Gay-Hatin' Gospel (pt. 2)

The Bible gives us the word "shibboleth,"* but the Bible is more than a book of shibboleths. So how did gay-hatin' come to be the "most-common perception" of Christianity?

Theory No. 2: Inner Demons

This theory has the virtue of being true. Or, at least, of being true in some cases -- some very notable, high-profile cases.

The idea here is that many of the loudest, angriest and most single-minded preachers of the anti-gay gospel doth protest too much. They are self-loathing closet cases, denouncing homosexuality because they are homosexuals and they hate this about themselves. From Roy Cohn to Ted Haggard and Larry Craig, there are dozens of verifiable examples of this dynamic -- and many, many more suspected but unconfirmed cases.

Only Sayin' provides an excellent summary of this theory, along with a rundown of some of the more notable recent examples, in a post titled, "Why Social Conservatives Can't Keep It in Their Pants.

But for a succinct summary of this dynamic, you can't beat this from Ted Haggard himself:

"There is a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I've been warring against it all of my adult life."

So, clearly, this is a real phenomenon. We've seen so many examples of this lately, so many self-loathing closet cases exposed as members of the anti-gay leadership, that it reminds me of that scene in The Man Who Was Thursday, when the protagonist succeeds in infiltrating the secret society of anarchists only to look around the table and realize that every single member of its leadership is, like him, an undercover police officer

Yet despite the startlingly large number of cases, it's surely not quite as pervasive as Thursday's dilemma. It can't be true that every officer in the anti-gay army is secretly a member of the group it seeks to oppose. The religious right/social conservative movement certainly seems to include a larger-than-average number of closeted homosexuals in its leadership, but even if the movement is gayer than Disney World, we're still only talking about a minority of its leaders and followers (a significant minority, but still less than half).

A significant number of leading social conservatives also seem to be warring against inner demons that have nothing to do with homosexuality. These folks are tormented by an impressive variety of freaky heterosexual appetites. Consider Sen. Vitter's alleged diaper-play with prostitutes. Or the deeply sad case of the former aide to Jerry Falwell who was found dead due to a baroque autoerotic asphyxia mishap.** The interesting thing about these folks is that instead of lashing out at those who share their particular appetites, like Ted Haggard did, they turn their animosity toward homosexuals too. I can't begin to explain the psychology at work in this bit of substitution, but in their case it seems something like a mix of the inner demon theory and the safe target theory is at work.

The repressed and tortured psyches of Ted Haggard and David Vitter also don't explain why so many have been willing to follow these leaders in their "warring against" their inner demons. They can't all be self-loathing closet cases. Nor does this theory explain why others with apparently milquetoast, plain-vanilla sexual appetites -- people like Pat Robertson or the late Jerry Falwell -- should be even more vociferous in their condemnations of the Big Gay Menace. For them it seems less a matter of self-loathing and projection than simply your garden-variety hatin' on the outsider.

So while I'm certain that the inner demons theory is valid in many particular cases, I think it's more of a contributing factor than a sufficient explanation of the entire phenomenon of gay-hatin's newfound prominence as the central perception of American Christianity.

Next up, the theory favored by the gay-haters themselves: The Innocent Backlash.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

* The condensed version of the story, from Judges 12:

"Art thou an Ephraimite?"
"Um, no?"
"Say 'shibboleth.'"
"Sibboleth."
"Aha! Die Ephraimite!"
"Oh sit."

** At least we can say, as they always do of mountain-climbers or skiing casualties, that he died doing something he loved. General rules here, kids: 1) Always have a spotter, and 2) If it takes more than 10 minutes of prep time, you're probably doing it wrong. The intricacies of this poor soul's preparations calls to mind a line from Prick Up Your Ears:

"Have a wank? Have a wank? I can't just have a wank. I need three days' notice to have a wank. ... It's like organizing D-Day. Forces have to be assembled, magazines bought ..."

Of course that story didn't end well either. Both are tragedies posing as black comedies. The Rev. Aldridge, after all, didn't really die doing something he loved, but something he hated, yet couldn't stop himself from doing. (The second wet suit, after all, suggests that the first one wasn't really doing it for him.) Unable to come to terms with his own inner freak, he declared war on everybody else's. Misery loves company, they say, though the sad truth is misery is pretty miserable no matter how much of it you manage to inflict or project on others.

