It’s difficult not to get the sense, sometimes, when going up against Religious Right activists, that their beef is less with the gay community, but much more about their own personal demons. Such may be the case with Linda Wall, a candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates. If the name “Linda Wall” sounds familiar, it’s because she has shown up in pieces we’ve written in the past on the escaped child kidnapper Lisa Miller, a close friend of Linda’s. While we don’t know whether or not Wall was involved in Miller’s escape — the time she compared herself to Harriet Tubman in her “fight for the children” raised my eyebrows a bit — it’s safe to say that she’s extremely anti-gay and has little understanding of or respect for the law. So of course, we are not surprised to find out that back in the 1970′s, when she was a physical education teacher, she carried on a relationship with one of her junior high students:
A conservative independent seeking a House of Delegates seat from Appomattox says when she was a junior high teacher 40 years ago she had an affair with a female student but that she was a “different person” back then.
In an Associated Press interview on Wednesday, Linda Wall confirmed her sworn 2006 testimony in a lawsuit in which she admitted to “sexual relations with a minor” in the early 1970s when she taught physical education in Prince George County. The 61-year-old Wall said the affair was a long-ago, youthful mistake, not who she is now.
“I’ve never tried to hide that I was in homosexuality. If anybody Googles me, they would find that out there,” Wall said.
OH, Linda, back the hell up. This has nothing to do with you being “in homosexuality,” as it is a known fact that gays are no more likely to molest children than straight people are. So please do not think readers are so ignorant as to let you say, “oh well, I was gay then, but now I’m redeemed!”
The woman admits that she molested a female junior high student. At some point on her alleged path to healing and redemption, she was fed and adopted wholeheartedly the lie that her lesbianism was to blame for her molesting a female junior high student. I am quite sorry, but in the real world, that is not the excuse. Neither is this:
“Forty years ago I was a different person. I was a heavy pot smoker with … impaired judgment and made some bad choices,” she said. “You do that out of college sometimes. Some people do, some people don’t.”
“Oh, I was a stoner back then! Sometimes people get out of college and diddle little girls. Some people do, some people don’t.”
No.
Far from seeking elected office, Linda Wall needs to be seeking professional help, from REAL professionals, rather than the fundamentalist charlatan types who have convinced her that lesbianism and the demon weed are to blame for her molestation of a junior high student.
The politician who released the deposition where Linda admitted all of this, Paul Jost, had this to say:
“I did it because it shows Linda Wall is not fit to hold public office,” said Jost, who moved to Florida several years ago but retains business interests in Hampton Roads.
“To me, this isn’t about her sexuality. People have different feelings about that. To me, this is about a criminal act and that’s why I felt that it needed to be disclosed,” he said, denying that he acted to settle an old score.
Indeed. And I will say again what I said above, a little more strongly: it seems that, when dealing with staunchly anti-gay activists, it might be wise to assume from the outset that their public bigotry is somehow related to battles with their own private demons.
For the fundagelicals this will make no difference. They LOVE redemption stories and the fact that she is “ex-gay” (in their minds) just shows “the power of Jeezus to heal the sick and cast out the demons!”. As long as you believe the right things and don’t appear to be “backslidin’”, you’re OK no matter what you’ve done. In fact, the more sordid testimony the better.
“This has nothing to do with you being “in homosexuality,” as it is a known fact that gays are no more likely to molest children than straight people are. So please do not think readers are so ignorant as to let you say, “oh well, I was gay then, but now I’m redeemed!””
But you are so wrong. The people to whom she is pandering DO believe that, wholeheartedly. They *are* that ignorant.
I agree. Maggie, Peter, Brian and now appearently Linda all have some sort of personal issues to work out. Otherwise, they have no reason to fight to actively undermine or take away the inheirent rights of millions of people they have never met.
Whenever they talk and no matter what they say, I’ll I hear is “projecting…projecting…projecting.”
Maggie’s projections are especially obvious, as her own marriage does not even live up to her “standards.”
Has anyone alerted http://www.gayhomophobe.com about this? This looks like this might be their first female entry!
I don’t think its safe to assume anything about a group of people. While its true that some prominent in the anti-gay repress their own sexuality it doesn’t follow that one should assume that all anti-gays are similarly repressed or are battling personal demons. Some are misled into thinking being gay is similar to someone being an alcoholic or a drug addict. Some are duped into similar false equivalencies between other addictive sinful behavior (stealing or pornography, for example). Some are sincere in their beliefs and truly think we’re going to bring about the destruction of America because its a lot easier to blame “them fags” rather than look at a larger picture which will call into question many presumptions that are central to their world-view.
To say ‘it might be wise to assume from the outset that their public bigotry is somehow related to battles with their own private demons’ suggests that we should take a prejudiced point of view when dealing with these people. I sincerely believe we’re only going to reach them if we truly understand where they’re coming from. In some cases it is inward shame and homophobia directed outwardly, but we should not assume that this is always true. Some may be convinced that gays can change because their cousin is no longer an alcoholic. Or because their father is now ‘saved’ from Catholicism. I think by making assumptions we prejudice our thoughts against those who are opposed to us and we shut down any chance for meaningful dialog.
