I sit here this morning - it's currently 6:18 in the morning - and I cannot sleep. Like many others, my mind is racing with thoughts, fears, hopes, dreams and all the other noises that distract us from the bliss of sleep. This morning, like so many others, I sit with a knife beside me, wondering if this morning will be the morning I finally pick it up, finally take the plunge and end everything.
It's a common refrain in my life, nowadays. Call it PTSD, call it chronic depression, call it anything you like, I just call it another Sunday morning. And like every morning like it, I hope that writing my thoughts can help me get by. So many stories fill the newspapers, the online blogs, the news channels: stories of teenagers committing suicide, stories of people giving in to despair and depression, stories of states taking tentative steps towards equality only to be bullied and assailed by the lies and distortions of the false prophets who have somehow become the mouthpieces for the faithful, and far too often, those stories end up in tragedy. 'Queer' men and women, 'queer' boys and girls who just can't take the atmosphere of hate, revulsion and fear that we see all around us. Certainly, there are positive outlets - movies and TV have finally stopped portraying gays and lesbians as predators or as pathetic jokes. More and more, gays, lesbians, and the others who make up the rainbow of sexual minorities are being portrayed as humans in the media. This is a good thing, and a positive step, to be certain, but it's not enough to dispel the mood that permeates America - and much of the world - today.
Too often, teenagers, despite the bombardment of positive imagery in music, TV and movies still give up. Too often, parents are left wondering what they missed, what they could have changed, what they could have done. And too often, they miss the most obvious answer. As adults, as Americans, we have not only an opportunity to shape a better world, but a responsibility to do so. And too often, we allow others to make those decisions for us, assuming that they mean well, that their hearts are in the right place, and we go on about our lives, ignoring the realities that surround us, that affect us and our children.
There is a poison in the world today, and it is subtle, it is more dangerous because, though we are all aware of it, we allow it to fester inside the body politic. I know that if you are reading this, you assume that I am going to blame this religion, or that philosophy, and in a way, you are right, but in the ways that matter, you couldn't be more wrong. The poison cloaks itself in the guise of religion, but it is not godly, it is not holy. It is vile, it is toxic, and it is killing people. The Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Islam & the countless denominations of Christianity) sadly are the most fertile soil in which this poison settles, and it's high time we, the people of faith and those without, acknowledge this and stop allowing it to go unaddressed. I am not Muslim, nor am I Jewish, so I will leave the analysis of the poison in those religions to those who are more knowledgeable than I am. I am not a theologian, nor am I a pastor, but I am a seeker of truth, as I think most of us are, and so, I write this from that perspective.
As a man who was raised Christian, who has known many wonderful, deeply faithful people of the Christian faith, and as a gay man, I often get heated in my responses to so-called 'pro-family' rhetoric. Certainly this can be dangerous, as it leads me to cross lines of decorum; it causes those I seek to reach to often write me off as just another rabid Christian hater. I - and I know I am not alone in this - can see quite clearly the wickedness of these men who claim to speak for all of Christianity while ignoring the very words of the man they claim to worship. I can see how their bastardization of the Bible's teachings have turned - and indeed ARE turning - hearts and minds against the GOOD that Christianity can do, and it saddens me to see it. In the future, I'm sure I will continue offending these men and women, and I will not apologize for my passion in defense of truth. It is BECAUSE of this passion that I cannot stand to see corrupted a faith that, at its heart, is so beautiful. The rational, compassionate person I was raised to be by followers of Jesus cannot abide the lies and distortions and manipulations of those who claim to speak for God while doing exactly the opposite.
How I long for the day when those who actually respect and follow the teachings of Christ stop letting the hate and fear-filled minority speak for them. People like Maggie Gallagher and Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage, Peter Sprigg and Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, Pete LaBarbera of the anti-gay lobbying group AFTAH, and many others who get away with ridiculously hateful rhetoric that would never be acceptable were they talking about religious faith, skin color, or physical gender. The things they say with such blissfully un-ironic expressions on their smug faces are, by any reckoning, lies, distortions of the truth and abuse of the language designed to stir up fear and anger against a minority BY a minority. These men do NOT represent Christ, and they do not represent Christianity, but they are allowed to SPEAK as if they do because they garner ratings. They stir up controversy. With every word they speak, every lie and distortion they utter through poisonous smiles that goes unchallenged by the newscasters and moderators who host them, they feed into a culture of fear and violence that claims lives. Oh, they will claim that they never TELL anyone to act out violently, but the tone they use, the words they DON'T say...these are as important as the words they DO. They hide behind the guise of religious freedom and freedom of speech and they pollute the dialogue in direct and indirect ways. This loud and wealthy minority drums up fear as a means of enriching themselves, not out of any desire to better the world. A quick web search of their own words proves this. They stir up controversy over anything that goes against their narrow interpretation of Biblical passages that have been translated and re-translated so many times that their original meanings - cultural and linguistic, both - are often lost amidst all the rhetoric, yet they hide this reasoning behind claims of medicine and 'love' for their targets.