Comments

[Painini]

The interesting thing about these folks is that instead of lashing out at those who share their particular appetites, like Ted Haggard did, they turn their animosity toward homosexuals too.

I imagine they're still projecting their shame for being 'deviant,' but can't find the chapter and verse to condemn their kinks.

[KnightHawk]

...gayer than Disney World. I have to admit, that made me laugh.

Love. Peace. Metallica.

[Rozzen]

The self-hatred of the closet case is a good reason for homophobia, but it can't exist in a vacuum. So the problem with it isn't so much that closet cases are necessarily a minority, but that you need a reason for why they would be self-hating, why they would consider homosexuality (or their other kinks) to be a dark and ugly part of themselves. So you come back to the original question : why do Christians hate gays ? (hey, I'm simplifying ok ? do you want this sentence to be ten lines long or what ?)

I'm sure the answer will come in a few posts ^^

[Seminarian]

The attempt to blame entire social movements on the psychology of one of it's founding members is a tactic I've run into on occasion, and I think it confuses more than it explains. Clearly, not an entire cultural construct cannot be based on the personal problems of a single person, since pretty much everyone has personal problems and some would even love for everyone to agree with them about their delusions, but not everyone is successful in creating widespread social change. Martin Luther may well have posted his 95 theses out of a fear of disappointing his father, and Hitler may have been written Mein Kampf as a response to the rejections of his early adulthood, but unless all Germans had the same formative experiences, it doesn't really explain how the two men's ideas entered the collective consciousness. I see the personal psychology angle as a rather distracting red herring then, taking focus away from the trickier question of why societies pick up ideas that seem contrary to decency and reason, and instead focusing on the easy game of speculating on an individual person's motivation.

[Rozzen]

Btw, my favorite version of the "shibboleth" story is a lateral thinking puzzle :

"Tim and Greg were talking. Tim said, "The terror of flight." Greg said, "The gloom of the grave." Greg was arrested."

Solution :
"Greg is a German spy during World War II. Tim, an American, is suspicious of him, so he plays a word-association game with him. When Tim says, "The land of the free," Greg says, "The home of the brave." When Tim says, "The terror of flight," Greg says, "The gloom of the grave." Any U.S. citizen would know the first verse of the national anthem, but only a spy would have memorized the third."

There is such a thing as overpreparation :p

[Edo]

"Art thou an Ephraimite?"
"Um, no?"
"Say 'shibboleth.'"
"Sibboleth."
"Aha! Die Ephraimite!"
"Oh sit."

Thank you, Fred, for the first LOL of the day.

[Jeff]

I would have arrested Tim as a Japanese spy. Obviously, the correct phrase is "The terror of fRight". But then, I've proved your point about Merkins not knowing the words to the National Anthem.

[Richard Hershberger]

This story really belongs in the previous post, but what the heck. It is in support of the "easy target" theory.

My local megachurch (or what passes as such) has a bunch of "sermons" that you can listen to online. The three I downloaded weren't actually sermons at all, but mid-week lectures on the topic of divorce. This is always an interesting test for Evangelicals, since our culture has broadly accepted divorce and any large church will have innumerable divorced people in it.

The first thing that struck me about these lectures was that the pastor was a terrible public speaker. One normally associates good speaking skills with such people, but this guy was really not good. The lectures were quite dull and rambling aimlessly. One of the three was on the text where Jesus says that the only grounds for divorce is adultery. This guy spent forty-five minutes to come to the conclusion that what Jesus meant by that is that the only grounds for divorce is adultery.

Through these lectures you could tell there were people in the seats from incidental background noise, but it was largely just sitting and listening and occasional nervous shuffling. Then the pastor dredged up the line about "Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve" and there was palpably relieved laughter. Of course the line was at best tangentially related to the topic at hand, but hearing talk about why they should not do something they might have done in the past or want to do in the future (and which certainly had been done by family members or friends) made these people nervous. A chance to hear talk about not doing something they didn't want to do anyway was much more to their liking.

