You know what homophobia is. But how about “Christophobia”? It’s a Rick Warren buzzword, and it’s used to describe the attacks on Christians based on their religious beliefs. But is poking fun at religious types the equivalent of “gay bashing,” which usually involves bloodshed? Certainly, religion is ripe for comedic stabs — as is sexuality. But when gay men and women talk about “bashing,” we talk about getting your ass beat to death, literally, for being gay. For now, the Rick Warrens who make up the Christian Anti-Defamation League (yes, really), who put together a list of the Top 10 Christian bashings, are simply talking about anything remotely anti-religion, and most of their talking points are misleading. Watch this video.
Lessons in Victimization: Christians Reappropriate ‘Bashing’
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Kid A
So then what’s this all about?
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/18438582/detail.html#-
tallskin
I would say filthy veminous sky pixie worshipping bigots, but what is the point?
Best if we all learn all about science, atheism and Darwin etc, good weapons with which to really “Bash” and mock their insane beliefs.
And urge schools across the West to teach philosophy and ethics (of an atheist kind) in order to innoculate kids against religion, in the same manner we already innoculate kids against other viruses that infect us.
getreal
@tallskin: Part of being open-minded is being tolerant of others beliefs. If you want to be treated with respect it starts with how you treat other people. FYI there are plenty of christians who believe in Darwinism and science I am one of them. You have the right to believe whatever you want, just as I do but you don’t have the right to tear down other people for their beliefs just because their opinions are different from yours and still call yourself open-minded or progressive. If you were secure in your beliefs you would not feel the need to “mock” other people’s beliefs. You are the bigot. If you are not a bigot you will stop intimidating and insulting people because they are different than you.
tallskin
GETREAL, honeypie, really, per-leaze! I am, I assure you, most secure in my world view and beliefs. The difference between us, that is you and me, is that I was brought up in a non-religious family, in a more or less non-religious culture, ie Britain. I don’t feel the need to worship a sky-pixie.
I don’t see any reason to grant sky pixie worshippers, gay or straight, respect. Why should I? If I do, it is like a family having a loon in the family, we all treat the mad relative as a loving member of the family, but respect them? No way.
Please see it from my perspective for a moment. Do you grant respect to people who believe, as adults in fairy stories, or who believe in father christmas? No, of course you don’t.
And for for you to demand in such a crusty and grumpy manner that I MUST respect your beliefs in a special and invisible friend, otherwise I am a bigot, well, sorry, but that is just plain silly.
Michael vdB
Good post Japhy. It was an eye opener to say the least.
Chitown Kev
Strange, Christians have actually been calling this “persecution”
for nearly 2,000 years.
The most intriguing part of what Mike Jones said is that 3 different guys went specifically to New Life Church to be cured of their homosexuality. Mind you, going to the church as a “cure” for gayness is far from new but Jones seemed to suggest (I may be wrong) that New Life Church was discreetly recruiting gay guys. And what happens, from the top down it turns into one big bathhouse, more or less.
The reason I bring this up is that Dave points out (rightly) that Warren is approriating a specifically gay concept here for his own purposes. If Warren and his ilk hates gays so much, why are they trying to ape our style?
Leland Frances
This “let’s portray OURSELVES as victims” is not new; in fact, they are, more and more, using that argument in court to defend banning or refusing to abide by, for instance, anti-harrassment policies in public schools. As you’ll recall, Gen. Pace’s central opposition to repealing DADT wasn’t the nonsense about “unit cohesion blah blah blah” but because being gay is “immoral.” Ipso facto, to force him to admit gays to the military would be an attack on his religious freedom.
But it is ANOTHER example of why we MUST continue responding to Obama’s childishly naive update on “can’t we all just get along” [and all those, straight and gay, who defend it] with “fuck that bullshit. GROW UP!!!!”
He, they, continue to insult us by implying that it’s nothing more than a difference of opinion, like that of evolution vs. creationism vs. “‘intelligent’ design, etc., etc. We can love bomb the antigay religionists 24-7 and 99.9% of them will still hate us and fight the legal enforcement of our equality with every breath they have.
John Smith
The word “homophobia,” when thrown at people who don’t like gays, is a name-calling insult that invites a similar name-calling insult to be thrown back. Have gays invented some sort of disease to tar their enemies with? Let’s all grow up. Name-calling is what children do in the playground.
Darth Paul
I say it’s time we start feeding them Colosseum lions again. They need a serious reminder of what persecution really is.
Chitown Kev
By the way, I didn’t mean that to coin terminology is anything like gay “style”. That was a poor choice of words.
I am almost with Darth Paul in this case. Given how much power and control Christians have had for centuries in Western society, this is just pitiful.
Now does religious persecution against Christians exist in some countries in the Middle East and Africa where Islam is the religion in power? Yes it does. Warren not only demeaned gay people in coining this term, he really demeans those who are actually being persecuted.
getreal
@John Smith:
Well put. It says a lot about a person’s own life when they need to expend a lot of effort and energy holding other peope’s culture or beliefs up to scorn and ridicule. Probably not someone who is happy or secure with themselves. As someone who is very involved in gay rights activism it is disturbing how insulting christians is becoming increasingly funny and acceptable yet insulting LGBT people is unacceptable. It gives away our moral upperhand to voice prejudice against others while railing against prejudice that you face. It is just wrong. The concept of wrong may be silly or funny for for some of us it a concrete reality. Bigotry is wrong not just when someone is bigoted to you but also when you are bigoted to someone else. Not every christian is straight or a bigot and not every gay person is automactically ok to discriminate against others without reproach. I think it comes down to happy loving people don’t want or need to oppress or discriminate against others.
Chitown Kev
@getreal:
But calling Christans homophobic isn’t simply a case of gay folks playing the dozens. Literally, the word implies a fear of homosexuality, oftentimes it means a hatred of homosexuality and homosexuals. Tha’s not an insult, that’s the truth.
I agree with you, though, that some in the gay community go too far in making fun of Christians, especially since that could also include a number of out and gay Christians.
getreal
@tallskin: @tallskin: @John Smith:
Maybe that is how we are different I’m an American and was raised that everyone has the right to their beliefs and a right to respect. Not just people who SHARE my beliefs that seems very childish and divisive. If you were secure you would not feel so threatened by other people. People who are unhappy and unsure of themselves feel the need to gloam onto other people’s beliefs either to attack or co-opt them. Maybe you should concentrate on yourself and your own life and all that anger and cyncisism that you seem infected with will go away. And your fantasy that people believe in a sky pixie is really silly and funny and irony of ironies a FAIRY TALE.
getreal
@Chitown Kev:
The fundamentalist christians would have the gay community believe that being christians equals homophobia it does’nt and there is a growing tide of christians who feel they have a moral obligations AS christians to join the fight for marriage equality and 1st class citizenship for all Americans. I was at the Equality conference and Camp Courage this past weekend and there was a christian contingent at both events. At Camp courage there were actually straight christians who spoke about their commitment to this fight. The principles of christianity support gay rights not gay oppression and the scriptural basis of homophobia is tenuous at best. There is much more in the bible to support gay marriage than there is to oppose it. Trust me I have demolished homophobiv christians who tried to quote scripture to defend their prejudice. I think it is counterproductive to judge the millions of christians in this country who support equal by the ignorance of a loud frightened minority who support hate.
tallskin
Getreal
yeah, yeah, whatever!
I have said my piece on this issue.
getreal
@tallskin:
Exactly unhappy, frightened and reproachful of those different than you. I agree it is a pretty indefensible position.
conrad
this video is pretty good. rather problematic around the issue of marriage, where the argument gets real fuzzy. like, these people are literally killing us in the streets and our battle cry is “lets get married?!”
what the fuck is wrong with yall?! get some priorities…
Miley Crisis
Great post Japhy! I am sending this one on…
vernonvanderbilt
Well, speaking for myself as a pantheist…I’m not bigoted against christians. I’m bigoted against bigots. It just so happens that a lot of bigots happen to be christians. Must be something in the communion wine.
Leland Frances
Try this on for size, John Smith: you’re retarded!
