Glenn Beck and Michele Bachmann are losing it in this clip over the possibility of the military repealing its ban on sodomy [duh], because that code also includes a ban on bestiality. Yes, wingnuts, the one thing keeping our troops from buggering furry woodland creatures is a code. Does this help people to understand why wingnuts become wingnuts? They are humans for whom the only thing standing between them and an utter lack of control is laws, whether the ones they believe are from God or from the state.
Those of us with either more sane versions of religion or no religion at all shake our heads in wonder/terror at these people.
One of the things that has often bugged me over the years, as I’ve studied the effects of fundamentalist religion on the world and on the LGBT community, has been the knee-jerk anti-Muslim sentiment expressed by some gay people. It’s, of course, not been limited to the gay community — the United States, as a whole, has a knee-jerk anti-Muslim problem. What I’ve noticed, though, is that, of the three Abrahamic religious traditions — Christianity, Judaism, Islam — you have three distinct religions in three different places when it comes to being welcoming to all people.
Judaism is the furthest along, perhaps because it’s the oldest. With the exception of a few fringe, insane rabbis who consider gays the cause of all the evil in the world, the American Jewish community is pretty progressive and pretty welcoming to gays. Christianity is in the middle. On a media level, Christianity is still too often represented by fundamentalist wingnuts like Tony Perkins, who use their platforms to advance the lie that their medieval, hateful views are representative of average Christians. But within Christianity, there are indeed millions of people advocating for a loving, inclusive, welcoming version of Christianity.
And then there is Islam, which arguably has the longest way to go. But here is the thing that a lot of people probably don’t understand. Though there are certain teachings which still predominate, American Muslims have a similar problem to American Christians, which is simply that the Islamic equivalent of Tony Perkins gets up and spouts hate and religious teachings that are, quite simply, not what many or even most American Muslims believe. However, the average American knows more, culturally, about Christianity than they do about Islam, so it’s easier for Americans to see the diversity in Christianity than to see it in Islam.
Ani Zonneveld, a Muslim-American singer-songwriter and activist, is trying to change that, and she’s profiled in an MSNBC piece this morning:
Like other aspiring reformers before her, Ani Zonneveld takes positions that make her unpopular with her religion’s spiritual leaders, in this case America’s Islamic elders.
Not only does she lead prayers — a task normally reserved for men — but she is an outspoken advocate for gay, bisexual and transgender Muslims. Later this year, she plans to officiate at the Islamic wedding of a lesbian couple, which is perfectly acceptable by her reading of the Quran.
“The community we are building is very different from most of the mosques you would walk into,” said Zonneveld, a 49-year-old Malaysian-born singer-songwriter. “We are very inclusive of all Muslims, gay Muslims, mixed-faith couples. … We also don’t segregate (the genders) when we pray, and we allow women to lead prayer. Our values are very egalitarian and we really live those values out.”
Her organization is Muslims for Progressive Values, and the piece points out that their advocacy for LGBT people separates them from the pack. Every movement has to have its pioneers, you know, and the movement for equality within Islam has to start somewhere, and it seems that Ani is taking on that role.
Several other Islamic leaders are interviewed and quoted in the piece, and you can see a bit of the diversity we’re used to with Christianity. You have the “gay is an abomination” set, you have the “it’s a sin, but we love everyone” set, and all other somewhere-in-betweens. Also interviewed is the United States’ only gay imam [yes, there is a gay imam in the United States!]. Ani touches on the problem of having the most conservative leaders speaking as if they speak for everyone here:
“The vast majority of American Muslims believe in an Islam that is so different from the people (who have been) representing us,” said Zonneveld. “It would be like if you had an ultra-Orthodox Jewish rabbi representing all American Jews; they would be up in arms. … It would be complete misrepresentation of the American Jewish community.”
Anyway, the word needs to get out about the work Ani Zonneveld is doing, and we all need to do a better job of assisting the reformers among us, with whatever set of circumstances they have to deal with. There is a lot to be done yet, in the Islamic community, to create a climate of welcoming and love for LGBT people, just as there is a lot to be done yet for kids living under the thumb of American Fundamentalist Christianity. To find out more about Ani’s organization and their ten guiding principles, click here.
Tori Amos is doing promo interviews for her new record Night of Hunters, and in her talk with PrideSource, she addressed a few topics we deal with quite frequently around here.