[Spiders Everywhere]

I'd be pretty surprised if the majority of people have never ever had a moment of attraction to a gender they’re normally not interested in. A well adjusted person can take the occasional unbidden “hey, nice ass” thought in stride, but for the insecure I expect it becomes something more like not thinking about elephants. So I’d say this theory could be broadly applicable even if most of the people in question are primarily heterosexual.

[nieciedo]

"Greg is a German spy during World War II. Tim, an American, is suspicious of him, so he plays a word-association game with him. When Tim says, "The land of the free," Greg says, "The home of the brave." When Tim says, "The terror of flight," Greg says, "The gloom of the grave." Any U.S. citizen would know the first verse of the national anthem, but only a spy would have memorized the third.

But why does Tim know that verse? Hmmm? Any Greg could just be an American geek with way too much time on his hands...like me.

I also know seven verses of La Marseillaise, five of The Internationale, three each of Amhran na bhFiann, Deutschlandlied, and The Hymn of the Soviet Union..

And the national anthem of Liechtenstein! :-)

[Spalanzani]

This is very nitpicky, but I must point out that there is no such scene as Fred describes in The Man Who Was Thursday . Instead, only one of the seven leading anarchists is identified as a police inflitrator during the initial meeting scene, and by Sunday, not Syme. Syme then finds out that the rest (save Sunday) are police inflitrators one by one in a series of adventures. Then the six of them go confront Sunday, who turns out to be...well, that would spoil the book. I'd advise anyone to go out and read it if they haven't already.

[MikailBorg]

"Tim and Greg were talking. Tim said, "The terror of flight." Greg said, "The gloom of the grave." Greg was arrested."

From one of Issac Asimov's "Union Club Mysteries", though the individual title escapes me.

[sophia8]

Somebody should have pointed the Rev Aldridge to his local BDSM dungeon. Safe fetish play is what they're for, and the professional ones are very discreet.

[rm]

Shibboleth, Schmibbowef . . . hey, put away that sword.

[Raka]

Notice how tawdry almost all of these closet cases are. Very rarely do you hear of some prominent jeremiadalist carrying on a surreptitious, long-term, deeply meaningful love-that-dare-not-speak-its-name.

Some of that is no doubt due to the fact that drug-addled whore-orgies are more likely to explode publicly than discreet-yet-smoldering gazes across the conference table. And when the situation has become public, "senatorial toilet love" sells more papers than "forbidden love not really all that much fun for anyone involved".

Still, it seems like there might be some truth to idea of absolutism as a perversion-accelerant. I first heard this during the big Catholic clergy molestation scandal: if your philosophy is largely binary (good/bad, black/white), it's easy to perceive your own natural and inevitable shortcomings as an absolute failure. The standard responses are denial, projection (it's their fault for making me be attracted to them), and justification (my abortion is necessary and acceptable, all others are the result of sinful and irresponsible sluts). But when those mechanisms don't suffice, you face the fact that this desire is truly an aspect of yourself. Many people gain strength and understanding from this experience. Others, however, find a sort of liberation in despair. If I am depraved, then let me revel in it! If the line between good and evil is singular and clear, and I am on the wrong side of it, then everything on this side is fair game. If the desires I cannot expunge are monstrous, then let me justify their presence by behaving monstrously, indulging in the most sordid aspects of my sin. And if I can do all this without consequences, let me take pride in this power. Let my weakness become a strength, for I have delved into the darkness and I know more of the world than those sheep around me.

It may not be valid psychology, but it's fine melodrama.

[Jon]

From one of Issac Asimov's "Union Club Mysteries", though the individual title escapes me.

"No Refuge Could Save" is the title that comes up in a cursory Web search. I remember reading that story many years ago, but wasn't 100% sure it was Asimov (though I was reasonably certain).

[Doctor Science]

They can't all be self-loathing closet cases

Yes they can. If *all* sexual feelings are to some degree evil and even Satanic, then everyone has things to repress, deny, and project. And they project them onto homosexuals because they seem to be having the most fun and fewest consequences.

[MikeJ]

And the national anthem of Liechtenstein!

