As far as I am concerned, it’s always a good thing when religious right figures trot their hypocrisies out in the public square.
My only concern is that we as a community don’t take advantage of this more. Take former Family Research Council head Janet Parshall for example:
The above excerpt is from a ridiculous documentary she filmed with the American Family Association in 2009 entitled Speechless – Silencing the Christians. The documentary, with her as the host, makes inaccurate charges that gay equality will lead to the silencing and “persecution” of Christians. As you hear her ramble, please be aware that many of her claims are false, but I am sure you already know that.
But what I take from it is the false theme of “persecution” Parshall trots out. Using it, she implies the gay community are the aggressors. That we are the ones who use threats and ugly language against those we oppose.
It’s a bizarre thing to take in when one listens to a recent interview Parshall conducted with FRC’s Peter Sprigg and hear her claiming that marriage equality is a creation of Satan.
In case you need to keep to itemize certain realities, Parshall believes that gays gaining any form of equality is dangerous to Christians’ rights of free speech. But her calling marriage equality a tool of the devil is right on.
Parshall’s hypocrisy reminds me of the Kirk Cameron controversy earlier this year when he attacked gays, was criticized heavily for it, and then pleaded victimhood while hiding behind his so-called Christian beliefs.
And it made me realize a point which we hardly discuss.
To Parshall, Cameron, and other religious right talking heads and organizations, it’s not enough for them to feel the negative way they do about the gay community. They seem to not only be angling to denigrate us unchallenged but also want their world view of homosexuality to be the prevalent view.
Think about it. Every time there is something which remotely puts the gay community in a positive light, these people and their groups trot out a stupid argument in which they push offensive phraseology like:
“Americans don’t want the gay agenda rammed down their throat,” or “parents don’t want their children indoctrinated in the homosexual lifestyle.”
The way they talk, the gay community sound like we are not Americans, we don’t pay taxes, we aren’t raising children, and we have no say whatsoever in the making of the laws which would govern our lives.
Let me put it as succinct as possible. People like Janet Parshall and organizations like the American Family Association want to control our lives. They want to put us in a box of sadness and self-hatred, where we settle for dangerous fumblings in public restrooms and parks for good relationships. Where we are content to grow old and alone because we feel that we are not worthy of creating families. Where we accept whatever so-called “tolerance” they give us because we feel that we don’t deserve dignity.
Sorry guys, but I feel safe in speaking for the vast, vast majority of the gay community when I say get over yourselves.
You see, many of us have had that taste of sweet champagne which comes with the revelation that we are worthy of equality. And when you taste that champagne of equality, you don’t go back to the bitter, lukewarm water of low self-esteem and self-denial.
You don’t settle for a place in the corner when you have just discovered that you are part owner of the castle.
So my advice to the Janet Parshalls of the worlds, the Peter Spriggs, the American Family Associations is simple:
Give it up. Turn it loose. Because sooner or later, equality will be ours, regardless of you.




17 Comments


i never looked at it this way. Thank you.
Oh, no — nothing so joyous and affirming and humane as
Given their druthers, they’d have us in boxcars on the way to camps. This I believe.
Oh, come on. Churches, practically all of them, already have gay employees Think of it. If every gay pianist and organist resigned from every church in America, all the churches would have to convert to being Churches of Christ, where they don’t allow instrumental music.
Not just gay people, everyone who doesn’t feel the burning need to force other people how to live their lives the way that these people do, people who are smart enough to know when they are being played for suckers so that money gets donated, and/or anyone with an ounce of human compassion aren’t buying that nonsense either.
I’ve always said that if I don’t have the same rights and benefits as non LGBT Americans, why the hell is my tax burden the same, (or heavier since I don’t have children)? I didn’t attack the people who fractured my skull and broke my ribs. I didn’t offer to leave the service with an OTH discharge because I am transgendered. These people piss me off daily, yet I don’t invest one 1/1,000,000th the rhetoric and hyperbole against them that they do against me. Can anybody wonder why it was exclusively the religious right that pushed me from skeptical agnostic to full blown anti theist?
Do they never really listen to their own words? “School children will be taught that homosexuality is normal, moral…” Can’t have that, but I realize they believe that to be true. But she goes on to claim churches will be forced to hire homosexuals…you know, because we’ll get us a quota I guess, but most of all she talks about the passage of ENDA meaning that “christian businesses,” whatever those are, will (again with the lies) be forced to hire homosexuals, and once they do, they’ll have to, “create a non-offensive work environment.” Seriously, you object to that lady. Bless your heart, please drop the whole thing about being a Christian if you’re fighting for the rights of some business owner to create an “offensive” work environment.
I have a preacher friend (methodist) who says he and his church are fully supportive of gay people and finds it offensive not to be. He even supports abortion in some circumstance. The world is changing. Catch on or go to that dust bin over there.
Smart churches know this.
this has to do with homos, damn homos. ok time for bed.
Is Janet one of those self-loathing gays? I don’t claim to have gaydar and I’ve been mistaken many times before about people’s preferences, but she really strikes me as someone fighting her own demons. There has to be some reason that someone could argue (paraphrase): “…they are asking to be treated fairly, and we have to stop them!”
The good news is gay marriage has taken all the steam of rage out of Justice Thomas marrying and having sex with a white woman…
Perhaps the next civil rights cause is going after the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act of 1862 to restore religious liberty to Mitt Romney and his clan. Wonder how Justice Thomas thinks of the two Supreme Court rulings giving Congress the power to dictate church doctrine.
When Warren Jeffs is just one of many Mormons with multiple wives, conservative Evangelical gay couples will be picketing and rallying opposition to plural marriage.
“WE’VE EXPOSED THE PLOT”
LOL
This is what happens when mix too much fucking religion with too many fucking idiots. What’s next, preacher-on-dog sex? Maybe I should ask Pat, Robert’s son, about that one.
The UMC has had what they call “reconciling congregations” for years — there’s one in my old neighborhood (not surprising — that’s Chicago’s Boys’ Town) that has always been welcoming — their sign even has a rainbow on it.
Agreed. But there are other theistic paths that do not live on and by hatred. There are even some non-Christian theistic paths that more closely embrace the teachings in the mythology of Jesus than “Christianity” does. But I found spiritual fulfillment in polytheistic Neo-Paganism.
Still I do believe that Christianity can only clean itself from within. Sometimes I wish I stayed within those walls, to fight the cancer and rot where it is rather than throw stones at it from without. But it didn’t make sense to do it for the sake of Christianity. It’s the rest of society that can’t take their hatred and bullshit anymore. And that’s not limited to the LGBT community. These friggin’ people need to be quarantined somehow.
For these reasons, I prefer Unitarian Universalism.
I have attended UMC services at the solitary church in my town (Unitarians were run out of this town years ago by the Right)
The UMC church is welcoming and open, and although the minister happens to be a lesbian, this is beside the point. Her sermons are intelligent, and based on current issues of social conscience.