*Tony Perkins has equated gay people with pedophiles and said that the spate of gay teen suicides were not due to the societal pressures that people like him exacerbate, but because the victims knew they were 'abnormal'.
*Pete LaBarbera touts the summarily discredited 'research' of Paul Cameron regarding sexual partnering and diseases among gay males, ignoring the YEARS of research that has debunked Mr. Cameron and the fact that he has been removed from every major medical organization he was affiliated with.
*NOM claims to have no problem with homosexuals, yet in every state they sleaze their way into, they mass-produce pamphlets, commercials and sound bites designed to goad the uneducated and the faithful alike into fearing the evils of homosexuality. They target the older generations, those who are religious (as long as it's the right religion, mind you), and those who are less inclined to research claims made by supposedly reputable organizations with prestigious sounding names.
And yet all of them claim they do these things out of 'love' for the homosexual and a 'desire to spread the word that one does not have to be homosexual,' a claim that has been, like all the rest, thoroughly debunked by every reputable medical and psychological body.
And yet, they are still invited to speak at fundraisers. They are still welcomed in churches. They are granted non-profit status and are called 'charities'. They influence politicians with the money they leech from the gullible and the faithful and the fearful. And they are given platforms from which to infect the minds of viewers and listeners in the name of "fair and balanced' reporting, as if any of these news programs would allow the Aryan Brotherhood, the KKK, the White Patriot Party, or even Fred Phelps' little cult of lunatics a similar platform.
The SPLC has classified the American Family Association, AFTAH, The Family Research Council and several others as anti-gay hate groups, a classification that puts these groups in the same category as the KK, and yet, they are given national platforms from which to spread their hate, and not a word is spoken to counteract their lies. They lie, they demean, and they foment violent attitudes - if not outright violence - against the 'queer' community, all in the name of Jesus Christ.
But what did Christ actually have to say on the matter? Well, he spoke quite plainly about what really mattered to God: One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these.” - Mark 12:28-31
In all his purported time on this earth, Jesus spoke not one word for or against gay marriage in any of his teachings. Why? Because such a concept was simply not understood in a time when the only thing that mattered was having as many babies as possible to work the farms and tend the stalls. There is no Biblical equivalent of gay couples as we understand them today, because until recently, there was not enough science, research or cultural awareness to EXPLAIN such a thing, though it most certainly existed. Men who openly slept with men did so for religious reasons, as described in the much-quoted (out of context) Leviticus 18:22, or as a display of power and control over other men, as well as to humiliate and demean those over whom one was displaying such power, as described in the famous Sodom & Gomorrah scene - which Jesus mentioned and explicitly stated the sin that got those cities burned...and 'the gays' played no part in it - and throughout the history of antiquity.
"Confirmed Bachelor", "Spinster Aunt", "Dandy", "Fop", "Shaman", "Witch, "Monk", "Eunuch" and more...these are only some of the many names used to describe gay people throughout history. Only recently have we stopped allowing other people to define us. Only recently in human history, in this country and beyond, has science and culture begun to be allowed to look beyond the closed-minded blindness of religious orthodoxy and towards a future when a man (or woman) is judged not by what church he belongs to, what color his skin is, or what gender he falls in love with and marries.
Study after study shows that society is drifting away from the uninformed opinion fostered by the artifacts of Dark Ages theology that hide within the greater body of faith. Study after study disproves their ignorant claims regarding gay and lesbian couples "destroying" marriage. Studies prove again and again that children raised by gays and lesbians do just as well as, if not better than, children raised in 'traditional' homes. And surveys indicate that rather than seek to reconcile the lies and thinly disguised hatred of the vocal minority within the faith, the younger generation is leaving their churches in droves. "Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold." - Matthew 24:12
In the end, what it all comes to this: What is more important? Continuing to allow liars and bigots to co-opt Christ and spread the exact opposite of his message, or embrace reality - which is NOT the enemy of faith, no matter what the hateful minority will tell you - and teach the message of Christ as He spoke it Himself - "For there are these three things that endure: Faith, Hope and Love, but the greatest of these is Love." - 1 Corinthians 13:13