Then some with beer, and some with wine
They toasted their new country, and called it Liechtenstein!

Oh wow. I may have stumbled across a bit of pop culture knowledge that is ungooglable. UnGoogle-able. Unable to be googleated. Googlized. Can anybody find the source of the doggerel I posted?

[Ursula L]

National Anthem of Lichtenstein:

http://david.national-anthems.net/li.htm

[Doctor Science]

Raka:

Jim McGreevey, Democratic former Governor of NJ, makes an interesting comparison case. The relationship that broke his career was an actual *relationship* (however ill-chosen and -pursued), and since leaving office he's come out & settled down with a male partner. His closeting seems to have been much more due to being IMHO a coward, but on a *personal* level, not as a matter of policy.

[hapax]

Hoch lebe Liechtenstein,
Blühend am jungen Rhein,
Glücklich und treu.
Hoch leb'der Fürst vom and Land,
Hoch unser Vaterland,
Durch Buderliebe-Band
Vereint und frei.

You know, that's an anthem I could get behind. Some nice imagery, achievable aspirations, and not a whiff of "bombs bursting in air" or "the blood of the impure watering our furrows."

And I could almost even carry the tune.

[Friend Computer]

And in the future, they will be Commie Mutant Traitors, who must be detained for termination.

Thank you for your cooperation.

[MikeJ]

It is a lovely anthem, but it doesn't mention toasting with beer or wine.

[Cowboy Diva]

The homosexual closet in 20th century US is such a fascinating place; yes there are people like Roy Cohn who hated themselves for who they were/are, but there are also people like Barbara Jordan who held office as a pioneer from Texas, and had a LTR no one really knew about until she died .
What is it about modern evangelical Christianity in the US that creates such self-hatred rather than celebrating the expression of love? I think seriously that Christianity needs to rethink the concept of sin, especially as it relates to the Kingdom of Heaven (cf. Mark 1:14-15). I think the view of most evangelicals that the goal of christianity is freedom from sin with a gift of heaven is missing the point of Jesus' examples of love and understanding.

[Brian J.]

Certainly some of the American Christian leaders are closet cases, but it isn't plausible that all or even most of them are. Sorry, but this is the yelp of a beaten cur.

The only interesting question, frankly, is the lack of resistance to the dehumanization of American Christianity. Why was it so easy for Falwell, Robertson, Roberts et al to take over every American denomination? Why was there- and is there- no organized opposition from within American Christianity? Falwell and Robertson weren't very original, but spoke loudly and proudly to the hatred inherent within the faith. And they have succeeded because what they say meshes so well with what American Christians already believed cut were constrained from saying.

[hapax]

Oh good, Brian J. is here to get his hate on, right on cue.

Would you like a cookie, Brian? C'mon over to t'other thread, there's some real good eating...

[Jeff]

Wiki translated the anthem for me:

Long live Liechtenstein,
Blossoming on the young Rhine,
Happy and faithful!
Long live the Prince of the Land,
Long live our fatherland,
Through bonds of brotherly love
united and free!

This is the second verse; the first is:

Up above the young Rhine
Lies Liechtenstein, resting
On Alpine heights.
This beloved homeland,
This dear fatherland
Was chosen for us by
God's wise hand (in my pants).

[Angelika]

It seems to me that misgivings about homosexuality are much wider spread as just within the Christian faith. Right now certain Christian groups seem to be loudest in railing against it, but they are certainly not the only ones. I suspect, when Christian speakers picked the topic homosexuality as one of their main targets (many of these speakers spend decades spreading homophobia), they picked it partly, because they expected to attract conservative people all over the place who were not yet members of their churches, but already homophob.

[G-Do]

These folks are tormented by an impressive variety of freaky heterosexual appetites...I can't begin to explain the psychology at work in this bit of substitution, but in their case it seems something like a mix of the inner demon theory and the safe target theory is at work.

I can. The short answer is "jealousy and rage." The long answer is:

Imagine that you were born with some bizarre sexual appetite. Suppose further that you grow up in a deeply religious, fundamentalist community. You want to learn about your fetish, so when you're an adolescent, or a teenager, you try bringing it up with your parents, friends, and mentors. But you quickly find that people just aren't comfortable talking about it: sometimes you get funny looks. Sometimes you get laughed at. Sometimes you get deliberately misunderstood by people who would rather pretend that abnormal sexual desires don't exist. Sometimes, you get threatened. Sometimes, you get biblewhacked by the faithful.

