Mitchell Gold, friend of Truth Wins Out and founder of Faith In America, went on MSNBC this afternoon and discussed anti-gay bullying, and the root cause of it, which is spiritual terrorism inflicted by the Religious Right, on the kids of this country. Refusing to mince words, he called the religious messages of hatred against LGBT people exactly what they are: “child molestation of a child’s mind.” Here’s the pull-quote:
I would say this, that clergy people who stand at their pulpit and they speak about gay people as sinners and an abomination, that is bullying a young kid. That is really — and I know this may sound exaggerated — but that is nothing less than child molestation of a child’s mind. [...] It is devastating to a 14-year-old-kid to hear their rabbi or their imam or their priest or clergy person say that they are a sinner or an abomination…and I’m here to tell them, they are full and whole and wonderful and they will learn as life goes on that there are many, many people who feel that way.
Preach it. The Religious Right doesn’t particularly like to hear that they are at the root of the higher rates of bullying, depression and even suicide that gay teens experience, but we at Truth Wins Out aren’t in business to make the bigots feel better. Here’s the video:
A bully is by definition a sadistic psychopath who takes pleasure from making his victim suffer and is incapable of feeling empathy for the victim.
I respectfully disagree, Scott. Psychopaths, a.k.a. sociopaths, are indeed incapable of empathy because they are devoid of conscience (Martha Stout’s _The Sociopath Next Door_ is a good reference). Some bullies are sociopaths, no doubt. But not all. There are bullies who do it because they are deeply insecure or fearful or bigoted and those emotions override their empathy. Many grow up to regret their cruelty and change their ways.
^what she said.
The spiritual bullying Gold describes is an equal opportunity molester, in my book. When a family presents an abusive anti-gay religious leader to a kid as someone to be respected or revered, straight kids don’t just learn heterosexism, they learn that despising a group of people, casting them unilaterally as sub-human and detestable, is acceptable and will be admired at times.
Of course, gay and questioning kids get the same message compounded by worry or knowledge that they are one of the despised outsiders.
But, the toxic effects don’t discriminate. Every kid is poisoned, at least for a while, to believe that humanity is conditional, not universal… that their own right to safety and respect might be revoked at some point, or that they have the power or obligation to revoke the humanity of others via bullying.
He’s wrong about being called a sinner. We are all constantly told we are all sinners and literally everyone of us, religious or not, still go about our daily lives not worrying about it. Growing up, the priests always hammered us about the sinful things we were constantly doing, thinking, feeling, etc and we had to confess them. Big deal, who gave a s**t; we had lives to live and fun to have.
Abomination? That’s a whole other story because it singles us out for special condemnation of something that is common to everyone – their sexuality. There’s where the willful and insidious cruelty comes into play. Everyone else leaves church feeling OK about themselves especially since they are not the “abominable one”. Lordy, I hate religion.