If we’re going to gain the moral high ground in this debate we have to drop our own prejudices when we deal with these people.
That being said, I don’t think she’s fit for public office because she molested a child when she was younger. Also, Wikipedia defines Psychopathy as a mental disorder characterized primarily by a lack of empathy and remorse, shallow emotions, egocentricity, and deceptiveness. Just sayin.
Very good, Blake. I agree with almost everything you say, except the part where “we shut down any chance for meaningful dialog.” I doubt there’s much chance of that anyway since the fundamentalist mind is closed and completely impervious to disconfirming information (the devil is very tricky you know).
Nonetheless, I agree it’s preferable to remain open to other possible motivations for people being anti-gay, rather than assume it’s always due to personal demons; e.g., besides the chance of dialoging with the fundies (good luck with that), a better understanding of what’s motivating the anti-gay culture war may suggest new strategies to foil or defend against their ceaseless attacks.
I’m sorry, Blake, but as you may or may not know, gay activist are mortified by rational debate, by “meaningful dialogue”.
Because when gay activists try to verbalise their issues on their own merit, they lose.
So they couch them in euphemistic, flowery language.
When confronted verbally, they resort to infantile, “O’reilly shout-downs”, to desperately supress the truth, by obtrusive volume alone, if necessary, because they know deep down their positions are fundamentally, eternally wrong.
No, gays molest boys at a much higher rate than their straight counterparts.
You gays are wolves in sheeps clothing, peddling evil, doing the work of the Dark One Below.
You deride and mock Christians because they are bastions of TRUTH, and the winds of truth are the most invasive, destructive threat to such a flimsy house of cards that IS the gay agenda.
It blows down every time, as it is baseless, corrupt, without a foundation.
@Lastly:
“gays molest boys at a much higher rate than their straight counterparts.”
Prove it. Oh wait, no you can’t! Just like you can’t prove most of the things fundie Christians believe in.
Bastions of “TRUTH”, don’t make me laugh. Your religion is one of the biggest lies in history.
Why are many of these “ex”-lesbians involved in criminal activity? Is that the “moral superiority” that conservatives want to show in contrast to LGBT people?
Lastly obviously refers to your intellect. We don’t mock and deride REAL Christians, which you are light years away from being. And as for the Dark One below, of course you’re referring to Obama. N’est pas?
Lastly, shouting someone down doesn’t mean asking questions that you cannot – or will not – answer.
So here’s a rational discussion for you.
1) Heterosexuality is a choice. If it isn’t a choice, how can homosexuals choose to become heterosexual?
2)If homosexuality is a choice, that means that you COULD wake up tomorrow morning and CHOOSE to be attracted to the same sex.
“Your religion is one of the biggest lies in history.”
That’s absolutely true, jnsm. Fundamentalism is amazingly hoakey. It claims to be “biblically literalist”, but it’s obvious to the most cursory observer that the fundies are extremely selective in what they accept and don’t accept from the Bible, with lame excuses for not following a lot of it that only convince true believers. If they lived according to ALL of the Bible, they couldn’t live a modern lifestyle. But somehow, THEIR biblical literalism never gets in the way of being a garden variety American redneck. It just gets in the way of the people the fundies don’t like. Oddly convenient, isn’t it?
Nice job of projecting, Lastly. In truth, you fundamentalists are the ones who can’t convince anyone of anything unless they already think your way. And the fundamentalist milieu is becoming threadbare and undoctrinaire. Dissident tendencies like the Emergent Church movement are gaining strength, and many fundies are quietly deciding on what they believe rather than accepting what their bigoted leaders say. Read “The Fall of the Evangelical Nation” if you don’t believe me. Individual fundamentalists have basically stopped “witnessing to” people who aren’t fundies because they understand that the world considers hardcore fundies to be obnoxious, pushy and gauche. If you want to understand how well “the world” understands you and how sick we are of you, read the book unChristian, where a fundamentalist social scientist polled people, especially “unchurched” people aged 16-29, to see what they think of you. It isn’t nice. The largest number of them to express a particular opinion of you, 91%, described you as “anti-homosexual”. Incrementally smaller majorities described you as pushy, dishonest and a whole lot of other unappealing things.
Sorry, but the social sciences support us and our right to live now, after four decades of intensive research into so many aspects of our lives. They refute EVERY bigoted thing you fundies say about us, ALL OF IT. All you can do is create a few phony professional organizations to push your lies and make it look as though you’re being oppressed because you’re being call out on your lies by nearly everybody who isn’t a Religious Right nut. Including other fundamentalists like Warren Throckmorton.
Oh, and the molestation lies? That’s projection, too. There is a massive amount of molestation going on in the fundie world, and a lot of excusing of it, especially if it’s being perpetrated against girls by their brothers and fathers. Can you maybe begin to understand why the rest of us don’t want your way of life forced on us?
Lastly: please provide us with materially verifiable evidence that “the Dark One Below” isn’t just a figment of you and your church’s collective imagination. When you do that we will take what you say with more than a grain of salt. Until then, come back when you have something adult to contribute.