So you grow up without being able to talk about it. Thus, you have an incredibly difficult time relating to other people because you can never completely open up to anyone, not really. You don't develop any close friendships. You do develop a whole host of trust issues. If you're unlucky enough to be born into a family with controlling, fundamentalist parents, you might have to learn to hide your desire. You might become paranoid. All of these problems make it extremely difficult for you to find somebody to love; in fact, chances are you reach the age of twenty despairing that you will never find romance, because (i) what are the odds you'll find someone who likes what you like, and (ii) even if you found that person, how would you open up to him or her? You just don't have the experience necessary to make relationships work!

You become terribly depressed. You want sexual contact very, very badly. You start to see your desire as a hindrance - after all, it has forced you to remain alone all these long years. Maybe you try to "cure" yourself, but the chances of that working are practically nil, and finally you give up, loathing yourself for your own weakness and bitter at how cold and empty your life has become. What makes it worse is that it really isn't your fault. You were screwed from day one.

Then you look around. You see a whole bunch of "perverts," be they gays, transgendereds, furries, or other sexual outliers. And they're self-outed! And they're having a good time! And connecting with each other! And experiencing fulfillment! And the sadness that you feel, because you know you're too damaged to share in the richness of it, is swamped out by a deep, bitter envy and an inchoate rage bigger than anything you've ever felt before. Why should those people get to indulge their desires, when yours is such an obstacle? Why should those people get to drink from the cup, when you are parched? The injustice of it drives you insane, and you begin to hate those people. The more you think of them, the more your jealousy increases.

And gradually, you develop - or inherit - a magnificent moral narrative about you, and about those people, and about what God thinks of the whole lot. In the narrative, everyone with an abnormal sexual desire is handicapped from birth. All of us - the perverts of the world - are born with a natural disadvantage to being moral. But while those people gave up on being moral, and allowed themselves the unthinkable indulgence of human contact, you never gave up. You kept it real. And God will some day reward you for it; some day, there will be relief.

Melodrama, indeed!

[Bruce Baugh]

In my experience, at least, the thing that sends a lot of homophobic believers into a frenzy isn't all the love and commitment among LGBTs, though. It's the fact of ready access to sex without a lot of complications, even if what it takes to get one off is pretty esoteric. It's all the coming and going, so to speak.

[Boze]

It always makes me really excited when you mention Chesterton in one of your articles. "The Man who was Thursday" is one of the most magical novels ever written. And he's actually starting to come back into vogue, considering the number of recent fantasy novelists (like Neil Gaiman and Susanna Clarke) who cite him as one of their chief sources of inspiration.

[Spalanzani]

Not to mention that the first "Gay-Hatin Gospel" also referenced Chesterton. Are all the posts in this series going to do likewise? Is this a hint as to what Fred's ultimate answer will be to the question of why Evangelics are so hung up on homosexuality?

Hmmm...

[Simon St.Laurent]

Brian J writes:

Why was it so easy for Falwell, Robertson, Roberts et al to take over every American denomination? Why was there- and is there- no organized opposition from within American Christianity?

Er - they didn't take over every American denomination, or even most, though they (and the badly misnamed Institute for Religion and Democracy) certainly try to make it sound like they're the only real Christians.

They did take over the Southern Baptist Convention certainly, and have strong roots in the Assembly of God, but they don't currently control the United Church of Christ, the United Methodists, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, or the American (formerly Northern) Baptist Churches, among many many others.

As for organized opposition, sure, it would be nice to have a counterweight to the IRD, and a media that looked for Christian speakers beyond the religious right, but it definitely does exist. (Perhaps authoritarian-leaning groups simply have an easier time organizing?)

[Conscience]

Fred you said in your first post that you'd be dismissing the implausible theories first, and working your way up to ones you believed were true. So you actually believe it's an "innocent backlash" more than self hatred and shame over something they don't have the courage to face?