What you call “name calling,” I call labeling, identifying the species, or determining the nature of the actor by his/her actions.
Is it playground-like to call a Dalmatian a dog, Michael Phelps an Olympian, Meryl Streep a Great Actress?
Of course not. Either you’re a straight antigay bigot throwing demeaning characterizations to try to distract us from the truth, or a Pansy Pollyanna who thinks naming homophobes is worse than the disease THEY have.
As someone else observed, being gay is not a choice; being stupid is.
getreal
@Chitown Kev: And the word Christian does not imply hatred of homosexuals. The word Christian implies be Christ-like and he was against bigotry.
Sable Crow
Playground antics or not, we assign cultural power to words.
But we can play the word-appropriation game, too. I have a suggestion: Appropriate “marriage”
If you’re in a committed relationship, then say you’re “married”, regardless what the Federal or state government says. When speaking with family or friends, say that you look forward to getting married, or to marrying your boyfriend or girlfriend.
This non-sense about trying to protect “marriage” (I’ve heard so many people say that they wouldn’t mind civil unions, “just don’t call it marriage”), it’s disingenuous and it’s crazy.
Just take the word, folks. Use it as often as you like. Wear it out. If your state passed an anti-gay marriage amendment, then get married anyway, and call it marriage. Make it as public a ceremony as possible, then go back to living a normal, tax-paying life.
Words have power. We can use words. So use the power.
Chitown Kev
@getreal:
No, I kinda take Gandhi’s approach to that question. Jesus Christ could not and would not have hated homosexuals. Many (but not all)Christians are homophobic. I should not have painted all Christians with such a broad brush (after all there are gay Christians). My apologies if anyone took offense.
rae
this is exactly why we can’t get shit done.
did no one watch the goddamn video? this about the religious right trying to take away our rights and appropriating our language to do and we’re sitting around arguing with each other about bullshit.
everyone here is either gay or gay supporting, so i don’t see why everyone has this huge problem. you fighting with the wrong people.
rae
you’re* fighting. excuse me.
smith
@Michael vdB: Actually this one’s not Japhy
tallskin
Rae,
we can work together. That isn’t the issue. I am happy to work with sky pixie believers for mutual benefit. Just don’t ask me to respect their belief in a wood elf in the sky, in an invisible friend.
Because even after this fight is won and gay equality is won across the Western World we are still going to find ourselves going full circle, where the people who have opposed us will regroup and fight back. And those people will INVARIABLY be religious people. (And this isn’t even counting the horror for gays that is the islamic world)
Look at your history. Homosexuality starts being oppressed seriously from 380 AD when the Emperor Theodosius I enacted a law establishing Catholic Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire. We are still living with the homophobia established at that time.
So, we have a long hard fight on our hands. And yes our allies can be anyone who wants to join us, but look at these statistics: ” It is a depressing fact that while 74 percent of Americans believe that angels exist, only 25 percent accept that we evolved from apelike ancestors. Just one in eight of us think that evolution should be taught in the biology classroom without including a creationist alternative. Among 34 Western countries surveyed for the acceptance of evolution, the United States ranked a dismal thirty-third, just above Turkey. Throughout our country, school boards are trying to water down the teaching of evolution or sneak creationism in beside it. And the opponents of Darwinism are not limited to snake-handlers from the Bible Belt; they include some people you know. As Karl Giberson notes in Saving Darwin, “Most people in America have a neighbor who thinks the Earth is ten thousand years old.””
http://www.tnr.com/story_print.html?id=1e3851a3-bdf7-438a-ac2a-a5e381a70472
It is pretty certain that the religiosity of the USA, the opposition to evolution and the opposition to gay equality are linked intimately.
Opposition to gay equality is always going to come from the sky pixie worshippers, whether they are christians, muslims or sikhs or jews or zoroastrians. Or, indeed, Buddhists – although Buddhism is not a sky pixie religion.
Bill Perdue
There used to be some seriously good christophobes in Rome but their leader Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus was a cheap asshole. He spent way too much on wine, women and fiddles violins and not enough on lions and tigers.
Now look at the mess we’re in.
Rowen
We’ve gotten to this very weird American Idol place in our society where critique=ridicule=blazing intolerance/hatred. This is not the case. I can tolerate someone while critiquing their choices. Someone can tell me that I’m a sinner till the cows come home, and that’s fine and dandy. However, when they try to harm me or my loved ones and try to enshrine their bigotry in our legal system, then we have a problem.
So far, some Christians are the ones doing that. Gays are NOT tying Christians to a fence post and pistol whipping them and leaving them to die of exposure. Gays are NOT trying to get laws that Christians can’t marry a consenting adult of their choosing. Gays are NOT trying to tear apart loving Christian families. Gays are NOT trying to shoot down laws that keep religious discrimination illegal.
Until ANY of this happens, whenever some Christian starts getting all fatwah-envy on me, he will get NO sympathy, and a resounding “shut the hell up” for good measure.
getreal
@Rowen: So what about the many Christians out there that are passionate about gay equality? So how is hating me because I’m a Christian any better than christian fundamentalists hating you? Mainstream christians in every poll are in favor of gay equality. I’m sick of reading all the hatred of Christians on this site. If you discriminate against others by word or deed you are a bigot. Whatever someone does to me they can’t turn me into a bigot. Hating all Christians because of what some Christians do is wrong and it’s prejudice and the religious right is using it to tell Christians don’t support gay rights they hate you. Most of these posts are proving them right.
getreal
Look at this link
http://www.sovo.com/thelatest/thelatest.cfm?blog_id=23441
Donolectic
@getreal: I don’t agree with you that a majority of Christians support gay equality. Please provide me with information on what MAJORITY denominations will perform same sex marriages. The Catholics? Mormons? Lutherans? Methodists? How many of these demoninstations actively work for gay equality?
What I hear most of all in arguments against gay equality is that homosexuality in general is “immoral” and most of that is based from religious conviction.
Why don’t you spend your time working within the christian community to get them on board with working for our rights and then come back to us and let us know that we have nothing to fear from them rather than bashing us for pointing out that Christianity as a whole is NOT tolerant.
I’m very happy you are a tolerant, pro-gay christian and I know that not all Christians are bad people. But the loud ones seem to have very aggressive followers and the rest seem to be perfectly willing to go along with the loud and aggressive ones. Prop 8 in California anyone?
Work with that community, get them on board, and then come back to us and say that we’re bigots. Until then, get real.
getreal
@Donolectic: I am I was at camp courage and am part of an interfaith speakers bureau on behalf of gay equality. Every church I have spoken at catholic, episcopal, methodist,lutheran people have come up to me after and told me they are praying for the people of this movement. That they are tired of fundamentalists pushing an anti-christian agenda of bias. The christians I know and have met that support equality outnumber the bigots 10 to 1. You can contact the Archdiocese of your community to get stats catholics in america are majority gay rights and pro-gay equality. At both of the gay rights summits this past weekends there were christians contingents WORKING TO REPEAL PROP 8. I’m working to improve things in my community. Why don’t you do some outreach to christians? Because you are a bigot who is AFRAID and wants to judge a whole diverse group of people by a vocal minority. Why don’t you get on board? Let’s work on getting the majority of good christians who don’t hate people on board I am why don’t you?
Bill Perdue
un@getreal: unreals hyper dramatics and acting out are tiresome. unreal ubraids us for hating the enemy. Too bad. What we would like is to not have to waste our time pointing out why superstitious cults and cultists are bigots and why people who think The Exorcist was a documentary are lunatics. Nor do we hate unreal. Who’d bother hating a pathetic creature with one foot in our camp and the other in the enemies? Pity, scorn, but not hate.
Religion is ignorance and superstition. It’s humankinds greatest self-inflicted wound. While most of the world is moving away from a chosen lifestyle that requires beliefs in things that are clearly not real or sane our little unreal is running towards it. And wants us to know how what a really drama filled thing that is.
Yawn.
Rowen
I don’t remember saying that all Christians do the things I was saying. I *did* say that it annoys me when Christians, as a privledged majority, try and pull the persecution card.
I never said they all do.