On legislation banning marriage for gays and lesbians in North Carolina:
If anybody calls themselves a Christian, I don’t see how you can ban consenting adults. I just don’t understand how you can see yourself as Christian and have no compassion for another person’s path. It goes against the Christ-like energy and light that I was brought up with.
My mother and father, they’re both Southern, have opened up, especially my dad. He had to really stretch as a Methodist minister, but he’s embraced the idea that gay people deserve rights. I’m really proud of him that, as a Methodist minister, he was able to make that shift and see that he did need to see it differently.
He took me to a gay bar when I was 13. He’s come a long way, so let’s put it that way. So I think there’s hope for people who are judgmental, but what they have to say themselves is, how can they call themselves a Christian and then insist that gay people don’t have the right to be married? Then gay people shouldn’t have to pay taxes in the state of Carolina!
On bullied gay teens and teen suicide:
[I]t is the end of the world to them. When you are being bullied because of who you are, the shame of that is so great that it does seem like the end of the world and like they’re not accepted in this world – and they’re not being accepted by part of this world. And yet, the people that are not accepting them and bullying them call themselves Christian, and that is a lie. You are not a Christian if you treat people like that. I don’t care what office you’re running for. You just are not. That is not the definition of walking the Christ-like path.
When artists say it’s not the end of the world, I don’t know if that’s the approach. I think the approach is acknowledging what they’re feeling and hopefully creating a space where people feeling bullied can go to.
This next election, it’s so important the gay community become very aware of what’s going on and be very proactive about your rights as human beings. The fact that gay people are not treated as if they’re human beings by some of these people who are running for office, it’s barbaric. Whatever you think I am, I would like to be in a society where we’re enlightened, and I just find it all very primitive and that we’re regressing mentally.
She knows what she’s talking about.
Here’s my [current] favorite song from her new record. Go buy it.
We’re talking about the PC(USA) here, obviously, as opposed to the fringe conservative sects of the Presbyterian Church. John Shore has a piece up today about Scott Anderson, the first openly gay man to be ordained as a minister in the Presbyterian Church. Thing is, Anderson was an ordained minister years ago until he was outed by his church and essentially forced out. After over a decade of working in different organizations and on different issues, he found himself back on the front lines fighting for a change in the Presbyterian ordination rules, which did eventually come around, allowing openly gay and lesbian people to serve as pastors in their churches. So this weekend he will be ordained.
Regardless of whether or not you’re a believer, news like this happening within the Church is important, because it draws the line ever clearer between those in that world that hate us and those who do not, and every new development like this from within helps to further marginalize the religion-motivated bigots, both inside the church and also in the public square.
Michael Brown, hatemonger and busybody extraordinaire, who recently invaded Charlotte Pride with his red-shirted horde of bigots [slogan: "Free water! God hates fags!"] in order to “dialogue” with all the gays about how they’re going to burn in hell, is very upset with Wayne right now. You see, Wayne and I both understand that Brown’s calling card is to pretend to love gay people, to seek “dialogue” and common ground, while preaching Peter LaBarbera levels of hatred against the LGBT community. So he has an entire post up today, attacking Wayne for trying to “redefine Christianity”:
WHEN A GAY JEWISH LIBERAL TRIES TO REDEFINE CHRISTIANITY
Uhhhhh. Yeah, that’s the headline, and that’s why my headline says what it says.
Wayne Besen is a passionate gay activist and non-religious, liberal Jew who has dedicated himself to opposing the idea that homosexuals can become heterosexual.
Wayne Besen is guilty of spreading facts, and facts have a well-known liberal bias. Also, Jew.
he is never at a loss for words, especially when it comes to the “religious right.” In that spirit, he has graced me with several articles, including the not so subtly-titled, “Michael Brown Is an Anti-Gay Monster”
And….. (?)
In that article, Wayne claims that my “game is to try inciting followers to possible violence against LGBT people, while innocently maintaining that he loves homosexuals and simply wants them to meet his militant and perverted version of God.” He calls me “a slick dude,” a “sick and cynical” person, someone with “a messiah complex [who] is a diabolical individual who aims to manipulate impressionable followers to launch some sort of holy war,” noting however, that, I’m “too much of a coward to start the war” myself.
Well, Brown does seem to want a confrontation, and he does have a messiah complex. I think his victim complex is funnier though.
God bless dear Wayne! He certainly has a way with words. After all, it’s not every day that you get called a pathological monster, a slick, sick, cynical, diabolical madman with a messiah complex, as well as get accused of trying to incite a bunch of unstable thugs “to engage in a violent physical clash with LGBT people.” (For what I actually advocate, namely, a totally non-violent, moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution, click here.)