[Jesurgislac]

Conscience, if the question is: "How did gay-hatin' come to be the "most-common perception" of Christianity?" (which is, in fact, what Fred says the question is) rather than "How come so many Christians claim loud public homophobia is the core belief of Christianity" then Fred hasn't even begun to answer the question.

After all, if you think about it, it's perfectly absurd to claim that homophobia is the central belief of Christianity, without which you cannot be a Christian. Yet many Christians do claim just that, and for some reason, are not laughed down as ridiculous: it's taken for granted, and has - as Fred noted - become accepted by the younger generation in the US (whether they agree or not) that homophobia=Christianity.

[Michele]

Wouldn't that be "Christianity=homophobia"?

As in "If you are a Christian, you're a homophobe" and not "If you are a homophobe, you're a Christian"?

[ako]

Fred you said in your first post that you'd be dismissing the implausible theories first, and working your way up to ones you believed were true.

Actually, what he said was;

As you've probably already guessed, I'm following the hackneyed convention here of dismissing the unsatisfactory theories first, gradually working toward what I think the actual explanation is.

Slight but important difference; he said he'd dismiss the unsatisfactory theories first, ending with the one he thinks is true. Which means while he's sorting through theories he doesn't believe, progressing towards the one he does, he's not necessarily ranking them in order of truth (something I'd find hard to do for a set of theories I didn't believe). If he ends on 'innocent backlash' I'll consider that evidence that he thinks it's more true than the others. I'll also be badly surprised. However, I don't think he's ranking them from least to most true.

[hapax]

G-do: Suppose further that you grow up in a deeply religious, fundamentalist community. You want to learn about your fetish, so when you're an adolescent, or a teenager, you try bringing it up with your parents, friends, and mentors.

Umm. I don't know your background, G-do, but I'd be astonished if anyone growing up in "a deeply religious fundamentalist community" actually would "want to learn more" or "try to bring up" ANYTHING having to do with sex, let alone anything that could be classified as a "fetish."

Not that they're not boinking like rabid weasels, from adolescence on, same as any other human. The difference is, they don't talk about it, they don't think about it, even while they're doing it.

It is a deeply, deeply dysfunctional approach to human sexuality. (Animals, too. Remember the furor over the word "scrotum", referring to a dog's package, in last year's Newbery winner?)

[Brian J.]

Let's just say an American Christian is just about the last person on Earth, this side of Osama bin Laden (who has, in fact, very similar problems with his beliefs) to accuse someone else of "getting his hate on." Anti-homosexuality is now more closely associated with AC than Jesus, hapax. Is that fine with you?

Looking toward the day when no knee shall bend and no head shall bow.

[hapax]

Mmmm, nope, Brian J. Thursday's almost over in my part of the world, and I have no desire to have my delicious cookies burnt in a flame war.

I mean, you can't really believe the stuff you say, can you? Or is the only thing you read on this blog your own posts?

But if it makes you happy to think of me as a hater because I am yes, an American and a Christian -- well, I won't say, "it's fine with me," because I honestly think it must be pretty sad to be so bitter and unhappy. But if the thousands of electrons I and others, and most especially our gracious host, have slaughtered here haven't modified your strange monolithic caricature of "American Christianity" at all, there isn't much I can do about it.

Looking forward to the day when we all do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly.

[ako]

Anti-homosexuality is now more closely associated with AC than Jesus, hapax. Is that fine with you?

I can attest (as you could, if you read the various comment threads), that it isn't fine with hapax, and hapax is trying to change it. Not the least by vocally disagreeing with the premises in question.

If you want resent people for claiming God hates homosexuals, at least try not to target people who haven't publicly expressed different views. You could possibly try to argue with some people who do think that way? I mean your approach isn't likely to persuade each other, but you and them could have a good time venting at each other.

[Alex Sainthttp://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2007/10/gay-hatin-gos-1.html]

What I'd like to know is why Christianity and a whole lot of other religions are paying more attention to itty-gritty details like one litty teensy verse in one out of a billion books instead of realizing that religion is basically about love and community and doing good unto others.