I’m glad that you’re on our side, but please don’t read more into what I write, and then try and chastise me for what wasn’t there.
getreal
@Bill Perdue: Martin Luther King Jr. understood that the civil rights movement would never be successful if they turned their back on people of different faiths, colors, and creeds. The gay rights movement will continue to be marginalized if we turn our backs on people who share a common purpose.I’m very real Bill I don’t hate people because they have different beliefs and I would never dream of trying to hurt someone who was fighting for MY RIGHTS because we believed in different things. You are just like the Pro-Prop 8 people you use your beliefs as an excuse and cover to see someone as less than you or your enemy so you can feel better about your own pathetic life. You are a hateful, bigoted, sad, apathetic whiner. I won’t bother with you I can’t explain themes of tolerance and justice to someone like you. Luckily for this movement like most bigots you just hide behind your computer screen writing hateful things and don’t do anything. I will ignore you from now on all your posts are the same divisive angry everybody hates gays bs. I feel sorry for you that your worldview is so bleak that you actually think every person out there who believes in God is your enemy. Try antidepressants and a whole lot more kindness and tolerance for your fellow man get over yourself and GET REAL.
http://www.sovo.com/thelatest/thelatest.cfm?blog_id=23441
Bill Perdue
@getreal: So much drama. Even more drivel.
Yawn.
Alfredo Munoz
I remember reading about this last year and thinking it was one of the most horrific crimes I’ve ever heard. the death penalty is simply too good for these animals. Google the names Channon Christian and Christopher Newsome to get more details about the case. This case received absolutely NO media attention outside of Tennessee. Can you imagine, I mean CAN YOU FU*KING IMAGINE if it had been a group of “good ‘ole boys” with a confederate flag on their pickup truck committed this crime against a young, attractive african-american couple that were college students and had their whole lives in front of them? It would be regarded as the biggest civil rights crime in American history. Where was Rev. Al on this case? Oh yeah, he was too busy defending the “Jena 6”. I hope this animal and his fellow savages (I take that back. Animals don’t do what this creature and his group did to their own kind) rots in hell for eternity. Truly one of the worst crimes I’ve ever heard about.
Want to read about another case that also received almost no media attention outside of the immediate area (oh if the races had been reversed it would have led to riots and civil rights marches that would still be going on). Google “The Carr Murders”. How a human being could be capable of such evil to people that not only did nothing wrong to them, but never even met baffles me. Makes me wonder how God could allow such creatures to exist.
Scott
@John Smith:
Forget about apporpriating “our language” — this is nothing more than the right wing, intolerant, evangelical church and their cohorts in a continuing attempt to push their hate agenda at any cost. And to all the folks here who somehow believe that some sort of “balanced and tolerant” middle of the road perspective is the appropriate response, how many Christians have been killed by gays? Or to put it another way, how many dead faggots will it take before this country is called to account?
getreal
@Alfredo Munoz: So Al Sharpton is an animal and we are savages? Wow that is one of the most racist posts I have ever read. Actually that “animal” Al Sharpton was organizing church leaders against Prop 8
http://www.sovo.com/thelatest/thelatest.cfm?blog_id=23441
You sound much worse than any good old boy calling black people animals and savages. I’m starting to feel like maybe the hateful people are right. Look how racist, bigoted, and intolerant the people on this thread are.
DeWillis Washington
Superman used kryptonite to foil criminals. And hypocritical, racist countries use Sharptonite to try to foil freedom and democracy.
If you like Al Sharpton, you’ll love the U.N. Conference Against Racism.
This past weekend’s confab in Durban, South Africa took a page from The World According to Sharp: Al Sharpton’s Playbook on Hypocrisy for Dummies.
The so-called Conference “Against” Racism was nothing more than party-time for third-world despots and racists calling the kettle – the U.S. and Israel – black. With a dash of Jesse Jackson thrown in for extra vile flavor.
It’s a great study of the ridiculous, really.
Countries, like Sudan and Mauritania – whose Moslem governments actively encourage and engage in selling millions of black Christians into slavery – label the U.S. racist and call for it to pay reparations to black Americans who are generations removed from U.S. slavery that ended in the 1800s. These same countries also call Israel a racist country, though blacks, Moslems, and Christians live freely within its democratic borders and are much better off than the impoverished, underclass minions “living” within their own borders. In Israel, they actually have running water, refrigerators, electricity, and cable TV. And they can vote, speak, and worship freely. Not so for black Christian slaves in Africa, sentenced to a life highlighted by torture, rape and murder.
Allied with these enslavers is Palestinian terrorist-cum-leader Yasser Arafat, whose labeling of Israel as racist is beyond comical. I can eat anywhere in the U.S., including Sbarro – the pizza chain. But if I go to Israel, I risk being blown to bits by one of his suicide bombers – not because I am a Zionist or an Israeli, but because I am Jewish. There were many Americans murdered and wounded at Jerusalem’s Sbarro eatery, in August, and their only crime – in the eyes of the Arafat-sanctioned suicide bomber – was being Jewish.
When Arafat’s hijackers took over planes, they attacked passengers with Jewish-sounding surnames, not Israeli or Zionist ones. And, regularly, on his Palestinian government-run television, Islamic clerics regularly spout Nazi-like anti-Semitic vitriol, calling for death to the Jews and to America, not just to Israel or to Zionism. A recent poll shows 80 percent of Arafat’s people support suicide bombings against Jews. Arafat’s delegates to the Racism Conference regularly attacked and confronted Jewish delegates – many of whom had nothing to do with Israel – merely because they were Jewish. But there is no racism or bigotry there, right?
The same goes for the 20-some Arab and Moslem countries joining the conference resolutions against both America and Israel. Intolerant countries, which regularly murder and discriminate against Palestinians, Christians, women, blacks and others – countries, like Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Taliban-infested Afghanistan and Sudan – need to look in the mirror on racism.
It’s just like Sharpton, really – the ultimate racist calling others racists. So, it’s no surprise that Sharpton and his friends proudly support these ludicrous statements and “principles” – like U.S. reparations to black Americans – endorsed by the Durban conference. Like the U.N. conventioneers, while Sharpton hollers about racism against blacks, he’s the constant perpetrator of racism against whites and Jews.
In 1991, Sharpton incited riots, terrorism, and murder against whites and Jews in Crown Heights, New York. Leading 400 protesters and stirring mobs, four nights of violent rock- and bottle-throwing and the stabbing-murder of Yankel Rosenbaum, resulted from Sharpton’s shouts of “diamond merchants” and his followers’ chants of “kill the Jew.” In 1995, Sharpton incited the burning down of “Freddie’s Fashion Mart,” which he called a “white interloper” business in Harlem. No matter that the store employed mostly blacks and Hispanics, and that two people – a black and a Hispanic – were killed in the Sharpton-inspired arson, while he led chants of “Bloodsucking Jews!”
It’s so akin to the Racism Conference, it’s incredible. The conference participants are essentially yelling the same thing as Sharpton’s thugs while they continue to practice the same thing they falsely accuse the U.S. and Israel of.
It’s also interesting who is being called on to pay the reparations. Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo demanded a U.S. apology for the crimes of slavery and colonialism, which would “recognize the wrong that was committed against Africans and constitute a promise that such an atrocity would never happen again.” Sorry, President Obasanjo, but that promise will have to come from you and your fellow African countries, whose inhabitants sold out their brothers and sold them into slavery centuries ago. And are still doing so today. Ditto to Togo President Gnassingbe Eyadema, who demanded U.S. cancellation of all African debt – debt assumed by African leaders who spend it to enrich themselves and arm their countries for war.
strumpetwindsock
Discrimination is discrimination, no matter whom it is directed against.
Going on an anti-religious rant doesn’t do anything to end homophobia. It just brings you down to the level of the homophobes and alienates you from the many religious people who support equal rights.
I agree it is shameful how some groups pretend they are victims of discrimination as a cover for their own hateful agenda. The “religious rights” tactic is a perfect example.
But this “sky pixie” diatribe is not that far removed from their bigotry. Frankly I have a lot of anger towards organized religion too, and I’m agnostic. But I recognize that there is a difference between religious belief and bigotry.
