I just posted Dan Savage’s smackdown of an Evangelical Christian woman who feigns having her fee fees hurt because people are connecting the dots between children bullying gay kids and anti-gay adults.  ”But I would never hurt nobody!”  Yes, you would, and you do, no matter how sweetly you think you do it, you do.

Continuing along those lines, here’s Michelangelo Signorile talking with “James,” who swears up and down that he would never hurt gay people, that he respects Mike, etc., but of course he believes all gays are going to hell.  He is so dense that he has no clue how this could be a sign that he fundamentally disrespects gay people and thus, is part of the problem.

I agree with Joe Sudbay here:  they have no concept of how pissed off we are right now.  I have never seen the LGBT writing community so universally pissed off, on such a deep level, about the same thing, and it’s a righteous reason — that of protecting our children.

This is a beautiful thing, which I missed last Friday.  It deserves to continue moving around the internet, though, so I’m posting it today.  Dan got a letter from a woman who is presumably an Evangelical Christian, who says she may not agree with homosexuality [such a meaningless statement], but definitely does not agree with bullying either, and was upset to hear Dan Savage make the obvious connection between a people and a society that tells gay kids that, on a fundamental level, they’re not good enough, and the consequences of that, in the form of bullies who feel they have license to smack down gay kids, and gay kids who internalize the shame the adults and other kids give them on a daily basis, sometimes on a daily basis.  She also draws this false equivalency:

If your message is that we should not judge people based on their sexual preferance [sic], how do you justify judging entire groups of people for any other reason (including their faith)? There is no part of me that took any pleasure in what happened to that young man and I know for a fact that is true of many other people who disagree with your viewpoint. Please be aware that your words are powerful and people are listening to you.

Uh, nobody is judging your faith, lady.  We’re condemning the discrimination you cloak in religious faith.  That’s different.

But as I said, Dan’s reply is beautiful, so I’ll excerpt it liberally here, and then click the clicky to read the rest:

I’m sorry your feelings were hurt by my comments.

No, wait. I’m not. Gay kids are dying. So let’s try to keep things in perspective: fuck your feelings.

[...]

Being told that they’re sinful and that their love offends God, and being told that their relationships are unworthy of the civil right that is marriage (not the religious rite that some people use to solemnize their civil marriages), can eat away at the souls of gay kids. It makes them feel like they’re not valued, that their lives are not worth living. And if one of your children is unlucky enough to be gay, the anti-gay bigotry you espouse makes them doubt that their parents truly love them—to say nothing of the gentle “savior” they’ve heard so much about, a gentle and loving father who will condemn them to hell for the sin of falling in love with the wrong person.
The children of people who see gay people as sinful or damaged or disordered and unworthy of full civil equality—even if those people strive to express their bigotry in the politest possible way (at least when they happen to be addressing a gay person)—learn to see gay people as sinful, damaged, disordered, and unworthy. And while there may not be any gay adults or couples where you live, or at your church, or at your workplace, I promise you that there are gay and lesbian children in your schools. You may only attack gays and lesbians at the ballot box, nice and impersonally, but your children have the option of attacking actual real gays and lesbians, in person, in real time.

Real gay and lesbian children. Not political abstractions, not “sinners.” Real gay and lesbian children.

There is so much more where that came from, including a P.S. at the bottom, which includes this gem:

Which is why I argued that every gay teen suicide is a victory for the religious right. Because, you see, your side does use those suicides to “perpetuate [your] agenda.” Tony Perkins and all those other oddly effete defenders of “Chrisitian values” and “traditional marriage” will point to this recent spate of gay teen suicides to argue against gay marriage, anti-bullying programs, against allowing gay people to serve in the military—basically, they’ll gleefully use these tragedies to justify what they like to call the “Christian, pro-family agenda.”

Go read it all.

In March, American anti-gay activists traveled to Uganda for a conference that pledged to “wipe out” homosexuality. Seven months later, a draconian bill has been introduced that pledges to make good on this threat. The “Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009″ is so severe that it is designed to shred the spirit and suffocate the soul of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Ugandans. If it passes, Uganda will become a predator state that actively hunts down GLBT people to destroy them.

Uganda already punished gay intimacy with life in prison. But, apparently that was not harsh enough, with this bill penalizing anyone who “attempts to commit the offence” with up to seven years in jail. Additionally, a person charged will be forced to undergo an invasive medical examination to determine their HIV status. If the detainees are found to be HIV+, they may be executed.

This barbaric legislation stifles free speech by threatening anyone who is accused of “promoting” homosexuality with five to seven year prison sentences. Snitching on gay friends and family members is strongly encouraged because “failure to disclose the “offence’ within 24 hours of knowledge makes somebody liable to a fine or imprisonment of up to three years.”

Sadly, this witch-hunt has the blood stained fingerprints of leading American evangelicals. The Fellowship, (aka The Family) one of America’ most powerful and secretive fundamentalist organization’, converted Uganda’ President Yoweri Museveni (pictured top) to its anti-gay brand of Christianity, which is the “intellectual” impetus behind the anti-gay crackdown. The clandestine organization’ leader, Doug Coe, calls Museveni The Fellowship’ “key man” in Africa. Jeff Sharlet, author of “The Family”, writes of the African strongman’ conversion:

“So,” Doug Coe told us, “my friend said to the president, “why don’t you come and pray with me in America? I have a good group of friends‚Äîsenators, congressmen‚Äîwho I like to pray with, and they’d like to pray with you.’ And that president came to the Cedars (a religious retreat), and he met Jesus. And his name is Yoweri Museveni…And he is a good friend of the Family.”

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