So says people from Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Confucianism, and the Global Ethic in one form or another:

TREAT OTHERS AS YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE TREATED.

I guess all these gay-haters want to be hated, too...

[Me]

Brian J, I wholeheartedly appreciate the attacks on the less, well, christian, aspects of modern Christianity, but writing the whole thing off, that only stimulates much of the "RTC" community to isolate itself, which allows them to raise more generations in a skewed, "protected" world.

In fact I think that may be the topic of the next "Gay-Hatin'" post on "Innocent" Backlash.

Actually, I think all three of these theories are valid: the (semi-)xenophobia against LGBT people who are seen as "outsiders" eventually leads to religious justification of mistreatment, which is later used to justify outright scapegoating (The Safe Enemy). Meanwhile, the closeted ones, who may or may not be gay, but fear precieving themselves as "deviant", lend their vitrolic rage to the movement (The Inner Demons). Lastly, fairly justified attacks on this perversion of Christianity often target a broader range than necessary, especially as the homophobia reaches fever pitch. People who are "on the fence" concerning homosexuality, not fanatically opposed to it, but cautious of it due to a perception of it as alien, swing over to the crazies when gay rights activists go overboard. Perpetuating an image of pro-LGBT rights activists as opposed to christianity only gathers evidence in favor of the alledged "Homosexual Agenda".

Just my two cents.

[G-Do]

hapax, the Newbery shenanigans were news to me. Thanks for the heads-up!

And I agree - it seems like most fundamentalists, in practice, would rather not talk about sex, or pretend that it's a minor inconvenience. But that's actually what I was trying to describe. Fundamentalist kids begin as kids, same as anyone. They're curious about everything. It takes time to realize that your family and friends would rather not talk about it. And even when you do finally realize that you need to keep your mouth shut about your "preoccupations," the urges don't go away, and the desire to understand them doesn't go away, either.

Which is why so many closet-case fetishists in politics get caught taking stupid, desperate risks just to get a piece of some strange ass.

[Drak Pope]

Not that they're not boinking like rabid weasels, from adolescence on, same as any other human. The difference is, they don't talk about it, they don't think about it, even while they're doing it.

You think that all fundie kids have lots of sex? Which planet are you on?

I think that the fundamental premise of the current argument being debated is flawed. Yes, there are a lot of gay anti-homosexuals and a lot of anti-homosexual activists who have a lot of freaky closeted fetishes, but there is no real reason to assume that they are in the majority. It would be like saying that all American racists are secretly black or like black people or that most or all misogynists are women. Sometimes bigotry is just bigotry, without any intense psychological trauma involved in its inception.

[hapax]

Drak Pope You think that all fundie kids have lots of sex? Which planet are you on?

The planet that sees pregnant barely-adolescent girls in the health clinic, who didn't even realize that what she an' Billy Bob were doing behind the chapel at church camp was the same thing that the preachers were railing against at Wednesday evening youth group.

The planet in which a thirty year old woman was showing me the pictures of her grandson (!) with a birthmark, and asking me how you can tell if he's "got the devil in him."

You can't make this stuff up.

[Xixobrax]

It isn't just Christians, either. The International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON; you probably know them as the Hare Krishnas) had lots and lots of problems with this sort of thing.

A lot of their early recruits were people with fairly serious problems---and, in pre-Stonewall America, that definitely included homosexuality. Particularly after the man who brought Krishna Consciousness to America, Prabhupada, died, his successors included many men who loudly fulminated against all sorts of sex in public while indulging in private.

Worse still, it wasn't just with adults, although I could make a good case that for a "guru" to take advantage of a trusting follower is pretty low behavior; the Krishna community at New Vrindaban, West Virginia had teachers in their "guru kala" (children's school) who systematically sexually abused their charges, and their longtime leader, Swami Kirtanananda (born Keith Ham) was well-known to be extremely attached to one young boy in particular, and strongly rumored to have been in a homosexual relationship before joining the Krishnas. Meanwhile, he'd loudly preach that sex was only for procreation between husband and wife, and encourage husbands to beat their wives.

When these things became public, there were enough lawsuits filed that the American branch of ISKCON had to declare bankruptcy because of damages.