You don’t teach people repect by being disrespectful of them. You just bring shame on us and make the gulf of misunderstanding even wider.
Bill Perdue
@DeWillis Washington: It’s getting hareder and harder to tell the difference between zionist islamophobia and anti-African racism. The reason is that they intersect at so many points on the far right agenda.
In any case, whoever they hate, racists and ialamophobes are wasting oxygen and other resources.
vernonvanderbilt
I have my share of issues (even hostilities, in some instances) with christianity and the churches dedicated to it, but I happen to believe that you can disagree without resorting to mere nastiness. Does it do us any favours to show generalized bigotry toward these people? Not really.
Personally, I cannot fathom why anyone would choose to believe in christianity more than any other religion, but I also recognize that spiritual matters are a personal choice. I made the choice myself, and have done so several times in my life. I was a baptist as a child, agnostic in my early teens, christian (grace brethren) in my late teens, atheist for a while in my early twenties, Satanist for several years after that, and now I’m a pantheist. At no time during any of those stages would I have welcomed bigotry for my choice. As much as you disagree with or dislike what someone else believes in the spiritual sense, you don’t make any headway with them by immediately going on the attack.
The spiritual journey, if undertaken seriously and with honest intent, is always a journey of the self. To attack a person’s beliefs is to attack that person. Period.
However, I do think we’re entirely justified to be angry and hostile toward those who deserve such. Misplaced anger may be counterproductive, but well-placed anger is always beneficial. Instead of caving to lowest common denominator thinking by issuing blanket hate to the entire christian community, you’re better off focusing it on those elements of it which are our true enemies. I say we can (verbally) attack those alleged “people” as much as we like, because they deserve nothing more than our hatred and derision.
To take the tangent…I don’t entirely understand this idea that hatred is “wrong” anyway. The way I see it, love and hate are not so much opposites as they are complementary emotional states. The existence of one serves to strengthen the other. The more you love one thing, the more, it stands to reason, you would hate whatever serves to weaken or destroy it. For instance, I love my family, therefore I hate anyone or anything that harms my family. I love the idea of a comfortable, happy existence, therefore I hate anyone or anything that threatens my comfortable, happy existence. I love the principle of equality, therefore I hate anyone or anything that opposes that principle. Love and hate correlate. The intensity of either of them is directly proportional to the intensity of the other. If you say you do not hate anyone or anything, then you are incapable of love. You have nothing to compare it to.
Over the years I have had many friends who would consider themselves christians. Since I am very selective about the people I choose to befriend in the first place, this tells me that christians, as a whole, are not bad people. They are simply another diverse population, much like we are. Of course there are plenty of “bad apples” in that basket…but the gay community is hardly squeaky clean itself. Truth be told, I’ve met more christians I would choose to befriend than I have gay people.
I believe it’s perfectly natural that we would have hostilities toward organized religion, as it tends to be oppressive to the human spirit anyway. But what many of us need to learn is the difference between religion and spirituality. I think most people take issue with the former rather than the latter. I know I do.
As far as the central issue of this post…do I like seeing the christians try to co-opt our language? Of course not. Do I think that, in the grand scheme of things, it actually matters? Not really. These are desperate times for the churches, with attendance and donations down and fewer people choosing to convert to a dogmatized way of thinking. Desperate times, they say, call for desperate measures. Personally, I think we should take heart in the fact that we’re trendsetters in language. It means we have more to offer than the ephemeral and the meaningless, like fashion design or bad dance music.
Sorry I went on so long. Just wanted to throw in a couple more pennies.
Bill Perdue
@strumpetwindsock: Discrimination is discrimination, no matter whom it is directed against.I don’t know of any organized discrimination, excpet for the perfectly legitimate efforts of left wing government to close christer, punish christer clerical rapists and tax them like any other part of the entertainment industry.
We need to tax them here in the US. And that’s not discriminatory. On the contrary if Disney, Dreamworks and other fantasy purveyors get taxed it’s discrimination against them not to tax the cults who think that The Exorcist is a documentary.
We need to close schools that include superstation in their curriculum. First on the list should be the christist schools that use torture and abuse, including sexual abuse, to ‘cure’ young GLBT folks of their genetic heritage. The staff and the parents of young people thrown into these snakepits should be charged with child abuse.
Second on the list is a schools connected to the roman catholic cult. Priest should not be allowed near children absence the presence of armed guards to protect the children. Priests, bishops and archbishops who aided and abetted clerical rapists should be extradited from Vatican City to face criminal charges. But that doesn’t let the lutheran, evangelical, mormon or anglo catholic cults off the hook.
Religion is always an unhealthy blend of symptoms that skirt the edges of sanity and often cross over. It caused terrible damage throughout history. It’s is humankinds worst self inflicted wound. Religion, aka, ignorance and superstition is the enemy of GLBT equality and in may places of our right to exist. And people who choose to believe the ravings of ignorant and superstitious cult leaders are no friends of ours.
It’s nice if cult members support us but they’re very fickle. Their opinions are not guided by rational thought but by belief in unscientific fallacies. In Germany christists flirted with Magnus Hirschfelds Scientific-Humanitarian Committee and its openly gay offshoots but when the Nazi’s came to power it took them all of ten seconds to revert to their christer traditions of homophobia and anti-Semitism. We know the result.
strumpetwindsock
Bill,
Well I hope I will not be branded a collaborator if I say I disagree with you on your outright condemnation of religious belief.
I’m more in favour of sticking to the issue, like the fellow in the video presentation.
I must say though, your solution to the christian question reads like something out of Jonathan Swift’s Modest Proposal. Are you sure you really believe this, and that you’re not just having us on?
If you’re serious, I’m afraid you might be disappointed to find there are a few homophobes left after all the religious lunatics have been dealt with.
Anyway, this has been an enlightening conversation. I think I’m done.
vernonvanderbilt
@Bill Perdue: I’ve noticed that a lot of your posts raise some valid and interesting points. The problem is that you seem to inevitably fall off the balance beam and land in the sea of irrational extremism. Some examples, if you’ll indulge me:
“We need to tax them here in the US.”
A sentiment I am inclined to agree with, actually. I side with LaVey on the issue. If a church is worthwhile, it can survive on its own merits without financial shelter.
But then you follow up with that tired Exorcist comment that’s been floating around so long it’s not even funny anymore.
“We need to close schools that include superstation in their curriculum. First on the list should be the christist schools that use torture and abuse, including sexual abuse, to ‘cure’ young GLBT folks of their genetic heritage. The staff and the parents of young people thrown into these snakepits should be charged with child abuse.”
Well, okay, the useful portion of this idea is pretty deeply buried, but the “torture and abuse” part grazes it with its fingertips just a little. A lot of these schools still employ corporal punishment, which should probably be outlawed. However, considering they are private enterprises, it’s not the government’s place to close them. Also, when you mention the “cure” you’re blending christian schools and anti-gay ministries, which are generally (perhaps always) separate entities. Muddying the waters never helps your argument. As for that last sentence…well, innocent until proven guilty comes to mind, and I don’t think anyone should be charged with anything if they have done nothing other than attempt to educate children. Not all of those staff members and parents are child abusers, after all. Generalization makes you look ignorant.
“Religion is always an unhealthy blend of symptoms that skirt the edges of sanity and often cross over.”
No, not always. I think when you say “religion” you mean “christianity.” Religion covers a lot more territory than that, and I know you know that.
“It caused terrible damage throughout history.”
Okay, there’s another valid point.
“It’s is humankinds worst self inflicted wound.”
I think that’s debatable, but okay, I’ll let you have that one because I’m inclined to agree, at least in part.
“Religion, aka, ignorance and superstition is the enemy of GLBT equality and in may places of our right to exist. And people who choose to believe the ravings of ignorant and superstitious cult leaders are no friends of ours.”
Again, “religion” is not the same as “christianity.” There are plenty of gay-friendly religious traditions out there. Also, as far as I’m concerned, an ally is an ally, no matter what inspires their support. I’d take a superstitious friend over a logical foe any day.
