God bless free press, huh?
Focus on The Family’s Mike Haley takes to right wing Breakaway Magazine this month to “debunk” the ever-pressing “gay myths,” including the gays’ nagging insistence that their relationships matter.
Myth #3: Homosexual relationships are no different than heterosexual ones. Homosexual advocates want their relationships to be treated the same as heterosexual ones, enjoying legal rights to marriage and adoption. And some gays really do love each other.
Haley deconstructs this so-called fabrication with the usual conservative tools: religious fear! Apparently our gay ways make God unhappy and to say otherwise is a “mockery of God’s divine act of creation and His ordination of marriage”.
Here’s the PageOneQ-obtained article in handy-dandy – and a bit blurry – thumbnail form. Not safe for the easily infuriated.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Rowen
The research present in this article is about as much done for a Wikipedia entry. A Washington Post article, ONE gay guy and “many studies?” Hell, I’m convinced!!
CitizenGeek
Oh, those Christians are at it again!
I’m so happy religion is dying a slow, painful death here in Europe.
dr.resol
Pah…it’s not so enraging for me to read, it’s the same religious propaganda I was subjected to growing up. The saddest part is, there are teenagers out there right now in Christian homes who are homosexuals (much like me several years ago) and they’ll pick this magazine up and read this article. It will only further drive them into depression and desperation, not to mention confusion. While at the same time, it will have the opposite affect on his/her parents, further cementing their beliefs about homosexuals. The end result is propaganda like this divides families and ruins relationships. In the most extreme cases, it could drive a young homosexual in a religious home to suicide.
eschewv
What struck me was the “changeability” part. That’d certainly hurt sales of ‘Ex-Gay’ materials and counseling services if homosexuality were some kind of innate characteristic, no?
Better a destroyed psyche at the hands of sanctimonious manipulators than a happy, productive life as a homosexual, no?
Ugh. Is human misery the product or the price?
Sam Osbourne
Haha, certain sections of that article amuse me.
It claims:
Myth:10% of the population is homosexual
Fact: Only 2-3% of sexually active males and 1-2% of sexually active females are currently engaging in same-gender sex.
But what’s their point? You don’t have to be sexually active to be homosexual, heterosexual or bisexual, it is, believe it or not, possible to be gay without regularly fucking men.
That my darlings is called a spin!
Jason
Hey Mike, sorry your vengeful super-hero who lives in the sky is such an asshole. Maybe it’s time you chose a new invisible friend.
REBELComx
Gay Myth 1 – 10% is actualy too LOW a number. Since Kinsey’s study found that no one is totally one or the other. Most people are somewhere in the middle, making the vast majority of the population BI-SEXUAL. only 10% of Americans IDENTIFY themselves as homosexual. All the others think they’re straight and end up getting off in men’s bathrooms like Larry Craig.
Gay Myth 2 – There’s much more evidence to support that human beings are born gay. There’s no way to prove if or WHY it would be a choice. And even if it is a Choice…
Gay Myth 3 – It not does not matter in today’s society. Homosexuality does not hurt another person and is not destructive to society. In fact, some of the greatest acheivements bettering society have been made by the gays. Such a “choice” would be ours to make and should be recognized as such by the government, allowing us the same rights. We do not live in a theocracy, much to Haley’s dismay.
NOW…
Christian Myth 1 – God actualy exists – There is far more evidence through archeology to show that it is MAN who created god, and not the other way around. Prehistoric man, being new in intelect and seeking ways to control and understand their world, developed shamanism which developed into religion which spread differently throughout the world. I wonder where the Neanderthal fits into the Genesis time line…Did Adam have a prominent brow and sloping forehead? Archeology and paleantology also suggest that it was the GAYS who were the first priests. Third world tribes behave much as prehistoric man did, chosing noticable homosexuals as their medecine men and shamans. THey see them as having two spirits and therefore being more powerful and perfect. This means that ancient shamans were the queers, queers created religion, therefore queers created god (what were we thinkin?).
Christian Myth 2 – Leviticus still matters – Christians who site the Bible to fight the gay rights movement most often use Leviticus laws as evidence of God’s will. They conveniently forget that these are ancient Hebrew taboos which do not apply to them, as the vast majority of christians are GENTILES. God said to Peter that the gentiles who accepted christ would NOT be expected to follow ancient hebrew law, but their own culture’s. Since most of the early christian converts were Roman and Romans were fine with homosexuality, so was the early church. Peter even MARRIED a pair of Roman soldiers shortly before they were martyred and then made saints.
