The Religious Right likes to pretend that they’re trying to protect societal institutions, to preserve the natural order, to look out for the best needs of children, and so on. They continually assert that they don’t want to hurt gay people, per se, and they like to pretend that they respect our freedoms to live our lives as we choose. They just want to protect the institution of marriage, for instance. They’re lying, of course, because they’re liars, but it’s nice to see one of America’s queen bigots, Linda Harvey of Mission America, lay her hateful agenda out for all to see, without euphemisms. Linda is basically a snake, so it’s no surprise that she’s willing to hiss out words like this. On the radio today, she said this:
Our President has launched a broad scale attack on traditional values. If homosexuals and transgenders are allowed to live and love as they see fit, we would have a whole societal mess on our hands, which is already starting to happen in some areas. We’re already seeing the denial of liberty, intimidation tactics, and flat out dirty tricks in the effort to silence concerned citizens, especially Christians. And I’m sure many of you are as dismayed as I am over our hyper-sexualized culture, well homosexual activism only puts that trend on steroids.
…
It’s not a rights issue, its cultural revolution, where homosexuality is declared acceptable, the harm and detriments disguised, and no other views are allowed. And that’s not human rights, friends, it’s anti-family tyranny. We need someone else as President, don’t you think? Someone who loves and honors God, His design, and truth itself.
If we are allowed — ALLOWED — to live and love as WE SEE FIT.
Linda Harvey is not a cultured woman. She’s not an intelligent woman. But she thinks that, due to her pigheaded, stunted obeisance to a disproven worldview that is purportedly attached to a book she couldn’t truly understand if her life depended on it, she has the right to decide how a portion of the society — a portion, I might add, that has no desire to meet her in whatever suburban Wal-Mart infested trans fat zone where she dwells — lives our lives.
Sorry, Linda. You’re not a greater citizen than we are. The laws are finally being changed to reflect that. You’re free to live out your life screaming at the homosexuals in your head, but otherwise, you’d best learn to deal with reality.
Appreciate the honesty, though. That’s rare when dealing with fundamentalists!
I have always considered it a profound sadness when someone like Ms. Harvey condemns the love and commitment that exists between two people, gay or straight, and those who wish to affirm and support it. I don’t think that there is anything that’s Christian about that; it’s simply intolerance dressed up as Godliness. She doesn’t understand that the struggles that gay couples go through are identical to the ones that heterosexual couples go through. Our relationships share the same joys, the same pains, the same celebrations and the same sorrows.
As for the “hyper-sexualized culture” that she speaks of, it may surprise her to learn that I agree wholeheartedly with her concern. I share it. I look at my two nieces, one of whom is four and the other who is nine, and I lament the influence that our culture has placed upon them. It seems that the innocence of childhood has evaporated along with many of the values that Americans once seemed to cherish.
Like some (but certainly not all) fundamentalists, she views us stereotypically. She accepts the dehumanized image of gays and lesbians; the one that is common among people who really don’t know us, much like some of us all too often buy into the image of the angry, intolerant Christian.
I hope for the day when all people, regardless of who they are, can come together based upon our shared humanity, our hopes and our pains. I hope that we will all learn to respect each other.
The idea that gay people are sinners has become old, even in many religious circles. It is disappearing like a vapor. Although I completely disagree with her about whether or not that it a good thing, I understand her frustration.
It is unquestionable that she’s entitled to believe what she believes, but even so, there is a scripture that Ms. Harvey, a self-described Christian, should be most familiar: “Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone.” (John 8:7)
Chris– lots of people are sinners. not everyone throws stones.
What I was saying is that Ms. Harvey is throwing stones. :)
Chris,
John 3:16.
The book of John was the “primary” gospel used by Christians for hundreds of years. It is still the “primary” source of direction for many of us Christians. John 3:16 tells us Christians that in order to be saved, one must believe. Period. There’s no asterisk “*” and a foot note saying “Oh, but not the gays!”. John 3:16… remember it– it’s the most important passage there is.
Peace and health
I am ***SO*** frustrated and angry right now…
Why must conversation with Christians ALWAYS devolve into who is going to hell with references to a misinterpretation of mistranslated antique literature taken out of historical and social context, a tome that was never meant to be understood as factual but METAPHORICAL…
…taking a deep calming breath…
yeah, yeah, peace and health. (but I’m going to hell if I don’t believe like you).
Contempt is still contempt, whether it comes from a lunatic or someone who isn’t entirely politically against us.
Just as “patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel,” hell is the last refuge of the christian.
Not all Christians are homophobic bigots.
Do an Internet search for an “Open and Affirming” or a “Welcoming and Affirming” church in your area and support their ministry.
“Open and Affirming” Churches support equal rights for gay people and fight every day against the evil of heterosexual supremacy and the perversion of homophobia.
