There is a guest post up over at Porno Pete’s Americans for Truth About Homosexuality/Chicagoland’s Greatest Archive of Leather Photography, and it is from a woman — I wasn’t aware he allowed women in his lair — named Karen Norling, who is there to proclaim, for eleven people to see, on the website of an anti-gay hate group, how much she loves homosexuals. Seriously:
I Am Not Afraid of the ‘Big, Bad H’ (Homosexuality)
That’s the headline. You’re already laughing, I know.
I’d like to tell you about three of my longtime friends–David, Marcia, and Sean–as well as my “double” cousin, Michael, and one of my college professors, Prof. Hathaway.
David entered my life in 1974, shortly after he befriended my older brother, Jon. I was 10; David was 13. Even if David hadn’t become my foster brother …
Marcia entered my life, and became my dear friend, in 1978. She may have been nearly as old my mother, but that never mattered to me …
Sean entered my life in 1983, when I attended West Valley College in Saratoga. He was my assigned creative-writing tutor. Sean is one of the most compassionate, considerate men I’ve ever known …
My “double” cousin, Michael, was born six years before I was, but I can remember his side-splitting antics all the way back to first grade …
Professor Hathaway entered my life in 1990–while I was working toward my Bachelor’s at Cal. State, Stanislaus…
Okay, so we have a laundry list of people Karen has known, who are, spoiler alert, homosexuals. Most live far away from her and presumably don’t have to deal with her that often, and one is a teacher she had for one semester in college. If you want to read the rest of her descriptions of her homo friends, go to Americans For Truth Dot Com.
Why have I told you about David, Marcia, Sean, Michael and Prof. Hathaway? I’ve told you about them because they have something in common: they are homosexuals.
Gay gay gay gay gay. Replace “they are homosexuals” with “they are Negroes” and put this article on David Duke’s website and you can predict how this is going to go.
Of course, the fact that they are homosexuals would mean nothing to you–if not for the following fact: I am utterly, 100 percent opposed to homosexuality. I not only think it’s unnatural, I think it’s morally wrong, and the thought of it repulses me. Now, if you’re thinking that because I disavow homosexuality, I can’t possibly be friends with homosexuals, can’t love them deeply, can’t enjoy their company, can’t admire their intellect–i.e., if you think my “disavowal” renders me a “homophobe”-=think again.
So, Karen is here to explain that though she finds David, Marcia, Sean, Michael and Prof. Hathaway to be unnatural, morally wrong, and repulsive, you need to think again, because Karen does not know what the hell the word “homophobe” means. And yes, Karen, you cannot separate the people from their sexual orientation, because all grown-ups who favor reality over fundamentalist Christian dogma understand that sexual orientation is simply a human characteristic.
Any one of Karen’s supposed “gay friends” could explain this to her, if she was listening, which I assume she is not. Have her friends read this piece?
I may be at odds with homosexuality, but I am not afraid of it. Rather, I’m afraid of losing someone close to me; of walking into a grocery store or restaurant and having my head blown off; of getting into a wreck on the freeway and ending up a paraplegic. I’m afraid of being told I have some fatal disease that’s going to cause me a slow and painful death, and, yes, I confess, I’m afraid of bumblebees.
Got it. She’s afraid of bumblebees, and she hates gayness. But she doesn’t hate bumblebees.
Granted, when I was young and going through all the physical/emotional changes an adolescent/teenager inevitably goes through, I did fear homosexuality. I did wonder, with deep and silent horror, if someday I’d find I was attracted to women instead of men. Why did I “wonder with horror”? Why did I fear? Because, as I just said: the thought of two people of the same sex doing with each other what two people of the opposite sex (innately) do, flat-out repulsed me.
Hold UP. Straight readers, answer in the comments section, please: did you ever wonder, as a teenager, with “deep and silent horror,” if you’d accidentally wake up one day and suddenly be into members of your own gender? Was that even remotely on your radar? I don’t think normal people worry about such things, but this is a Fundamentalist thing. Satan’s around every corner, tempting you into turning into a tofu-eating lesbian who practices witchcraft on Sunday mornings, and you’re powerless to stop it. Also, why was/is she so focused on what gay people do in the bedroom? Not normal.
The thing is, however, my sense of fear quickly dissipated–unlike my sense of repulsion–amid my growing desire to forge an intimate relationship with someone outside my gender. (Please note: this fear I speak of never caused me to withdraw or shy away from David, Marcia, Sean, Michael or Ms. Hathoway.)
