actually do this for a living know better.
Thank you Evan.
Damn, I hope he listens.
I am, to my ETERNAL EMBARASSMENT, a former conservative gay guy, much like Dan.
I saw the world through such ideological lenses, it took a while for reality to breatk in.
Then, it dawned on me; “Its NOT all about me…maybe the same movement that lead to MY having greater freedom CORRECTLY lead to greater freedom for other minorities…and this ides of the “Oppressed Majority” is, well…crap. The “Rights” we are complaining about losing are mainly the rights to keep other people down, consume constantly without regard to others, and do a lot of it in the name of a kind of Christianity that Jesus would not recognize.”
I saw that out of a desire to be a part of the dominant group (NOT for long!) of privledged white males with money, I had to go along with the hatred, sickeningly wrapped in the “Language of care and Christian love”.
It was b******t.
But the moment I first had this understandng was a wonderful…terrifying…LIBERATING moment. I hope Dan can have it soon.
Gay conservative = mix of selfishness and self hatred.
Nothing more. Nothing less.
I know. Been there, seen the others, done that.
Time to Grow up Dan
And Evan. Thanks.
We might ask why the nuns marry Jesus and exactly how many wives Jesus has anyway. Traditional marriage couldn’t possibly sustain an attack from gay also being married to each other, but when it comes to those polygamist nuns and their one husband Jesus, religious bigots are right there looking at the gift registry.
Another point would be, we don’t criticize those Christians who do not hate gays. We do not criticize the branch of the Lutheran Church that ordains out married gay and lesbian ministers. The congregations of that Lutheran Church most certainly are *not* less Christian than the Christians who hate us and use religious justifications for the hate. That the haters seek to identify all Christians as the target of our wrath is fatuous and inappropriate, especially towards those Christians with the decency to accept us fully for who we are. This same concept applies to conservatives as well. I have a friend who identifies as Republican . . which for many reasons I can not support or agree with in any way . . yet . . this person is extremely accepting of gay people. Her children’s god parents are a gay male couple. We criticize not all conservatives and Christians, but rather those who hate . . as it were . . the haters. The significant and primary factor in their identity is that they are haters, not that they are conservatives or Christians.
It is always important to remember that bigotry and hatred are not synonymous. Not all anti-gay bigotry is hate, fear, ignorance, stupidity, unconscious this-is-how-I-was-brought-up.
A lot of it is the fundamental belief in your own superioirty.
And in the case of homosexuality, a lot of it is self-hatred projected outward.
Good points both of you. I have tried to defend the many Christians who support us (many gay people are Christian afterall).
Ben, your point about it not being all hate, but coming from a sense of superiority, is spot on. I would only add to it that I, in my conversations with conservatives, are adding a new twist to this innate sense of superiority, Fear.
They see the tipping point as plainly and clearly as anyone….and it scares the living hell out of them.
Which is why we have to take them seriously. Nothing is as dangerous as a wounded and dying predator.
I have to assume that the Christian homo-squashers are praying for God’s assistance. Then when they plainly see that our side is winning, it terrifies them, not only because of the fact we are winning, but because they need to believe that their god answers prayer, and that their beliefs are in sync with their god’s. And there is something else that is perhaps the most terrifying of all:
I suspect that many of God’s most vociferous adulators have some doubts about God’s existence, and it terrifies them. So they desperately grasp at anything that will help extinguish doubt. I think that’s one unspoken reason why evangelizing is so important – each new believer helps reinforce their own belief. It’s partly why they jump on natural disasters as proof of their god’s wrath (and existence). Whenever there are growing numbers of people refusing to live in accordance with their will (and their god’s), and have the audacity to be happy, it threatens their beliefs. A self-loathing miserable homo is quite acceptable, but a happy homo is a threat.
I’m taking a course on the Civil War. I have to do a paper, so I chose “Christianity and Slavery” as my topic. It’s illuminating, to say the least.
I can say without fear of reprisal that equating homophobia with Christianity is on par with equating slavery with Christianity; it’s all nonsense.