“In Germany christists flirted with Magnus Hirschfelds Scientific-Humanitarian Committee and its openly gay offshoots but when the Nazi’s came to power it took them all of ten seconds to revert to their christer traditions of homophobia and anti-Semitism. We know the result.”
That actually has less to do with religion than it does human nature. Most people are sheep, following something, sometimes religion, sometimes political ideology, sometimes pop stars. It has more to do with the urge to belong to a group, and most groups are more defined by what they are not as opposed to what they are. That’s the entire rationale behind the existence of Nazism in the first place. Any group that would seek power requires an “other” in order to achieve it. The Nazis just happened to choose “others” that worked for their time.
You’re obviously an intelligent person, but you let emotion cloud the very logic you claim to endorse. If you want your arguments to have more weight, and appear less ridiculous, you should try to be a bit more dispassionate about the issue. It’s fine to have an emotional investment in an issue, but when you let your emotions drive the car, you’re bound to go over that cliff eventually. And let me tell you…it’s not so easy to drive back up.
strumpetwindsock
sorry, not quite done.
I almost forgot to mention that Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Niemoeller might disagree with you about the inevitability of collaboration with the Nazis.
Bill Perdue
@strumpetwindsock: Not inevitability. Just an almost total probability that christers, zionists and islamists tending towards the far right when it comes to politics. Look at the rightwing racism and islamophobia (a form of racism unconnected their religion but having everything to do with thier oil) of DeW Washington above.
You forgot to add a half dozen or so catholic clerics to the list. That makes 7-10 German christer clerics who opposed the Nazis. The rest joined them, including the current pope, Herr Ratzinger. And that’s my point.
Bill Perdue
@vernonvanderbilt: The problem is that you seem to inevitably fall off the balance beam and land in the sea of irrational extremism. And I notice that you like to sit on the fence. Neither for or against, just tepidly refusing to make uncomfortable choices about the crimes of the cults.
Anyone who abets child abuse is a child abuser. I’m sorry if you can’t see that. I think child abusers should be punished, you disagree. But given the fact that you’re steeped in superstition that’s hardly surprising.You refuse to take a stand for GLBT youth.
I don’t equate religion with christist delusions. What I said was that all religion is based on superstition and ignorance. It’s a howling madness from the dark ages. It’s based on delusions and is antithetical to science, democracy and the advance of human civilization. I’d be wrong if I failed to equate most forms of buddhism, the prot cults, voodooist and other nativists, islamists, hinduists and judaists with the christists and with the fundamental backwardness of superstition and ignorance. In fact they’re equally dismal and pathetic. As are those who let ignorance and superstitin guide them.
Are you a modern pantheist? Do you include Elvis and Godzilla in your pantheon? That rotting old sty in the sky is in dire need of some fresh meat.
vernonvanderbilt
@Bill Perdue: Obviously you ignored most of what I wrote above, Bill. I think if you actually read it you’ll see that I did, indeed, take stances on a variety of issues. Sometimes I agreed with you, and sometimes I didn’t. That is hardly refusing to make uncomfortable choices.
I’m also not sure where you got that I don’t think child abusers should be punished. I think you’re actually deliberately misinterpreting what I did say on that topic. If you don’t understand what someone is saying, you generally read it a second time, or even a third time.
Also, you’re entirely off-base when you say that I’m “steeped in superstition” and “refuse to take a stand for GLBT youth.” Your ignorance is showing, Bill. You know absolutely nothing about me other than the fact that I am not an atheist, so you immediately choose to lump me in with people that I not only share almost nothing in common with, but also people that I do not particularly like. But that’s okay, Bill. People who choose to blandly generalize are not the sort of people I feel the need to defend myself against.
Your third paragraph there at least explained your meaning when you use the word “religion.” I’ll give you credit for that, though I stand by my estimation that you mostly seem to use it in the context of christianity.
As for my brand of pantheism, and I’m only talking about it because you asked, I honestly don’t know that there’s an appreciable difference between modern versus…what, traditional? Classical? Pantheism is pantheism, in my opinion. I arrived at my beliefs after studying quantum physics, string theory, etc. Science is to thank for my own spiritual evolution. As far as pantheons go…that’s got nothing to do with pantheism, at least not the brand that I follow. “God” is not an entity that is separate from the Universe…”God” is the Universe. So yeah, Elvis (being a person) and Godzilla (being an idea) are part of that. So am I, so are you, so is everyone. So is the chair you’re sitting on, for that matter. It’s a matter of reflection. I would get into the details of it and the reasoning I have, but I’m not trying to write a book here. This thread isn’t about my spiritual beliefs anyway.
I’m not looking to argue with you, though that’s what it appears you want out of this. Like I said, sometimes I agree with you, sometimes I don’t. I just think your method of delivery undermines the points you try to make, and a more detached approach gives one a bit more credibility, in most cases. You attract more flies with honey than you do with vinegar. There are too many critics of organized religion who favour vinegar as it is.
This isn’t a black and white world, Bill. Everything is a matter of degree.
strumpetwindsock
Sorry, I know I said I was going but…
Bill, Vernon is trying to give you some friendly advice and meet you part way.
And he’s right; in my opinion your arguments are a bit too “out there” to be believed. Frankly I can’t tell if you are serious or if you’re just a sock puppet operated by some shit-disturber.
You’re entitled to your opinion on this but our respective positions are just as valid as yours. And though I agree with some of your analysis (that most organized religion IS oppressive and destructive), there are some points on which you are simply mistaken. I feel you are being needlessly rude, and are trying to pick a fight.
Again, the video in this link takes no issue with peoples’ belief systems; it challenges a right-wing religious group’s attempt to portray themselves as victims by hijacking the term “bashing”.
Bill Perdue
Bill, Vernon is trying to give you some friendly advice and meet you part way.
Nonsense. Quite the opposite. With the typical smugness of sanctimonious superstition mongers he refuses to defend the lives of GLBT youth imprisoned in religious schools and particularly in those that exist to ‘cure’ them.
That puts him on the wrong side. On the side of the christers. Those snakepits should be closed and anyone dealing with children should be prosecuted including the demented parents who subjected their children to such torture. vernonvanderbilt sees no usefulness in fighting to close those institutions left alone and invokes property rights as being superior to the rights of young people undergoing torture and abuse. It is nothing but torture and abuse to try to beat and shame them into denouncing their genetic heritage.
There is no grey area here, no middle ground.
It’s drivel to assert that two diametrically opposed sets of ideas, one with its origins in the Dark Ages and one that looks to the ideals of the French Revolutions and later anti-clerical, pro-democratic revolutions as equally valid. There is nothing valid about superstition and religious ignorance.
The struggle for democracy, for human ethics, for science and against bigotry has always been part of the LGBT legacy. From the time of Aristogeiton and Harmodius we’ve been fighting to expand the borders of democracy. Religion, aka superstition and ignorance, is the enemy of science, democracy and GLBT equality. They can’t coexist.
Denis Diderot is a wide ranging thinker and philosopher who died shortly after the victory of the American Revolution and a few years before an even more ambitious revolution broke out in France. I don’t know anything about his sexuality but his statement “Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.” sums up the heritage of the fight GLBT equality, for democracy, and against ignorance.
strumpetwindsock
okay.
I’ve got other fish to fry.
vernonvanderbilt
Well, you can’t win ’em all, huh? *yawn*
getreal
@strumpetwindsock: @vernonvanderbilt: There is no reasoning with extremists. Bill Perdue illustrates better than anything I could say that there are extremists on both sides of this issue. If we can concentrate on our common ground a belief in justice and equality for all Americans our differences be they religious or racial pale in importance.
DeWillis Washington
An all to familiar and easy indictment as we hasten to fulfill the Orwellian prophecy i.e. “you are racist”,”you are an
anti-semite” etc.It won’t be long before the re-education camps are implemented.Whatever happened to the First Amendment?Oh wait I see how it works now.
tallskin
And as if to endorse those of us who argue that religion is utterly evil, here we have a story from Ethiopia, where all the filthy sky pixie religions have got together to call for a ban on gay sex!
Fucking filthy bigoted sky pixy bastards.
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-10986.html
The leaders of the Roman Catholic, Ethiopian Orthodox and Protestant churches have called on the government of Ethiopia for a constitutional ban on homosexuality.