Then she started noticing dudes and it was like “Whew! You guys, the debbil almost got me there! Close call!”
Today I am extremely happy, totally satisfied with the man I married nearly 20 years ago.
Fantastic. Guess what normal people are not doing, upon learning of Karen’s marriage? Thinking about what they do in the bedroom. Now you are, though, because I mentioned it.
Sorry.
I mention I’m happy and satisfied because it’s apparent that those of you who make liberal use of the terms “homophobia,” “homophobic,” “homophobe” are trying to imply not only that we who oppose homosexuality are mean, hateful, unenlightened, narrow-minded clods–but also that we’re denying ourselves infinite pleasure and fulfillment–all because we choose to have sex solely with members of the opposite sex.
Um, no, that’s not it at all, and never has been. In fact, in my years of covering wingnuts, I have never read one who thought we were suggesting that straight people can’t experience the fullness of sex, on account of their heterosexuality. It’s more like, “If you think we’re not experiencing the fullness of sex, pleasure and fulfillment because we, due to being gay, have gay sex, you are a moron. Also, equal rights, please, as sexual orientation simply what it is, etc., etc., yadda yadda.”
She’s right about the narrow-minded clod part, though.
By frequently employing such terms, you merely sabotage your efforts to make certain homosexuality is ultimately sanctioned by those of us who would strike it from existence if we could. Hence, I kindly, yet candidly, say: if you truly want to draw us closer to you, instead of pushing us further and further away–relinquish your cocky, condescending attitudes; dismount your “gay-pride” pedestals, and pluck from your verbal “repertoire” every “homophobic” cliche. Love us whether or not we condone your lifestyle choices, whether or not we share your sexual point of view.
Okay, so Karen would “strike” homosexuals “from existence” if she could. [Refer to above -- wingnuts cling to the ignorance of separating the person and the sexual orientation, but adults do not.] Have her so-called “gay friends” read this piece, I ask again? Basically, she is saying that if gays want to live in peace, we should just shut up and be happy as second-class citizens, allowing people like Karen to continue on in their blissfully ignorant states, enjoying a status in society that they did not earn, and would lose quickly if class and rights were handed out in a meritocratic way.
Moreover, I am confused as to why Karen is so convinced that we want her love. Is there something special about Karen that I don’t know? From here, all I can see is a two-bit bigot who loves gays so much that she’s willing to have her words posted on the blog of America’s most pathetic and unintentionally hilarious hate group leader/fetish photographer. Also, there is no reason for the word repertoire to be in quotes above. It’s not a euphemism, dear, it’s simply French.
Homosexuality has never stood between me, David, Marcia, Sean, Michael or Prof Hathoway. Why should it stand between me and you?
Truly, Karen, if homosexuality is what’s keeping you and me apart, that’s a door I’m glad to keep shut.
And one more time: have her so-called friends read this bigoted tripe?
“We’re out to ruin your life, take away your rights and maybe even kill you, but love us anyway.”
You asked straight readers to answer in the comments about how we felt when we were adolescents about our sexuality. When I was 12, I was (as I am now) as straight as it is possible for a girl to be. I never once wondered about my girlfriends bodies, was never the least bit curious about kissing a girl, and all my crushes were exclusively on boys or occasionally on male celebrities (such as David Cassidy). Like most people, I knew who I was attracted to and never doubted it. But that was a long time ago, and things were different then. “Lesbo” was an insult girls threw at each other in the locker room. It never bothered me to be called that, and I never used it myself, I just thought it was a dumb thing to call someone. I wonder now if the girls who did use that word as an insult were afraid, like Karen, that they might be lesbians (which in their minds was a bad thing), which made them think of the word as an insult. And I suspect the only young girls who are “afraid” they might be lesbians actually are, or at least are bisexual and do have those feelings about other girls. Otherwise, I can’t imagine how a straight person would ever even wonder.
I love you so much Karen that I’ll gladly go back into the closet and lock the door behind me. I’ll forget about the man I’ve shared so many wonderful years with, forget about how much his family loves and accepts me, forget about how much my family loves and accepts him. Yes, Karen, I’ll gladly give up the few measly benefits that my government confers on us and the social status that goes with having a civil union (by the way, my banker thinks it’s a huge asset), and toss it all to the wind so that you, Karen, will be happy and safe in knowing that you aren’t anything even remotely close to a homophobe or a bigot. I love you that much. Naw… not really. I’m just razzing you. I think you’re a totally bigoted homophobe. Really. I do, I do!