Part of the problem was that to gain rank in the organization, it was strongly encouraged for men to take vows of "sannyasa" (basically, living death, at least in India---in the US, this would mainly involve severing relations with any spouse) and homosexuals had an easier time doing this, since they could truthfully say that they felt no attraction to women. They weren't asked about attraction to men, or to children. Hence, a lot of high-ranking Krishnas were gay, and in positions of great power over their followers; abuses followed as inevitably as night does day.

It isn't the fault of Krishna Consciousness itself, but the result of giving unstable men a great deal of unaccountable power. Prabhupada spent a lot of the last years of his life jetting around the globe, playing one-man fire brigade to keep abuses under control, and when he died, things spun out of control.

[Patrick Phelan]

Well, I don't think you can say that everyone boinks like rabid weasels from adolescence on. The entire coterie I associated with in high school, for example... naturally I don't know, because they don't bring in proof the next day, but I'm pretty sure most of them weren't getting busy and freaky (in that order) until quite recently. (On the other hand, I as yet have gotten neither busy nor freaky.) I won't argue against the fact that a great many people likely do spend their teenage years in a constant rendition of "Let's Find Something And Have Sex With It!", but a measurable and not insignificant minority...

(At this point, the author realised that he was quibbling, and decided to get back to the point.)

This used to be my favourite explanation for why Christians (all Christians, I believed at that stage; in fact, everyone who was ever even slightly religious was all on the same side, a monolithic Army Of Evil feigning faith in order to complete their task of destroying all that was good and true in the universe) disliked the gay. It worked, it was fun, it had a beat and I could paint all priests with the Hypocrite Brush with it. Then I realised... well, let's fight Kinsey and say that 50% of all people have recurring, insistent desires to make the beast with two remarkably similar backs, or possibly the beast with one back and one chest, but also a back and a chest really closely together somewhere around the middle*. Even with that assumption, which I'm pretty sure is incorrect (but I wouldn't be too surprised), you'd still think that the church superiors wouldn't keep guessing wrong.

"Aw, gee, Your Holiness, it's another self-hating gay man."
"One of these days I'll pick someone heterosexual. One of these days."

So I'm eager to see the rest of the theories. However, Fred, do be advised that the doling out of secrets one by one is what turned me to torrenting and away from broadcast TV! Keep this up, and I'll be forced to download Season Five of Slacktivist all in one clump!

Or get it fansubbed.

Ooh, or fandubbed. Hey, commenters, let's all put together a big ol' Recorded Slacktivist project. I CALL THE ROLE OF SCOTT.

Scott can play Fred.

* I am upset that this sentence structure did not give me the chance to use my favourite discussion on this topic.
ME: Well, you know, everyone thought in Year 4 that me and (name redacted) were having a secret gay love affair.
FRIEND: Year 4? Man, you barely even know about the birds and the bees then.
ME: Bees and the bees in this case.

[Ecks]

On the topic of adaption curves, my sig other has a large extended family in the Eastern American city she's from, one cousin of whom, it has now publicly emerged is gay. Apparently the elderly plethora of aunts, parents, etc are doing reasonably well with this, and have seen their way to being fairly welcoming. But she reports having conversations with her parents where they say they genuinely struggle with it. They grew up in a time where nobody ever talked about homosexuality, except to accuse others of it as a generic insult, and so it's strange for them to cope with it being such an open and every-day thing.

The other thing I'm reminded of here is a blog entry Fred linked to ages ago, right after the Haggard scandal broke. It made this brilliant argument that the gay guys who become influential in the fundy movement find themselves fighting these urges that they have learned are clearly scary evil ones, but because nobody ever talks about such things, they ASSUME that everyone must feel these urges. They never realize there is anything different about them they need to come to terms with, all they know is they get these dirty evil impulses to do bad stuff, and so they go out and rail that everyone must fight these impulses, and giving in is terrible. They are affeared that homosexuality will take over the world, because from their ignorant vantage point, it's quite plausible that it could.

[Jeff]

Looking forward to the day when we all do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly.

Replace "walk humbly" with "have fun" and ya gots yerself a deal! 'Cuz why should this agnostic want to "walk humbly"?