Really? Days go by when people don’t call Michael Brown those things? He must not be listening very hard to the other side of the “dialogue” he wants. For the record, a “spiritual revolution” which includes eradicating gayness [in the real world, to eradicate gayness, you have to eradicate gay people...when the fundamentalist wellspring of denial on that issue dries up, watch out] is by its very nature violent.
Wayne even weighs in again in his own comments section, calling me an “ego-maniac”…
Omigod, it’s surprising Brown didn’t show up in the comments of that piece, such an attention-starved loon he is. As anyone who’s ever encountered him will tell you, Michael looooooves to yammer on and see his name in print.
while other commenters follow in his footsteps with sophisticated posts like these: “I would not be surprised if ‘Mein Kampf’ were to be found on his nightstand.” (This was followed by other comments too vulgar to print.) What a delightful, thoughtful bunch!
This is me, slapping you all on the wrists for hurting Michael’s fee fees. Don’t do it again, unless, y’know, you want to.
But I am only one of Wayne’s targets. In his most recent attack, “Mainstream Christians Must Stand Up to the Religious Right” (September 19, 2011), he reviles the hundreds of Christians with whom I attended the recent gay pride event in Charlotte, claiming that we “confronted and harassed festival attendees with [our] arrogant slogan ‘God Has A Better Way.’” He refers to us as “despicable bullies” and speaks of our “fanatical behavior,” although, for the record, our group of roughly 400 consisted of grandparents, moms, dads, kids, and college-age singles who handed out about 2,500 free bottles of water (labeled “Jesus Loves You”) and engaged in civil and respectful conversation with any who cared to talk with us. Oh, the horror!
To tell them they are going to hell and need to abandon a core part of who they are in order to find favor with Michael Brown’s sick deity of choice. Also, Kathy Baldock was there and counted just over 200 people on the Red Shirt team. Why must wingnuts always inflate their numbers? Is it to bolster their fledgling self worth? Kathy also points out in the comments of Michael’s whiny piece that his decision to bring children to the event is questionable, by his own [nonexistent] standards:
I think it is interesting that a decision was made to bring so many children (maybe 1/10 were under 12 ish.) when the words used to describe Pride Charlotte in your own pre-event media warned “expect this to be a challenging day as sexual immorality, wickedness, and rejection will abound.” I would have used a bit more judgment as a parent. Of course, that was NOT the case, none of that was bounding or a bounding. BUT, had I been on the GHABW team, I would have found a sitter for my kids.
Anyway, back to Michael crying “look at me!”
All this, however, is the backdrop for Wayne’s heartfelt appeal. He is desperately concerned that religious “extremists” like me, Rick Perry, Sarah Palin, and Michelle Bachman will “defile America – and permanently define Christianity.” Instead, Wayne wants the “Religious Left” to rise up and show America what Christianity really is. He writes, “It is time to stand up, speak out, and give voice to our values. If not now, when? Are we going to wait until it is too late and we have lost our country?”
The problem, of course, is that the “Religious Left” has rejected most of the fundamental tenets of the historic Christian faith, denying the authority of Scripture, espousing religious pluralism, defending abortion, and championing homosexuality.
Whereas Michael Brown longs for the good old days of the Crusades and the Inquisition, back when people knew their place. Oh, nostalgia.
Could this be why these so-called “mainstream” churches are in such numerical decline while conservative churches are growing exponentially in many parts of the world?
Well, for one thing, religious belief is on the decline in the US, in general. Yes, many conservative churches are growing in other parts of the world, because fundamentalists go where they can be effective predators. Since the educated, developed first world has less and less patience for the medieval bigotry of people like Michael Brown, they see hungry people in the Third World and exchange food for people’s souls. It’s rather simple…
Wayne himself is not optimistic about the prospects, writing, “This reluctance to stand up and speak out has created a hazardous vacuum where only the shrill and unreasonable voices of fundamentalism are heard. Instead of the dialogue that many progressives of faith claim to desire, this perceived weakness creates a lopsided right wing monologue, which is having a deleterious effect on our nation and the world.”
The reality, of course, is that the “Christianity” Wayne calls for bears little resemblance to the faith of the Scriptures or the faith of history, but that should not surprise us.