At present the constitution makes no mention of homosexuality.
Male homosexual behaviour is illegal and carries a penalty of up to five years imprisonment. Although there is no provision under Ethiopian law for lesbianism there is the presumption that the punishment would be the same.
“For people to act in this manner they have to be dumb, stupid like animals,” an Orthodox leader told journalists after the meeting.
“We strongly condemn this behaviour, they have to be disciplined and their acts discriminated, they have to be taught a lesson.”
Christians make up around 63% of the country’s population with of them 43% Ethiopian Orthodox. Muslims make up almost 34%.
According Sonic Casuist of ETHIOGLBTI, a gay rights group in Ethiopia, homosexuality is still perceived as taboo and nonexistent in that country and many homosexuals are still in the closet.
“It is hidden, no one is out. The general population would like to claim that it does not exist,” she told mask.org.za.
“For those of us who live here we make and build our communities. We get together and we have places to go in the evenings however nothing is out in the open, it’s a hidden communit
DeWillis Washington
I’ve said this ad nauseum before so I’ll just say it as a naked assertion now:Gays can’t do this because an essential element of humor — including attack comedy — is self-deprecation, and Gays are nearly congenitally incapable of any sort of self-deprecation. They stew in their own earnest righteousness and pious perfection.Further, even professional Gay comedy writers usually fall flat when they attempt to write humor — because they’re just not capable of taking themselves and their beliefs less than 100% seriously.95% of Gays are incapable of the ego deflation necessary for humor, and I’d expand that to 99.9% of internet Gays.
vernonvanderbilt
@getreal: Of course there’s no reasoning with those people. Doesn’t make it any less amusing to try, does it? 🙂
@DeWillis Washington: Humourless gays!? Incapable of ego deflation!? Where on earth would you get that idea?
Oh, you’ve probably just paid attention.
It’s not just us homos who have that problem, DeWillis. Seems to me that 99.9% of the entire internet takes itself too seriously. Maybe even 99.9% of humans in general, for that matter.
I believe it was Oscar Wilde who said something to the effect of “life is too serious to ever take seriously.” Works for me.
strumpetwindsock
Vernon: Yes I do enjoy a good game of whack-a-troll. It gets boring and annoying though, when I am hoping for a real exchange of ideas, not an audience with the Jacobin Club.
(and since Robespierre is dispatching monarchists as well as bible-thumpers now I guess I am doubly-damned, being a known associate of queens, and having a nice old lady’s face on my money)
And DeWillis: an interesting thought – I agree to a point; I think the exceptions to the rule number a bit more than 0.1%, and I don’t think failure to appreciate humour is in direct proportion to one’s sexual orientation. There are people of all stripes who are as thick as a post, and not in the useful way.
Bill Perdue
The ‘national razor’ as the French style it, is an element sorely missed in English history.
When England becomes a republic perhaps we’ll see it used to shave clerics, monarchists, colonialists (as in occupied northern Ireland) the ruling rich and other parasites.
getreal
It is interesting to read the fundamentalists drivel. I will not address my post to him because you can’t reason with extremists or fundamentalists and he is both. I googled the term national razor. This man is advocating cutting the throats, murdering complete strangers because they have different beliefs than him. I’m starting to think that the only one crazier than a christian fundamentalist is an anti-christian fundamentalist. He is no different than a Klansman secure in his belief that blacks are animals and should all be killed or suicide bomber who feels that jewish people are the devil and deserve to die. This is not the first time this man has fantasized on this thread about killing strangers let’s hope he does not work at the post office. Queerty we are are all on this site because it informs and these comment threads provide fantastic forums for dissent but someone alluding to murder (which Bill Perdue has done many times) should be banned.
Bill Perdue
@getreal: I knew it, getreal did just fall off the turnip truck. The national razor is the guillotine. Unreal.
getreal is a bold but not particularly bright liar. Queerty we are are all on this site because it informs and these comment threads provide fantastic forums for dissent but someone alluding to murder (which Bill Perdue has done many times) should be banned. getreal must have had a revelation when he said the national razor referred to “cutting the throats, murdering complete strangers because they have different beliefs than him. More likely he’s just lying.
The national razor refers to the guillotine. The people it was used on were not strangers they scum like Louis the Last, clerics and aristocrats. The French Revolution, spurred on by anti-clerics like Diderot and the Jacobins did the world a great service by their robust prosecution of scum like priests and kings. Their executions were not murder. On the contrary they were an elementary exercise in justice. They were also necessary to preserve the revolution from criminals.
That’s missing in English history. But probably not forever.
getreal displays a typical christers inquisitorial knee jerk reaction. Always on the losing side getreal wants to ban those who consistently wipe the floor with christer smugness and pretensions. Pathetic.
getreal
I googled the term. I know what it means a does anyone who has more than a 6th grade education.I know what the guillotine is I have read about your constant obsession with killing christians. It is sick period You are a sad angry person who constantly posts about genocide against complete strangers. I will ignore you from now on should’nt you be somewhere burning a cross or fantasizing about killing people. Anyone but an extremeist would agree that the person AGAINST genocide is on the right side of the issue.
Bill Perdue
@getreal: Like I said, a bold but unconvincing liar.
getreal
@vernonvanderbilt: You are witty and very right I will take my own advice. You can’t reason with extremists especially the blood thirsty fundamentalists. This is a new level of batshit crazy. This is like compound mormons with 15 wives believing that when you die you get your own planet crazy. You are right I will just be amused and not try to have any kind of intelligent discourse with people whose mental condition makes it impossible.
vernonvanderbilt
@getreal: Well, I’ve always said “If you can’t reason with them, laugh at them.” It’s probably one of my top five aphorisms for enjoying life.
Old Fart
Wow, this is a tough string of comments. Very athiest, very critical and judgemental of anyone of faith in Christ. I can’t speak for all the christians (and I don’t think many would ever stumble across this blog), but based on my experience, the difference between an athiest & myself is that I know God lives, as I have “paid the price” to obtain the knowledge. An athiest does not know if He lives, and therefore knows nothing about him, and is unqualified to comment on His existence or His nature.
For me, Once I knew He lives and created me, my entire perspective shifted, including priorities. Outside the typical family & career, I spend a great deal of time learning all I can about him and our purpose in life, so I can fulfill that purpose. I discovered out much of what I believed previously is incorrect, and it is often an uncomfortable and humbling adjustment. He will reveal his presence through spiritual means for those that will develop their own spirituality, but unfortunately, few seek him sincerely or diligently enough. It requires an openness to the possibility that He is there.
All the criticisms of Christianity I read here have satisfactory explanations, but of course there is no desire to hear them. Unfortunately most who post here are not open to achieving any mutual understanding or compromise. There is an unfortunate militant self-righteousness that smacks of bigotry.
Oh, and by the way, He loves everyone outside the HLBT community as much as loves those in it. I’ll leave it to you to discover (spiritually) whether or not there are eternal laws regarding sexual behavior.
strumpetwindsock
@Old Fart: Thanks for your heartfelt perspective. As I said, I don’t think the video or this issue needs to call anyone’s belief into question. And I agree with you about the anti-religious rhetoric.
I think that most organized religions ARE destructive and usually become political organs rather than spiritual ones. But I do believe we have a spiritual dimension. I recognize that it takes many people to make a church, and that many people seek fellowship with the honest intention to better themselves and help others.
It’s a shame that so much (not all) organized religion involves putting those good intentions under a direction that is sometimes good, but sometimes manipulative and oppressive.
I remember reading the Gospel of Mark one time and noticed that Jesus, after healing people or doing some marvel, always told his disciples to keep his work secret and not tell anyone what he had done, or why. Whether you believe the story or not, it is quite a contrast from how many modern churches behave.
Since joining in this thread I read more on the Christian Anti-Defamation group’s site. Rather than angry, it made me quite sad that people would let themselves be so deluded into thinking they were doing good work by being so hateful.
And Bill, if you really want your revolution you should be careful; they usually get rid of the zealots pretty quickly. Remember Jacques Hébert.
vernonvanderbilt
The zealots are the ones who pull the tower down, but they tend to be too shortsighted to move out of the way before it crushes them.