I have to say as a straight female I never thought about waking up one day in horror at being attracted to the same sex when I was a teenager. Those thoughts never crossed my mind when I was a teenager, I was to busy noticing cute boys. I would venture that most teenagers do not worry about such things that bothered Karen when she was a teenager.
Can you truly be “friends” with someone who repulses you? I couldn’t, which is why I’m exceedingly glad to not be counted amongst her token gay acquaintences. If you aren’t afraid, lady, then why do you feel it necessary to gibber your incomprehensible explanations?
Screw you and your mythical god, Karen. I hope you get run over by a Pride Float.
That picture… I know her!
She performs at my local club, Drag-o-rama!
Goes by the stage name of ‘Wilma Fingerdo’.
Real name’s Trevor.
RE: #3, Coxygru
Well that was my much-needed laugh of the day! I read it 3 times and LOL’d each time.
I think she looks like a tweeked out Carol Burnett.
Im not really sure how close she really is to “David” “Sean” or “Michael” because no repulsive gay friend would let a friend out of the house with that hair-do.
“but also that we’re denying ourselves infinite pleasure and fulfillment–all because we choose to have sex solely with members of the opposite sex.”
Oddly enough, I have encountered one person who believes this. His name is Paul Cameron. Yes, *that* Paul Cameron. He has written that gay sex is more pleasurable than straight sex. It’s on his website.
No one else I know of, though.
I’ve always been perplexed when I hear the expression “I have a _______ friend” right before hearing someone say something racist, homophobic, xenophobic, etc. Do those other folks count Karen as a true friend? And if they do, wouldn’t you think that they might need some help in the self-esteem department?
I see Karen is simply repulsed by the sex act, just like gays are repulsed at the thought if having str8 sex. I mean come on, I would toss cookies even getting inches close at vaginal oral sex. Yeah. Disgust! Barf! Gag! But do I throw my straight friends over board for liking it themselves? f**k no. I think some here are reading this take wrong. She isn’t saying she’s against gay rel or even gay marriage. So I think the sex acts from both courts run both ways, disgust. But neither camp should deny rights because neither is willing to “swallow” the others’ sexual habits. Gays are as sexually heterophobic as str8s are homophobic. We all need to own our equal distaste for each others sexual likes and then drop it. I happen to agree with Karen’s take, we tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater when we should just realize our Equality regarding disgusting sex from both ends of the spectrum and move on.
I have a feeling that Karen’s attitude on sex is the old “lie back and think of America” deal.
PS If Karen is against gay marriage and gay relationships to her gay friends denying them equal rights allowing her gay sex disgust to break her friends hearts and happiness, then she too is calling the kettle black and has gone too far i.e. eating the hypocritical corndog.
“I did wonder, with deep and silent horror, if someday I’d find I was attracted to women instead of men.”
So you’re saying, Karen, that being gay isn’t a choice.
“Love us whether or not we condone your lifestyle choices, whether or not we share your sexual point of view.”
So you’re saying that being gay *IS* a choice.
If you can’t even listen to gay people, who will tell you that is most definitely ISN’T a choice, then why the heck should we listen to YOU??
I showed a couple of my straight guy friends this blog post. Based on their responses I don’t think that Karen should be promoting the idea of taking away rights based upon sexual repulsion. If this were the bar, my friends said she might find herself a fourth class citizen.
“Love.”
She keeps using that word. I do not think it means what she thinks it means.`
These people are narcissists. They just can’t stand the fact that there are people in the world who place no value on their approval.
Karen Norling is actually a second string Right wing clone of extremists like Ann Coulter. She has been published on various blogs (example here: http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/0210/0210snowjob.htm )and other publications on a variety of issues. Read her rhetoric there and it will cure any sense that she might be rational. She sometimes publishes political commentary, she is a poet (more or less) and she is waiting for her moment in the conservative sun — so far it hasn’t come along. Reading an article like the one you quote may tell us why.
Well, I see a semi-sort-of new twist to “love the sinner/hate the sin” theme. I, too, wonder how one can be friends with someone who “loves” you yet is repulsed by you? It is always about the sex. These goodie-goodies are so into other people’s sex lives. Yes, thank you b***h, for sizing us all up according to our “sex lives”, assuming we have some. You love your friends – how do they feel about you and your obnoxious ideas about them? I really like how, under the guise of “I truly love you though you disgust me”, she then makes an attempt to turn all the anger and revulsion onto our shoulders and blame us for it all. Get your head out of your a*s and see the daylight. You understand about as much of people as I do the molecular structure of uranium. Holier than thou uselessness – get off the high horse lady. See, they love us, as God commands, yet they parse the words with their underlying revulsion of our “SEX”. Yes, we can feel your love, just ask us. Why is it we can’t respond to it with the intelligence that you display? Possibly, it’s because you are not very intelligent if what you have said is the basis of how you love others.