Christian Myth 3 – American Laws are God’s Laws – Um…no. American Colonial laws were based on British common laws which were based on ROMAN common laws long before Rome became Christianized. These common laws are systems of rules and laws which appeal to BASIC HUMAN STANDARDS. Thou shalt not kill is NOT strictly a judeo-christian concept…these types of laws exist is ALL cultures. Furthermore, the key people we recognize as our founding fathers were mostly Deists. They beleived in A god and that Jesus was a real person and a good man and teacher, but that he was NOT the son of god and did not work miracles. Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, Washington – Deists. Also, without the enormous amount of help of one great Prussian general, who was gay, we wouldn’t have organized the army properly, wouldn’t have won the revolution, and wouldn’t be the country we are today.
fergumi
The 2-3% survey has been debunked by many as the survey was not constructed correctly thus skewing the results. As always, the Christian Right is using errant facts to support their control over the flock.
Also, notice how they site the “Science is fact” — but they don’t pull that one out when they are speaking about Evolution vs. Creationism. At this time, science can’t prove there is a gay gene, but it can prove there isn’t a “divine hand” at work in the creation of man.
Alacer
I love how they don’t once actually disprove any of those three myths. Good work Mike, that essay has to have the most logical fallacies on any two page span, ever.
Nikko
excellent piece, REBELMCX, …BUT Leviticus law never mattered.How can it when it advocates stoning homosex to death and other outrageous draconian rules?! It’s not like it says “have your gay sex but don’t stop procreating” or something like that.
Ellie
“The saddest part is, there are teenagers out there right now in Christian homes who are homosexuals (much like me several years ago) and they’ll pick this magazine up and read this article. It will only further drive them into depression and desperation, not to mention confusion.”
Would ‘amen’ be appropriate?
I’m a sixteen-year-old lesbian living with a southern, conservative, Baptist family. I still have magazines like this one lying around somewhere—they don’t even bother making up new bullshit. It’s the same old distilled hatred in every article. I’ve been through the confusion and the depression. It still shows up on especially bad days. If there was a benevolent god, he’d torch Focus on the Family off the face of the earth.
“There’s no way to prove if or WHY it would be a choice.”
I’ve always wondered how these straight boys think this through. If they love pussy so much, why would ANY of them give it up for other guys, permanently, and have a side of discrimination and religious bigotry while they’re at it? (Obviously, with lesbians, it’s just man-hating unwillingness to shave our legs and get back in the kitchen where we belong. Note the sarcasm.)
But honestly, I’d like to sit some fundies down and have them explain to me how, as a sheltered Christian child, I had quiet idealistic fantasies about growing up and settling down with a nice girl. I was homeschooled—I didn’t know what homosexuality /was/. Please, please, please, explain to me how I chose to be gay at eight years old. Anyone.
“As always, the Christian Right is using errant facts to support their control over the flock.”
All the while accusing gays of the same. They could at least be inventive about it, but I guess that’s asking a little much of them. There’s only so much bullshit you can come up with to hide an indefensible stance, even when you’re not using your invisible buddy as a crutch.
Joe
Oh… Breakaway. I let this magazine inform my knowledge of homosexuality and theology for longer than I should have. Thankfully taking AP Psychology last year, with a textbook written by an intelligent, sympathetic, Christ-like Christian named David G. Myers, did wonders to affirm and clarify my existence as both a homosexual and a Christ follower. Myers’ book “What God Has Joined Together: The Christian Case for Gay Marriage” is a must read; it balances fair and honest arguments, unlike this atrocious bit of child abuse. Please check out his website: http://www.davidmyers.org/Brix?pageID=16.
And please don’t think all Christians are like this. My wonderful parents stopped giving to Focus on the Family a few months before I came out to them, and to this day I love to tear up [and recycle] all of James Dobsons’ foolish solicitations for renewed assistance in fighting against my happiness.
Also, any ‘mos who have been disillusioned by the Christian church should do all they can to see “For the Bible Tells Me So.” A large section of the film addresses Dobson’s war on gay kids and their families (the “Focus on OUR family!” scene had tears in my eyes.)
Speaking from personal, subjective experience: when I came out to God in prayer, I felt nothing but love… and as far as I’ve known, God is nothing if not love.
God bless.
Joe
Better link: http://www.davidmyers.org/Brix?pageID=16 (the period at the end was a mistake)
Also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajBR0dq0XXk (For the Bible… trailer)
Funk Republic
The comments for this article don’t get any more canned and scripted. Is this really the best gays can do? If so it’s really sad and pathetic. Then again being gay is sad and pathetic.
Nikko
Hey Funk Republic, speak for yourself, loser.