DeWillis Washington
@vernonvanderbilt: Good point sir I won’t entirely concede that you have made a better statement but you leave me very little margin to pose a counter argument.
rcdc
okay, i haven’t managed to wade through everything yet. i just had one point i had to make: religious schools are not uniformly inhospitable to gay youth. in fact, the better ones are probably much happier and safer than secular public schools. i went to an episcopal school with a small but open lesbian and bi community (all girls school) that was welcomed with open arms by all but a very few parents. the students were all very accepting. there were a couple chapels and assemblies a year given by GALA, the police task force on gay teens came once a year to talk about the safety issues for gay teens in our city (don’t cruise the train station). that openness could not have happened in a school that did not constantly emphasize Christian (slash nondenominational) positive values.
Charles J. Mueller
@getreal:
Getreal has monopolized a major portion of this thread trying to convince us “non-believers” that the church is, for the most part, supportive of gay people and working hard for the attainment of their rights.
His argument that Christianity is loving, tolerant and supportive of gay people carries about as much water as Muslims who say that they have nothing against gay people but, nevertheless, support and practice Islam, a religion that murders people just for being gay.
Getreal works as tirelessly at promoting Christianity as a good and positive force for gays, as Christianity tirelessly works at condemning, marginalizing, illegitimizing and criminalizing homosexuality…an obvious dichotomy, if you will. If, indeed, Christianity is the wonderful benefactor for the LGBT community at large as he claims it to be, then they why are not their positive accomplishments for the LGBT community as self-evident as the damage they have and continue wreak upon homosexuals world-wide? If what getreal tells us about the goodness of the Church is, in fact so, then why does he fell the need to work so hard to defend the Church?
If Christians are as supportive of homosexuality and civil-rights as getreal claims it to be, then perhaps he can explain to the rest of us “Christian bashers” why the Pope (along with the US), recently refused to sign the UN Resolution calling for a worldwide end to the criminalization and punishment of homosexuals…on the grounds that it would de-stabilize marriage which “must be protected in the same manner as the rain forests.”
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-9729.html
Tell us, once again,getreal, that nice, warm, fuzzy story about how the church loves us, tolerates us, supports us and wants to help us attain the same quality of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that str8 people have always enjoyed…and taken so for granted.
Its such a nice story and I do so much love it.
strumpetwindsock
The Catholic Pope doesn’t speak for all Christians; he doesn’t even speak for other Christian faiths (he has called protestant faiths “not true churches” and the other orthodox churches aberrations).
Would all you Americans like to be tarred with the same brush as George W? If not then stop talking about Christianity like it is one single-minded Frankenstein, instead of what it is – thousands of separate and very different faiths with hundreds of millions of believers.
God… I’m not even a Christian and I agree with many of your points, but this bone-headed queer=good religious=bad argument does nothing but drive people apart, and insult many people who support us. I know it offends and saddens me.
getreal
@Charles J. Mueller: First of all I’m not a he. I’m not trying to stay that the “Church” supports gays. There are many churches and denominations and they run the gamut in their treatment of LGBT people. Unfortunately most churches whatever the denomination have a history of persecuting gays (among other populations) and there are many churches we could probably all name that seem to have a vendetta against the gay community and as I type are working to deny American citizens their rights. That being said not all christians are evil, bigoted, crazy etc. as a lot of the posts would have people believe. My points however warm and fuzzy they may be are based on MY experiences. I have been involved in outreach to churches and faith based organizations on behalf of marriage equality and have seen with my own eyes and heard with my own ears how many christians are not only pro-gay marriage but perplexed at churches getting involved in such matters. I understand people being bitter because of their own experiences with christian but it is unrealistic to judge a huge population of people on an extremist segment of their population. It seems very important to some gays and lesbians to hold onto the delusion that all christians hate them and are stupid evil people it makes them feel justified hating people of faith. You said I have monopolized this thread if you were on a thread where people were demonizing gays and lesbians, joking about killing them, and claiming to speak for how ALL of us thought I feel sure you would make your opinions known. My only point has been that not all christians are anti-gay and there are many christians out there gay and straight who are sick of the fundamentalists representing our community and are becoming more vocal,and mobilized on this issue I’m sorry you have never met them but I’m sure if you did you would just assume you were their enemy and pre-judge them.
getreal
@strumpetwindsock: Word!
Bill Perdue
Charles, you aren’t going to convince getreal or the other apologists for superstition. getreal’s been a christian far too long and it shows; getreal doesn’t know the difference between Sweeney Todd’s razor and the guillotine.
Did you see the photo of the US transit bus with the big sign reading Science flies you to the moon. Religion flies you into buildings. It neatly sums up this whole topic.
Our English friends have huge decoratin g the lenght of over 800 buses across England. Link to them at www dot athiestbus dot org dot uk. “ Today …the overall total raised for the Atheist Bus Campaign stands at a truly overwhelming £135,000, breaking our original target of £5,500 by over 2400%. Given this unexpected amount, I’m very excited to tell you that 800 buses – instead of the 30 we were initially aiming for – are now rolling out across the UK with the slogan, “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life”, in locations all over England, Scotland and Wales, including Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, York, Cardiff, Devon, Leeds, Bristol and Aberdeen. .
We need similar campaigns here and in Canada.
strumpetwindsock
@Bill Perdue: FYI they are running the bus campaign in some Canadian cities.
DeWillis Washington
It seems there are some posts here that promote decaptitation and atheism.Out of protest I am going to refrain from cotributing any meaningful comments for the next few hours.
getreal
@DeWillis Washington: No dice you have two things this thread desperately needs a grasps on reality and a sense of humor.
DeWillis Washington
pardon-moi I meant decapitation
Bill Perdue
@DeWillis Washington: @getreal: In poker a pair of dueces is a pretty bad hand. In politics a pair of dunces is even worse.
strumpetwindsock
@Bill Perdue: Bill, why do you insist on taking cheap shots and ridiculing others? Perhaps you think you are impressing people with your repartee but you are actually making yourself look very bad.
Is this just a stunt you pull on the internet where you can be anonymous? I can’t imagine you would have the guts to insult someone like this to his or her face in public.
But back to the issue…
This dogma you espouse is a page out of the same book these Christian anti-defamation bigots take their marching orders from. Can you not see how similar your attitudes are to theirs? You just have a different target, but the hate and the closed-mindedness is the same.
If you honestly think you can wipe religious belief off the face off the face of the earth you are a fool. Smarter and more ruthless people than both of us have tried and failed.
And if you think that removing religion from the earth will forever end homophobia you are an even bigger fool.
Bill Perdue
@strumpetwindsock: Strumpet, try not to be such a twit.
You and you friend getreal the dunce are the ones taking cheap shots. On another thread getreal the dunce accused a man of being a pedophile for admiring photos of a young man. getreal the dunce wants to accuse me of advocating murder but he’s too cowardly. He thinks we hate him but in truth we don’t give a rat’s ass about him or his rants. He claims to be persecuted but in reality it’s the christists and islamist who persecute GLBT people. getreal the dunce has been a christer for too long and its dumbed him down. In spite of that, or perhaps because you admire that you endlessly defend getreal the dunce and other christers. That tells us most of what we need to know about you.
I only look bad to those who have an open (or like you, hidden) proreligious agenda. That’s fine.
I think cults should be kept out of public life, that they should be taxed until they bleed, that child rapists should be punished and that religious schools should be closed. You disagree so you accuse me of hatred etc. to divert the discussion. That too tells us a lot about you.