Whenever I hear of a woman saying such homophobic hateful things, I always remember what we, as left-wing feminists, used to say about Thatcher when she was Prime Minister;
“She might be a woman but she’s not a sister.”
Why do they think we want them to “love” us. I don’t actually care what she or Porno Pete, Ann Coulter, Rick Santorum, etc… thinks of me. I want my rights. As far as they are concerned if I had equal rights I would be fine with her thinking I’m disgusting.
It actually reminded me of a woman who posted here several weeks ago with a long sob story about how her brother stopped being friendly with her when she called him a sinner. This woman kept saying that she had a “gentle tone” all the while she said incredibly hateful things (I don’t remember her name–it was one of those trolls).
Do they actually think that their “love” is more important to us than equal rights?
iDavid, I think you’ve drawn a false equivalency here. There’s a difference between finding a sexual act gross and thinking that it is “unnatural, morally wrong, thinking about it repulses you and it should be striken from the earth”. I don’t want to engage in cunnylingis but I don’t think it is any of the above and I don’t actually know any gay men who have that reaction. I also have never laid awake at night worrying that I might wake up in the morning and suddenly find it appealing. To be that freaked out about it goes beyond just finding it disgusting and I’ve never known any gay people who wished heterosexuality would be stricken from the world–and if they did I would reccommend therapy.
Evan, I like your point about your regular heterosexuals not laying awake thinking about these things. I remember in his book “Miracle of Forgiveness”, former president of the Mormon Church, Spencer W. Kimball writing the many reasons the church was against homosexuality–one of the reasons was the it could become universal and depopulate the earth in a single generation–do you really think a well adjusted heterosexual would think that?
I did lie awake at night when I was 11, hoping and praying I would not be attracted to women, and then later hoping and praying my being attracted to both sexes was a phase I’d grow out of. It never happened, and eventually I accepted and embraced my bisexuality (and was a world happier, just as I was when I realized and embraced the fact I had been an atheist since I was 6.) This woman reminds me of that person I was then, but without the moments of growth where I learned to be a happy, reasonining, adult human being. She seems still trapped in that “no, no, it’s gross and if I keep thinking about how grotty it is, it will go away” phase, and instead of undergoing the admittedly challenging act of redefining her worldview, she clung to the box that held her prisoner and used it to justify all of her struggles. If that’s the case, I almost feel bad for this deluded person, but it’s covered up by my contempt–it seems like closeted homophobic homosexuals do a lot of damage, but it’s the closeted bisexuals that give them “changeable” ammo and help further the delusion of choice. Bad news all around.
Or hey, maybe she’s just a weirdly obsessed, deluded straight person, I don’t know. :P
@WMDKitty, +1 for the Princess Bride reference!
Replying to Daniel @ 24.
I am a straight man, and I personally find sodomy gross. I don’t especially want to practice it on my girlfriend and I would not like to see a video of two men engaging in it. However, I recognize that some men like it, and they want to do it with each other. That’s a-okay with me as long as they do it behind closed doors.
Also, as a straght man, I think it’s hot when lesbians go down on each other (not that I want lesbians to be doing that all the time in public places.) So should we legislate morality based on my sexual preferences? Of course not.
Hears an analogy: I don’t like eating raw onions, but some people do. Eating raw onions isn’t harmful, so there is no reason to make it illegal. It’s the same with consentual sex. “Christians” think gay sex is harmful because they think it’s gross (opnion) and then use their myth (Bible) to justify their prejudice and enshrine it into law.
@ Reese M
I agree totally with your point, that the wingnuts think that they should be able to dictate how others live, and are more than willing to impose strict rules and harsh punishments in order to usure society falls in line.
The very essence of Fascism.
However, I think like many you may have fallen into the fundie trap of reducing being gay to one particular sexual act.
It’s not that I like the ‘act’ of anal intercourse per se, but that I find myself inexorably attracted to men, and love being with men on an emotional and physical level, not just because they have the nauughty bits that they do.
I am sure you feel the same about women, and that your relationships with women should not, indeed could not, be reduced to one particular sex act.
You are right Peter. Women are special to me, and they certainly mean more to me than sex. I guess I am falling into the fundie trap.