Contempt = “you are going to hell unless you believe like we do”
…an attitude that you will STILL find even at “open and affirming” churches. I will not, do not support such a “ministry.”
I used to attend a Unitarian Universalist Society, jokingly referring to it as how I facilitated my recovery from fundamentalism. But even there, as relaxed as they are about doctrines and politics, you stiill find folks who are fundamentalist (no, I don’t want to see your angel cards, have my chakras cleared, pray to Ganesha, or heal my energies). Just creative new ways to tell you that your life, you, your after life, your karmic destiny are all bound for some variation of hell unless you believe and comply.
I object to the introduction of hell as a rationale to deny me my civil rights. I object to hell as a reason I must believe in and buy whatever snake oil is being sold. I object that this contempt is always phrased as some kind of arrogant, condescending, “loving” intervention, that my desire to be free from religion somehow makes me broken and in need of fixing. I object that this kind of conversation inevitably turns up whenever our civil rights are being “debated.”
Open and Affirming fighting for my civil rights? Fine. Just a drop in the ocean of penance they need to do. I agree with Dan Savage: don’t tell ME that all Christians aren’t a******s. Tell the a*****e Christians. Get in THEIR face.
In the meantime, leave me the hell alone (pun intended), keep your hell to yourself and out of the laws that protect MY family.
Mike Thomas,
“Not all Christians are homophobic bigots”
We know that, but does Linda Harvey? I think it’s more important to educate her than us.
It probably won’t do any good, Daniel, because people like Harvey will just say, “Oh, then you’re not a true Christian.”
Alas, Bill S is correct…Harvey is a fanatic who makes her living (and sense of self importance..even more important to her than $) from attacking and being “better” (in her mind) than us. And, she was a student for a couple of years at a Lutheran Seminary…from her own warped perspective, she is “well educated” in (her sort of) Christian belief.
I’m sure that it wouldn’t do any good with Harvey, but that’s not the point. Why do liberal Christians keep telling us on websites like this that “not all Christians are homophobic bigots”? Why aren’t they pushing their non-homophobic agenda to Christians or to the mainstream media? Why aren’t they calling that radio station and saying they don’t agree with Harvey? Why aren’t they going on these Christian websites or even to their own non-liberal churches and pushing their pro-gay agendas? Why does it seem like they only push gay people not to be anti-Christians but never push anti-gay Christians not to be anti-gay?
Exactly. True Christian love. Everyone else is going to hell, except the ones that believe like us, we’re not the bad guys. They all duck responsibility for the s**t they say because they know what the Bible “really” says. Contempt for other religions, other denominations, contempt for the atheist and agnostic, contempt for all the targets of their evangelical efforts because we’re right and you’re all going to hell…
…it’s an endless cycle of b******t. It’s a distraction from the fact that there is no rational reason for us to be denied our civil rights. It’s a non-winnable argument with people who think their version of Bible-talk entitles them to enforce same in civil secular law.
…and even when they’re on your side it’s personally insulting to be called blind by some idiot who believes your afterlife is going to be uncomfortably warm because your brain doesn’t entertain the neurochemical pathways of thought that constitute “belief.”
Contempt and crazy, even when on your side politically, are still contempt and crazy.
I dunno about anyone else here but I listen to xtian radio during the day while I am at work and I watch some of the programs that are one xtian channels on TV and then I write very pungent letters to the b******t preachers in an attempt to shame them. Sure, I know, it does no good, but I can’t stop trying. Last month I wrote to Robert Jefress (Pathway to Victory), Michael Youssef (Leading the Way), Charles Stanley (In Touch), Steve Mays (Light of the Word). I carry on an email correspondence of sorts with Steve Arterburn (New Life Ministries)& I am not hesitant to tell them that they are anti-gay bigots. I always have my notebook with me so I can take specific notes if a program is really offensive so I can fire back at whomever is being the biggest bonehead. I know that my emails get deleted & my letters get dumped in a wastebasket, but I do this anyhow in the brief hope that I will touch a nerve, change a mind. Call me hopelessly deluded, but I will still try.
I admire your efforts Devin and I doubt your emails and letters get trashed without being read for the simple reason that the bigots are always hoping to get a response from a gay person that they can use against the community, a death threat or bigotry against christians.