If you honestly think you can wipe religious belief off the face off the face of the earth you are a fool. And if you think that removing religion from the earth will forever end homophobia you are an even bigger fool. Tell that to someone who believes that. I think superstition and ignorance, aka religion, is a serious threat to human progress and the main enemy of GLBT folks. People like you and the dunce obviously disagree but making up lies about what I think tells us the rest of what we need to know about you.
getreal
@strumpetwindsock: Don’t waste your time I have read your posts and you are too intelligent to understand the level of mind that can’t see the complexity of this issue. I don’t really understand it myself but I do understand it is a waste of time to try to interface with someone who does not have either the intelligence or the compassion to see that life is rarely black and white but usually gray. Someone who sees all people of faith (the hundreds of million of them) as evil people who deserve to be killed is not someone who is going to understand themes of kindness, respect for others or respect for themselves. You can’t expect to get intelligent responses from extremist fundamentalists they have their narrow views and are incapable of learning.He is like so many christian homophobes they have picked an ideology that enables them to be hateful and work out their own feelings of sadness and frustration. I choose to find the humor in the wacky rants of fundamentalists they are usually hilarious.
getreal
The “young man” was underage there were a lot of people who felt uncomfortable with grown men salivating over children. Oops there goes my pesky sense of right and wrong again. LOL
Bill Perdue
Getreal is not telling the truth. Is anyone surprised?
Here are some of his comments.
”This guy looks underage. I’m not a pedophile and I find it creepy when people are attracted to guys who look like children… Thanks for the rationalization (gee I wonder who is a MBLA member on this thread.)… I think your post speaks for itself the person chasing 16 year olds, obsessed with imaginary wood creatures that live in the sky, and anal mucus is the nutjob.”
When people criticized getreal the dunce for sanctimonious prissiness and christist/McCarthyist name calling getreal whined and whimpered. getreal, as he always does when he puts his foot in his mouth and simultaneously shoots himself in the foot, then said “I’m not interesting in having an argument it is silly. Enjoy the rest of your day” and ran home to mommy. getreal’s cowardice is another reason strumpet likes getreal.
Check out the whole exchange at http://www.queerty.com/morning-goods-colter-johnson-20090203/
It’s illuminating.
getreal
Getreal is a she and thinks pedophilia and genocide are wrong and I’m not alone. It is not cowardly to end conversations with people who want to argue not debate. And I agree I think that thread was illuminating and I think most people would find it very interesting.
DeWillis Washington
Fantastic PR for the gay community.We are winning!
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=80743
Worshippers at a Bible-teaching church in Lansing, Mich., were stunned Sunday when members of a pro-homosexual, pro-anarchy organization named Bash Back interrupted their service to fling propaganda and condoms around the sanctuary, drape a profane banner from the balcony and feature two lesbians making out at the pulpit.
According to a blog posting by Nick De Leeuw on Right Michigan, the Bash Back organization orchestrated a protest in front of Mount Hope Church to draw the church’s security staff away from the sanctuary.
Then Bash Backers who had dressed up and mixed in with church worshippers took action.
According to De Leeuw, “Prayer had just finished when men and women stood up in pockets across the congregation, on the main floor and in the balcony.
“‘Jesus was gay,’ they shouted among other profanities and blasphemies as they rushed the stage. Some forced their way through rows of women and kids to try to hang a profane banner from the balcony while others began tossing fliers into the air. Two women made their way to the pulpit and began to kiss,” he wrote.
He cited the Bash Back organization’s own announcement of other items members brought into the church, including “a megaphone, noise makers, condoms, glitter by the bucket load, confetti, pink fabric. …”
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=80743
DeWillis Washington
@Bill Perdue: Since you arbitrarily feel you are of enough superior intellect to catagorize two of the commenters as “dunces” then please be so kind as to skip your interminable stream of twaddle and be concise as well as clearly define your point.You cork-headed Nellie.
strumpetwindsock
@getreal:
Yeah I know, I know. I also noticed he completely avoided my question. I honestly think he is dumping on people in here to make himself feel big. It would be fun to watch him try this in the real world. He’d get pelted with cheesies and shown the door.
And since he has the solution to all our ills I wonder if he is actually doing anything other than ranting online. I also wonder why he is making noise in here telling us how stupid we are instead of challenging his enemies somewhere like:
http://www.freerepublic.com
He might find people of similar temperment there.
But again, back on topic…
I was speculating last night about the underlying causes of discrimination, homophobia and other oppression.
Sure organized religion is the greatest source of oppression in the world, but mainly because it is an easy tool for control and manipulation – and it is so ripe for perversion by power brokers and psychopaths.
But these power brokers have spent much of their energy fighting positive life affirming religions (and even believers within their own congregations). Just because they have been co-opted doesn’t mean there is no such thing as honest spiritual faith.
It’s like saying that because you don’t like your president or prime minister that democracy cannot exist in any form. It’s not a logical conclusion (though it is tempting).
Lets not forget that churches have been a de facto government until our very recent history, when secular governments started moving into areas of social welfare. So yes, they do a lot of bad things (like governments), but they have also fostered medicine, education, science, law, and are so much a part of our culture that trying to separate them is like trying to cut yourself off at the hips.
I don’t think there is any one root cause for discrimination, but certainly it is a lot deeper than the bogeymen Bill is running from. Xenophobia has been hardwired into us since tribal days; unfortunately we are programmed to dislike those whom are not like us. There is also greed, and the fear of scarcity.
And when it comes to sexual politics I think a lot of it can be blamed on the male-centred control which has run this world for millennia. Why else would something which is seen as challenging traditional family structures (and I know that is a false view) be such a threat?
So yes (and I am talking to you now, Bill) I agree that most organized religions are very screwed up, but only because they have been taken over and perverted by much more basic flaws in our character.
Like most problems, the real solution might first involve a good look in the mirror.
getreal
@tallskin: @Bill Perdue: Do these kids deserve to die Bill? Can you look at these photos and honestly tell yourself these kids are your enemy? Look at their signs at least 3 of them are “christers” and they are mad as hell that YOU are being persecuted. I’m not being funny or trying to be anything but genuine just look.
http://www.queerty.com/awesome-kansas-high-school-kids-tell-fred-phelps-where-he-can-shove-his-hate-20090206/120-protest2_me_tll_020509_339fstandaloneprod_affiliate81/
Bill Perdue
@getreal:
Religion is main source of the irrational hatred that leads to the harassment, physical abuse and often the death of GLBT folks, many of them young. It empowers the thugs who beat, kill and maim.
GLBT folks do not reply in kind by beating, killing and maiming christers. That only occurs to christer and other cultists when it’s part of a gang war between sects. Like the one in English occupied northern Ireland where the prots kill the catholics to impose an apartheid regime on them. Or as in the communal warfare the English created when they were forced out of the Indian subcontinent. Or the war between shiites and sunnis which the US whipped into a firestorm of mass murders to divide and rule Iraq.
To the extent that you embrace ignorance and superstition, aka, religion, you and your fellow cultists perpetuate those gruesome turf wars. Are you proud of yourself? I’ll bet you are.
Religion is the reason and the crutch of most wars. It’s evil.
Those children will likely develop into normal sane adults who’ll reject the superstition and ignorance, aka, religion imposed on them in their youth. A tiny few, like you fail to mature and remain genuinely warped with only the most tenuous hold on reality.
Too Bad. So sad.
Seek competent medical help.
getreal
@Bill Perdue: The one who needs help is you . You have a pathological hatred for others. You like the crazy homeless person with tin foil on his head screaming at the top of his lungs that the Pope and the christers are out to get him. You probably ARE that guy. I think it is great you have found a way to hold back your own sadness. Anyone who sees your postings sees a very lonely sad guy who posts hateful things to get attention. Sure some of us here have irrationally tried to have actual discussions with you but all discussions with you end in you insulting or accusing people of being secretly against you and secretly with the christers. I get it hatred of “christers” is your security blanket and it probably keeps your feelings of lonliness at bay the irony is your obession with christianity is so pathological I would bet you push everyone in your life away just like you have pushed away everyone here. I would suggest some charity work maybe if you were doing good you would not be so lonely and so angry at . I can’t imagine what kind of hard life you have had to make you so unhappy and vengeful I’m sorry things have been so hard for you. You can turn things around at any time you could try to choose to be happy there are options for people with depression(I showed your last post to a friend and the first thing she said was depression). I think it is a paranoia disorder you really think all christians are out to get you. That must be very scary if you see someone and look into this the delusions may go away they have all sorts of medications. Good luck!
DeWillis Washington
A sane , logical,and objective reponse on your part.
DeWillis Washington
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