How would you feel if . . .

 

One morning, you wake up, get a cup of coffee, open up your daily newspaper and discover that people who don't even know you are running a full-page advertisement in the paper saying that because you love the particular person that you love, you are against God, and that you must change. (In 1998, a coalition of anti-gay political groups led by a woman named Janet Folger actually ran full-page advertisements touting now-debunked "ex-gay" therapy. As you can see, gay people have to deal with this type of garbage before they've even had a chance to finish their morning coffee.)

One day, you turn on your television set and hear that a nationally-known football player has made a speech before a certain state legislature in which he compares you to "liars, cheaters, and malicious" people, all because of the fact that he doesn't approve of who you love. (The late football player Reggie White said just those things about gay people in a speech before the Wisconsin State Assembly on March 25, 1998).

One day, you turn on your television set to see a well-known Senator call you a "sinner" while comparing you to kleptomaniacs, people who are thieves. (Senator Trent Lott said just those very things about gay people on a broadcast of The Armstrong Williams Show in 1999).

One day, you turn on your television set to see a political debate in progress. The debate is about whether or not gay men should be allowed into the Boy Scouts. One guest says that gay people shouldn't be allowed in the Boy Scouts because "...no one knows what will happen when the lights go down," implying that gay people molest children. (Jerry Falwell said just that on CNN's Crossfire).

For the record, pedophiles molest children, not gay people. Tragically, the belief that gay men are more likely to molest children actually helps child molesters and is of great benefit to them.

It takes the focus off the real danger, the pedophile, and enables the child molester to plot his dastardly thing while those in power are keeping their eyes on the gay guy. Bigotry against gay men actually causes more children to be molested by sexual predators. The Boy Scouts MUST protect our kids against sexual predators, but discriminating against gay men is not the way to do it.

One day, you sit in church and hear the preacher assert that you and your spouse should not be together. He proceeds to call your loving, years-long relationship with your spouse a "sin", and says that you must change or be burned alive in hell. You know that you can't change your sexual orientation, but they simply don't want to hear it. In their mind, you're a lost reprobate, so why listen to the reality of your life? Why treat you with any dignity? (This happens in fundamentalist churches every Sunday).

One day, you turn on your TV to see yet another lively debate about gay people. A fundamentalist represents the pro-discrimination side of the argument. Whenever he speaks, he refers to gay people as homosexuals or to a single gay person as a homosexual. He won't use the word gay because, in his very own words, "when I was growing up, gay was a beautiful word." In other words, he has already concluded that there could be nothing beautiful about your personal humanity, your life or the lives of millions like you. He's completely blinded by his prejudice. You realize that if this man could get away with it, he'd still refer to African-Americans as "colored people". (Most fundamentalists still refer to gay people as homosexuals even thought it is now considered an antiquated term. It is generally used by those who hope that society, when looking upon gay people, only sees a sex act instead of a whole person. This tactic is used by fundamentalists because it makes it much easier to justify bigotry and the denial of equal rights to other human beings when you reduce their entire lives to what goes on in their bedroom.)

One day, you hear a fundamentalist claim that "...gay men comprise only one to two-percent of the population." You wonder why he wants people to think there are so few gay men in the world. Soon thereafter, you discover that he is campaigning against a proposed law in his city that would make it illegal to fire someone based upon their sexual orientation. In an attempt to convince politicians that it should be legally acceptable to fire someone because of their sexual orientation, he argues that since there are so few gay men in existence, why waste time outlawing discrimination against them? (The fallacious "one to two percent" argument is often used by fundamentalists when a city or state tries to pass an ordinance which would outlaw anti-gay discrimination. Funny, when I was growing up, my pastor always said that "Jesus would still have gone to the cross and died even if there were just one human being alive on this earth." I guess the souls of gay men are less valuable than the souls of people who are heterosexual, at least in the bigoted worldview of fundamentalists.)

One day, you and your family decide to take a fun trip to Disney World. The anticipation has been building for weeks, and you're all in a wonderful mood as that day finally comes. Suddenly, however, that mood turns to disgust as you see a huge billboard on the highway leading to Disney. The offending billboard says that you and your family are unacceptable, should be subject to questioning, and must be changed. You put the indignity out of your mind because you want to have a great time at Disney, but you are privately disgusted at the brash display of prejudice as is expressed in this organization's desire that you change who you are. (James Dobson, leader of the fundamentalist political lobbying group Focus on the Family, has several ex-gays on his payroll. [Yes, the gay community has its own Uncle Toms.] Dobson placed a billboard on the highway leading up to Disney World which urged gay people to "question homosexuality", as though we had never done this.)

One day, you hear a fundamentalist say that the institution of marriage will be destroyed if gay people are given the right to marry. You want to throw your hands up in astonishment when you hear this, because gay people were given the right to marry in the state of Massachusetts on May 17, 2004 (well over a year ago) and nothing of the sort has even remotely happened. How can you get through to someone if they won't even acknowledge factual data? (The scare tactic that marriage will be "destroyed" if gay people are permitted to marry is a common argument amongst fundamentalists and is still being used despite the fact that nothing of the sort has even remotely occurred.)

Currently, Massachusetts is the only state in America where gay marriage is legal. Massachusetts also has the lowest divorce rate in the nation. It averages about 2.4% per year. The divorce rate of Virginia, Jerry Falwell's home state, is almost DOUBLE that of Massachusetts, at 4.3%.

A survey by the Barna group found that fundamentalists have the highest rate of divorce.

George Barna, president and founder of Barna Research Group (and himself a born again Christian), commented, "While it may be alarming to discover that born again Christians are more likely than others to experience a divorce, that pattern has been in place for quite some time."

 

Now, how these things have affected me . . .

As the author of this page, I can attest to the many indignities that are inflicted upon gay people by fundamentalists because they have been inflicted upon me. Having to hear that you are a danger to children, for example, makes you feel completely disgusted and outraged.

And when the people who are bearing this false witness actually have the nerve to claim to be Christians, you just have to shake your head. All I can say is that the feeling is one of incredulosity and amazement.

I receive emails from fundamentalist young people who are maybe 15 or 16 years old wherein they not only lecture me about my life, but, incredibly enough, about my relationship with God. These kids don't even know me. And yet, they actually believe that, at 15 years old, they already know enough about life to lecture a person who is 20 years older than they are.

Where is the respect?

Because I am a gay person, these high-schoolers somehow feel that they have the right to denigrate me by speaking down to me regarding things that are entirely personal, on things that they haven't even begun to understand yet, on areas of my life which are none of their business.

I must suffer the indignity of getting incredibly patronizing emails from people who tell me to "...read the Bible." I've been reading the Bible quite diligently for my entire life, cover to cover, so I'll thank you very much not to presume my ignorance on the subject merely because I hold a different view than you do. When you presume my ignorance, you confirm your own. Why do fundamentalists give their kids license to treat people in such an immoral way?

Arrogance and ignorance make a very poor combination.

I get emails from fundamentalists that are loaded with spelling errors and the types of grammatical mistakes that a second-grader would make. Every other sentence has a misspelled word.

And yet, despite the fact that they can't even spell or write without making embarrassing grammatical errors, they feel that they have the right to lecture me about how to live my life, and to judge my relationship with God Almighty. It's just incredible.

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