Actually, I have gotten a few replies. I got put on a Focus on the Family list of homos that needs to be ‘saved’ & got mail from them saying I was obviously unhappy with my gay life. I wrote them back immediately & set them right. But I did have an ‘ex-gay’ guy from their ‘ex-gay’ ministry try to talk me into salvation & to get me to ‘stop being gay’. I accused him of being one of the gayest people I’d ever spoken to & he burst into tears on the phone. I wrote Jeffress a rebuttal to his book ‘Hell Yes!’ which mainly just feature him licking his lips at how many people were ‘bound for hell’ & I got a very disagreeable letter back from him. I prized it. I’ve written to local ministers too, & they tend to write back these clueless, defensive missives that make better paper airplanes than anything else. I tried to cure one old preacher of using the word ‘sodomite’ all the time but I didn’t have any luck there. He was a bit too ignorant to get my point. Oh, well.
That’s hilarious Devon! Keep up the good work.
If someone is bisexual do they have a civil right to marry 2 people?
True Motive: of course not. They can marry half of a male & half of a female! (snicker) Now get lost, troll!
There’s an online site of anti-abortion folks called LifeSiteNews.com that has been begging & pleading for donations for weeks now, & they aren’t getting anywhere. So this morning they decided to pull out the big guns, & they wrote a nasty little anti-gay screed. They’re trying to make money by scaring their sheep with the ‘evil gay’. Hahahaha.
There is also a complete jerk called Don Walton who has his ‘At Issue’ article published on the online Baptist Press. They really have hard-on for anything & everything that is anti-gay (despite anything that might have been said by Albert Mohler). The article is called ‘Could it be celibacy not homosexuality’ & then goes on to recite just about every piece of xtian propaganda that’s out there. Now he deserves a sharp email from me! And he’s gonna get one!
It’s an honest question.
Why the hate?
Hate? Moi? That was NOT an ‘honest question’. And a troll by any other name is still…a troll.
True motive, if a man is attracted to two women does he get to marry both?
I’m just trying to reason through things here.
So, on one hand many argue that same sex marriage is justified by the same sex attraction of the individual.
Is the civil right based on their attraction(s) or not?
No, you’re not trying to reason through things, you’re trying to pretend there’s a valid reason to deny someone the right to marry the person they love. That you be attracted to someone or not attracted to someone else has never been a requirement of marriage. Its you heterosexuals who started and are virtual exclusive promoters of polygamy – clean up your own shop before you try to blame gays or bisexuals for what you’ve created.
True motive is an idiot who assumes, like many idiots, that if a person is bisexual, he or she ISN’T monogomous.
OK, now I’m really confused.
You’re saying the argument that is cited over and over as the basis for one’s individual civil right to same sex marriage is not the reason at all?
Please do explain.
Yes, he/she is pretending to be so stupid that he/she can’t grasp that idea that just as a heterosexual might be attracted to more than one person and not need to marry two people the same is true of us bisexuals.
Stop playing dumn False motive. The argument isn’t that attractions determine who people should be allowed to marry, its that the government has no business telling anyone who they can or can’t marry unless there is damn good reason to do so. And that two people are of the same gender is NOT good reason.
Bill,
thanks so much for the kind words.
But back to the issue at hand, isn’t that being discriminatory to deny one’s right to marry whom they love, attracted to, etc?
Who are you to be the judge?
Why should one person have to choose between one or the other and live a lie?
False motive, isn’t discriminatory to deny a man’s right to marry the 7 women of his choice? If it must be man/woman marriage, why not one man and seven women?
Priya,
I was attempting to keep things as simple as possible.
You know how “dumb” I can be.
But if you want to expand things beyond 2 partners, the premise remains.
On what factor is the “civil right” to marry based upon? Or is it the definition of the word marriage that is to be addressed?
False motive, the underlying “logic” of bigots’ oppostion to equal marriage is that if gays are allowed to marry there is no reason to deny polygamists the right to marry either.
However, the denial of marriage to gays doesn’t justify the denial of marriage to polygamists any more than the denial of driver’s licenses to imigrants would justify the denial of driver’s licenses to Texans.
As denying gays marriage in no way justifies denying polygamists marriage on what basis have you EVER stood against denying a man the right to marry the 7 women he loves? Isn’t that being discriminatory to deny one’s right to marry whom they love, attracted to, etc?
Who are you to be the judge?
Why should a man have to chose one from the seven women he loves and live a lie?
Gee whiz,
That’s a lot to digest.
Especially the driver’s licenses part.
This is all so complicated now.
My head is starting to hurt a little bit.
Not to worry, I will answer back tomorrow, but I must leave and sign off for now.
I do appreciate your responses and not taking the lazy route of calling someone a disparaging name and end the discussion.
Until next time …..
Oh, gee I can’t wait. I’m sure you’ll come up with something I haven’t heard before and knock my socks off.
Christians all, must stand up against their bigoted brethren or the are as guilty as they are.
Err, come again? What xtians? What ‘bigoted brethren’? Who is guilty of what? Just askin’.
Devin, the anti-gay christians are the bigoted brethren. They’re guilty of oppressing an innocent minority.