Homosexuality, like all human sexuality, is about love and commitment. I find absolutely nothing repulsive about two men or two women being in love with each other. I go to Arlington Street Unitarian Universalist church in Boston, which performed some of the first legally recognized same-sex marriages in the country. There are two young men who attend our young adult group [which I currently lead] who are boyfriends, and it makes me really happy to see them together. I think they are really great for each other.
This is why we will win. Just like the civil rights movement, abolishing slavery and votes for women. It is about valuing people, loving them, and treating them with the respect and dignity they deserve. As corny as it sounds, love conquers all.
Sounds like she had/has a case of HOCD lol
@ Reese M
I think you are spot on. All we want is to be treated with respect and dignity, and not seen as fundamentaly ‘different’ or ‘other’. We dont want to encroach on any other people’s or group’s rights, and we certainly do not want to be given ‘special’ status or rights, as this would still mean we are separated from society as a whole (apart from being unfair to all others).
This is where the wingnut makes the mistake. Because they ARE trying to encroach upon and take away our rights, because they DO want to be afforded special status above others, and because they DO employ underhand tactics, lies, misinformation, bullying and in some cases violence, they tar gay activists with the same malign brush. They simply cannot comprehend that (ironically enough) we are not the same as them.
To use an analogy, they are the brutal British Empire. They think that we are like the IRA. In actuality we are more like Ghandi.
I’m bisexual and lean towards women, but even when I thought I was straight, I was never afraid that I would suddenly turn out to be gay (which is a bit odd, considering how conservative and homophobic my parents are, but luckily they’re *so* conservative they never breathe a word about homosexuality around us kids, thus allowing me to form my own, thankfully positive, conclusions about nonheterosexuality).
Whenever I see references to gay people, the first images that pop into my head are of hand-holding, kissing, cuddling. Basically innocent, romantic stuff, not sexual stuff. I think it’s interesting that the first things homophobes think of *are* the sexual things, not the romantic things. Obsessed, much?
WOW! You hertophobes make me SICK! You do have EQUAL RIGHTS…you are free to marry anyone of the opposite sex you choose just like me!
You gays are the ugliest, evil, wicked, personal attacking un-gay bashers I have ever had the displeasure of reading about, and that’s not even getting to the actual repulsive gay sexual acts you all practice. Please shut your nasty mouths and head back to the closet! Not only are you repulsive and perverted, you seem to be too stupid to understand the point Karen is making. I won’t waste my time defending her extremely well written and honest post….Reese M, you are a MORON! Your analogy of the onion proves you are a MORON! Have you heard of AIDS???The bible is not a myth and I will be joyfully watching when you bow on your knees to Jesus and proclaim He is King!
Mikki, you are obviously too stupid to dialogue with.
Next time you leave a comment on my website, use your inside voice, learn to spell better than a buck-toothed meth baby from Appalachia and use complete sentences.
Dear Mikki,
I’d like to respectably request you take your own ugly, evil, wicked, ignorance that you have and take it somewhere else.
Thank you!
Miki…thank you for proving that not All bigotry is hate, though you have a nice dollop of that going. Often, it is an unwarranted belief in your own otherwise wholly imaginary superiority.
By the way, if the thought of humping nasties bothers you so much when you think of it…
I woul suggst you not think of it so much.
I’m a fan of AFTAH and Pete Labarbera. To be honest, I’ve NEVER seen any vigorously immature speech from Labarbera. Wayne Besen, well… he has a less mature sense of humor than I do.
Anyway, I thought this was a wonderful piece when I read it. My first thought was that more people (like TWO) need to see this. Unfortunately you guys kinda blew it. It’s one of those things called reconciling differences. Remember that thing?
I don’t know if any men answered Evan’s question, but here it goes…
When I was an adolescent, not extremely long ago, I was very attracted to girls at that age (sexually and otherwise)But later on, I became very obsessed with gay sex, and less attracted to the norm. Just the sexual aspect though. I don’t really know, I wasn’t worried then. It’s strange, because just seeing real gay males and real couples makes me shudder. But when I became a young adult, I started worrying. I wanted to be dignified and look and act respectable. Not that I looked that effeminate, but I became incredibly paranoid when the world of “grown ups” came knocking. So I buzz cut my hair and grew a beard… you wouldn’t believe how easy it is.
And yes, my closet is well stocked with homocentric artwork and Pet Shop Boys albums. It’s really quite cozy in here now!
Richard:
What?
#37 — have you been checked for schizophrenia?