Wayne is not “calling for” any new kind of Christianity, you dingbat. It already exists. He and I are simply calling upon the millions upon millions of non-wingnut Christians to speak up a little louder and stop letting their faith be hi-jacked in the public square by self-congratulatory bigots like Michael Brown.
After all, what else should we expect when a non-religious, gay Jewish liberal tries to redefine Christianity?
Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew, said Michael Brown.
And again, Wayne is not “redefining Christianity,” and neither is the Christian left, which is simply trying to live out a faith wherein having the name “Christ” in its title is a feature rather than a bug, as it seems to be for modern day fundamentalists. Focusing on the teachings of the guy the religion is named after, rather than on one’s pitifully uneducated understanding of five or six minor Bible verses, which are then used as a convenient bludgeoning device to be deployed against LGBT people, is really not all that radical of an idea.
Health care providers are much more savvy these days about picking up on abuse in patients than they used to be. Physicians, particularly those practicing primary care, are trained to screen patients for physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. When it comes to child abuse, along with other professionals in positions of public trust like teachers and social workers, they are mandated in every state to notify the authorities if we even suspect it. Many states have similar laws covering the reporting of elder abuse and domestic violence.
What’s not showing up on their radar is spiritual abuse.
What is it? For a vivid description, read the memoir Ex-Gay No Way, in which Jallen Rix EdD writes with great insight about the religious abuse [his term] that he endured for years as a gay man born into a conservative Protestant family. “Spiritual abuse” comes up in religiouscontexts. The term seems to have made an early appearance in the medical literature in 1998:
Spiritual abuse is the act of making people believe–whether by stating or merely implying–that they are going to be punished in this life and/or tormented in hell-fire forever for failure to live life good enough to please God and thus earn admission to heaven. Spiritual terrorism is the most extreme form of spiritual abuse and may cause serious mental health problems. Those people who have not been spiritually terrorized have not necessarily been spared from spiritual abuse and therefore may still be in need of competent, spiritual counseling. Spiritual abuse, which may be active or passive, can best be conceptualized on a continuum from terroristic to zero abuse. Severity is determined by intensity, age of onset, duration, and individual reaction. The underlying issue in all forms of abuse is control.
Such abuse is a daily fact of life for many LGBTQ people. This study interviewed a group of them living in the Bible Belt:
In the Bible Belt, Christianity is not confined to Sunday worship. Christian crosses, messages, paraphernalia, music, news, and attitudes permeate everyday settings. Consequently, Christian fundamentalist dogma about homosexuality-that homosexuals are bad, diseased, perverse, sinful, other, and inferior-is cumulatively bolstered within a variety of other social institutions and environments in the Bible Belt. Of the 46 lesbians and gay men interviewed for this study (age 18-74 years), most describe living through spirit-crushing experiences of isolation, abuse, and self-loathing. This article argues that the geographic region of the Bible Belt intersects with religious-based homophobia. Informants explained that negative social attitudes about homosexuality caused a range of harmful consequences in their lives including the fear of going to hell, depression, low self-esteem, and feelings of worthlessness.
There are very, very few articles on spiritual abuse in the medical literature–the 1998 articles on the topic by a West Virginia hospice worker did not provoke a flurry of follow-up research. There is a small body of work in the psychology literature, mostly in studies of people involved in cults. But I daresay there’s hardly a primary-care doctor in the land who thinks about this problem or looks for it in her patients. This is a grave oversight. The medical profession should study the health effects of this distinct type of emotional abuse [it may well also be a distinct type of domestic violence]. I suspect research will quickly demonstrate what we already intuitively grasp–that it is not only a risk factor for disease, but also a potentially lethal public health issue. Like secondhand smoke, it harms at least two parties at once. Like malaria, it’s more common and more dangerous in certain regions. Like obesity, there may well be a lower prevalence among people with more education. In short, if spiritual abuse affects health, as seems likely, then we can and should study it.
Doctors are trained to warn parents about guns in the home, no matter what their private convictions about gun ownership may be. They routinely look for signs of physical and emotional abuse in their patients and refer them to sources of help. Courts have allowed physicians to give blood transfusions to the children of transfusion-averse Jehovah’s Witnesses over the parents’ strenous objections, based on the argument that to do otherwise would allow parental religious belief to kill a child. So why not teach providers to screen for spiritual abuse?