Priya – ok, OK then. I wasn’t sure which way he meant it. I took a stupid pill this morning so I’m gonna be dim all day. Sigh.
I hear you, I take one of those every now and then.
Priya, I have to take back my comment about getting Steve Arterburn & those losers at New Life Ministries from labeling all my comments on their site which use the word ‘gay’ as ‘awaiting modification’. They did it to me again this morning. I write some carefully considered, well thought out disagreements with their hosts’ behavior on the radio show & I get deleted. If you can believe it, on the radio show they had a caller who was alarmed that her gay sister wanted to bring her partner along to a family cook-out. (Because we are contagious?) She didn’t want her children ‘influenced’ by unbiblical, ungodly gays. Now, one host said it might be OK if they allowed the sister & her partner to attend providing it was to get them to admire their xtian ‘love’ & also to preach salvation to them. (To stop them from being gay, I guess.) So I went to newlife.com & tried to find out why they were so scared of gay people but all I got was deleted. It doesn’t matter if it’s Steve Arterburn, Devvy Kidd of NewsWithViews, Linda Harvey, Bryan Fischer or Michael Brown. They hate us to such a degree that they can’t even allow us to comment on their message board. It makes me very frustrated. I’d do better if I just banged my head against a wall!
Yes, its very frustrating Devin. I’ve experienced that too where I’ve gone to anti-gay blogs and posted my point in the politest manner I could and none of them were ever displayed. They’re so sleazy and they know they can’t defend their position in an honest debate so they shut down debate on their blogs essentially making them a place for their sermons.
I went back into the site that deleted me & knowing that it is using the word ‘gay’ that triggers the tripwire, I avoided using the word altogether & then responded to the three people on whom I’d commented, telling each one that I had written something to them that was censored. So far doing that way has not garnered any attention. I wrote a strongly email to Arterburn directly (not thru the New Life site) telling him what I thought of his censorship. It was titled ‘Gutless Wonder’. Imagine it. Just mentioning the word ‘gay’ causes uproar & hysteria! Sheesh!
Devin and Priya, all of those sites are just echo chambers for people with straight-jacketed minds who think the way they do and only the way they do. I would never waste my time with them, as you may as well be speaking Klingon to them. And Priya is right, they have no intelligent, cogent arguments against us, so rather than engage, they silence you. What would you expect from a totalitarian/authoritarian mind-set and religion. I’ve never been on one of their sites, but would have expected *exactly* what you two described. In my ‘evil’ fantasies, I wish I had the skill to hack into them and either shut them down totally or plaster it constantly with pro gay ‘propaganda’. >:-)
ps…at least Wayne and Evan let the trolls post all their b******t here (which is more proof of how superior we are to them)–plus we have the pleasure of wiping the floor up with them.
I’m back,
Now where were we, somthing about driver’s licenses?
Should we introduce an analogy about turtles?
Nah, that would just be crazy wouldn’t it?
I actually think in a round about way you’re making a point that I seem to understand as well.
The point being that attraction does not justify a civil right.
But that clearly contradicts the logic some people use to create a civil right.
Another troll crawling out from under the bridge.
False motive you’re disingenous. The government has no business telling anyone who their marriage partners should be unless it has damn good reason to do so and that two people are of the same sex is not good reason.
You still haven’t answered my question – If marriage is necessarily heterosexual and is all about conceiving children on what basis do you deny a man the right to marry 7 wives? If a man and a woman is acceptable, why not 1 man and 7 women?
Oh, yes, and in response to your statment “The point being that attraction does not justify a civil right”.
By the same token disapproving of an attraction does not justify denying a civil right.
Daniel,
Troll, just may be in the eye of the beholder.
I think I prefer door #1
troll
–noun
1.
(in Scandinavian folklore) any of a race of supernatural beings, sometimes conceived as giants and sometimes as dwarfs, inhabiting caves or subterranean dwellings.
2.
Slang . a person who lives or sleeps in a park or under a viaduct or bridge, as a bag lady or derelict.
Trueblahblahblah–here’s the definition for your type of troll–I think everyone will agree it fits you like a glove.
troll – One who purposely and deliberately (that purpose usually being self-amusement) starts an argument in a manner which attacks others on a forum without in any way listening to the arguments proposed by his or her peers.
Daniel,
about your definition-
“troll – One who purposely and deliberately (that purpose usually being self-amusement) starts an argument in a manner which attacks others on a forum”
I really don’t believe I’ve “attacked” anyone.
Please let me know when and who and I will offer an apology poste haste.
You are partially correct in the remainder of your definition-
“without in any way listening to the arguments proposed by his or her peers.”
It is impossible to listen to an email, (unless I was set up for text voicing) but I cerainly have read them and have hung on every word.