I’ve spoken to many Christians who are well-intentioned, caring people. They honestly believe homosexuality is a sin, and that is their right.
I obviously couldn’t disagree more, but they are decent people nonetheless. Whenever I have encountered them, they have almost always treated me as they would treat anyone, with dignity and respect.
However, those right-wingers who homophobia their cause are just using faith as a cover.
I was a born again Christian in my teenage years. (Don’t ask.)
Those types are venomous; there is something that is so disturbing about them. I can assure you that any fundamentalist who is reading this right now knows *exactly* the type I’m referring to.
Everyday normal Christians who don’t hate gays aren’t real Christians don’t any of you know that?
Fundamentalist’s faith be they Christian, Muslim or Jew is based on fear either their own fear or the fear they can produce in others.
I think that there’s one issue which is lost in the polemic about words, actually. The discussion about “you’re a hater,” “no, you’re a hater” is kindergarten sandbox stuff. What’s really the point here is not whether the fundie wingnuts do or do not hate something. It is that they are purposefully obtuse and stupid. This is something I’ve come to recently — understanding that the correct interpretation of the word homophobia is not fear, which is the textbook definition, but instead stupidity. As Evan Hurst pointed out, science is and for a long time has been on our side. A homophobe is someone who can look at 500 studies from the World Health Organization and similar structures which, on the basis of empirical study and evidence, declare that homosexuality is not a mental disease or in any way “abnormal,” and yet the homophobe will put up the middle finger of his Bible-waving hand and say “I don’t believe that.” Similarly, there can be a world and a mountain of evidence about what the planet that we live upon is made of and how old it all is, but the wingnut will put up the middle finger of his Bible-waving hand and say “I don’t believe that, because if you take the age of Methuselah and multiply by 3.3 (one-tenth of the age of Jesus’ death) and then by 12 (the number of disciples), and then subtract 960 (the number of hours spent by Moses on the mountaintop before bringing down the Ten Commandments), you get that the Earth is 6,342 years old and that’s that.” These are people who have found a passage in the Bible which says “Go out and be as ignorant as you possibly can.” And gosh, but that makes me want to find a time machine so that I can go back 2,000 years, find the guys who wrote the Bible, and ask them whether they ever imagined that there would be people who would try to turn their text to their own wicked purposes. Of course, they would say “yes, that started about ten seconds after Jesus died,” but perhaps they could be convinced to revise the text at least a little bit in favor of “whosoever believes in me shall inherit eternal light” and away from “damned abomination.” We’d all have easier lives if that were so. Including the wingnuts. They would be able to return to the search for an explanation of how, if the world is 6,342 years old, we are to account for dinosaurs.
so sad that the so called “believers” of Jesus cannot understand his simple and eternal doctrine of love and acceptance!
those who would exclude brethern of differnt sexual orientations do themselves condemn! how sad, that one would choose condemnation when Jesus came to bring mercy,forgiveness,liberty,and love! hear ye and be saved!
love in Jesus!
Charles in Japan
And Evan, predictably, answers the question with: Hate and bigotry. Nice. I also have to wonder how much Gene gets paid for that steaming pile he dumped above.
LOL….aww…poor TGC. Evan answered with honestly, and clarity. Which is why most people now agree with him :)
As for my “stinking pile”, most of it comes from reading the well written, and distrubingly conservative, but not self deluded, writings of Dr. Al Mohler. He is a bigoted conservative, but he is smart, and he can see which way the society is irrecovably moving, and the responses of conservatives in Church and society. He gets paid for his writing. I don’t.
Steaming pile…thats funny. It also shows that the truth you don’t like, can get under your skin.
Chris L,
“I’ve spoken to many Christians who are well-intentioned, caring people. They honestly believe homosexuality is a sin, and that is their right.”
No matter how well intentioned and caring these people are their belief that homosexuality is a sin is still bigoted. The fact that their bigotry is sincere and based in the Bible does not make them any less sincere and bigoted than the people who used the Bible to excuse slavery or the treatment of other races or women. People can be sincere in their hatred and fear. That they have the right to believe this doesn’t make their beliefs not bigoted.