After all, if a religious, closeted gay patient is convinced he’s worthless and headed for hell because of his sexuality, that belief is overwhelmingly likely to harm that patient’s mental health, and could quite possibly end his life. That this is a common plight among children makes the problem even more urgent. These points ought to be all the justification physicians need to study spiritual abuse, look for it, and think about ethical ways to intervene.
Deb Word works tirelessly as an advocate for homeless/discarded gay youth in Memphis, Tennessee. In this video, she’s interviewed at a conference at Fordham University on the Catholic Church and sexual diversity, and talks about her own gay son and how she got into the work she’s doing.
Full disclosure ‘n’ stuff: Deb is a friend of mine, and I’m proud to say so.
Good news. We’re not there yet, and as these new poll results show, we’re still dealing with the fact that those who oppose us do so more vehemently than those who support us, but still, things are looking good:
Fifty-three percent of the 1,000 adults surveyed believe the government should give legal recognition to marriages between couples of the same sex, about the same as last year, according to the nationwide telephone poll by The Associated Press and the National Constitution Center. Forty-four percent were opposed.
People are similarly conflicted over what, if anything, the government should do about the issue.
Support for legal recognition of same-sex marriage has shifted in recent years, from narrow majority opposition in 2009 to narrow majority support now. Some of the shift stems from a generational divide, with the new poll showing a majority of Americans younger than 65 in favor of legal recognition for same-sex marriages and a majority of seniors opposed.
One problem, explored in the article, is that that there are a lot of people out there who know in their hearts that they should support full equality, but can’t get there because their religious beliefs prevent them from making the truly moral choice. A sixty-two year old woman explains that she loves her daughter, loves her daughter’s partner and believes that they should have all the rights and benefits of marriage — but yet she won’t be going to her daughter’s wedding because she’s a Mormon and can’t give them her full support. It’s so sad, the way that conservative religion still tears families apart.
Two things. First of all, bigots in North Carolina are trying to push through a constitutional amendment banning marriage or any other legal arrangements for gay couples. If you’ll remember from your geography classes, North Carolina is in the South. Guess what? A majority are opposed to said amendment:
According to a Public Policy Polling survey released on Wednesday, 55 percent of respondents would vote against the proposed amendment, 30 percent would vote for it, and 15 percent said they were not sure.
Oh crap. That’s gotta give some North Carolina wingnuts tremors.
Another recent poll shows how much ground the hate group set has lost among their own offspring:
The poll, released in late August by the Washington-based Public Religion Research Institute, found that nearly half (44 percent) of young evangelicals between the ages of 18 to 29 favor allowing gays and lesbians to marry.
By contrast, the white evangelical community as a whole (even counting those relatively liberal young adults) is solidly opposed to same-sex marriage, by slightly more than 80 percent.
More broadly, the poll found “at least a 20-point generation gap between millennials (age 18-29) and seniors (65 and over) on every public policy measure in the survey concerning rights for gay and lesbian people.”
The poll also found that a slight majority of all Catholics (52 percent) favor same-sex marriage, despite the energetic teaching of their church to the contrary.
Ouch. More pain for the wingnuts! A majority of Catholics support equality, which I’m sure chaps the behinds of the Catholic front group known as the National Organization for Marriage. But even more than that, this poll basically shows that among Evangelicals, the fight is lost as soon as the older generations hand the torch to the younger ones. Those younger Evangelicals are only going to get more liberal, and those who are not yet 18 will be more liberal than the current 18-29 set.
Wingnuts need to give it up and do something with the remainder of their lives, I think.
Truth Wins Out readers run the gamut of religious belief and lack thereof. We know that, and we welcome that. But this piece of television right here, from Fox Business channel, may be the single most insane thing I have ever seen in the American news media. Really. The host brought David Silverman on, ostensibly to ask how atheists would prepare for Hurricane Irene.* Within seconds, the hosts decided to attack Silverman for being an atheist in the first place. This is truly epic. Watch it, and then I want to draw an obvious parallel.
Okay! Does this remind y’all of how some in the media have treated LGBT issues? Stubbornly clinging to stereotype while [insert gay spokesperson here] tries their damnedest to wade through the onslaught of BS in order to make a single salient point? Yeah. If it hadn’t been for the Fox Business logo so clearly emblazoned on the screen, I would have sworn this was from The Onion.
*Simple answer: the usual buying of candles and nonperishable food items, all while sharpening our horns and talons and checking out which neighbors look the weakest, so we know where to start when the going gets rough.
Michael Brown, hatemonger and busybody extraordinaire, who 
