Gay-Hatin' Gospel (pt. 5)

According to research by the Barna Group:

The most common perception is that present-day Christianity is "anti-homosexual." Overall, 91 percent of young non-Christians and 80 percent of young churchgoers say this phrase describes Christianity. As the research probed this perception, non-Christians and Christians explained that beyond their recognition that Christians oppose homosexuality, they believe that Christians show excessive contempt and unloving attitudes towards gays and lesbians. One of the most frequent criticisms of young Christians was that they believe the church has made homosexuality a "bigger sin" than anything else.

That's just plain wrong. So where'd it come from?

Theory No. 5: It's the politics, stupid

In trying to explain this weird new pre-eminence of the Doctrine of Hatin' Gays it doesn't matter that most Christians believe homosexuality is a sin and that the Bible says it's wrong. That could explain it being a perception, but not the "most common perception." Mere theological opposition cannot explain "excessive contempt."

The Bible, after all, says a lot of things are wrong: gossip, swearing oaths, retaliation, lending at interest or even lending with the expectation of repayment. None of those is the "most common perception" of American Christianity. None of those are perceived, really, as having much of anything to do with American Christianity. If you meet an American who does not believe in retaliation, you're more likely to think they're a Buddhist than a Christian. If you meet an American who opposes lending at interest, you'll probably assume they're a Muslim. And if you meet an American who lends without expectation of repayment and never engages in gossip, then ... well actually, this being America, you won't meet such a person.

The above examples aren't entirely fair. All of those things are expressly and unambiguously prohibited and condemned in the Bible, but they're not really considered sins by American Christians.* So, OK, lets look at some other examples that everyone still regards as full-fledged sins.

How about lying and stealing? These are prohibited by the ninth and eighth commandments (or the eighth and seventh, for my Catholic and Lutheran friends). American Christians believe these are sins. American Christians are morally, ethically and theologically opposed to them. Yet neither "anti-lying" nor "anti-stealing" turns up as a common description of these Christians, let alone as the most common perception. And in neither case would this opposition be characterized as "excessive contempt."

So these moral, ethical and theological considerations and concerns about what the Bible teaches are beside the point. They are neither necessary nor sufficient to explain why excessive contempt for homosexuals should be the dominant attribute of American Christianity. It has to be something else.

I think it is. I think it has very little to do with religion and everything to do with politics.

The perception that Barna documents is, I think, primarily a perception of evangelical Christians. The Barna Group is an organization based in the evangelical subculture, and while they provide generally reliable data, they are also prone, at times, to the evangelical tendency to use "Christian" and "evangelical Christian" interchangeably. (This recalls Focus on the Family spokesman Gary Schneeberger's statement, "We use that word — Christian — to refer to people who are evangelical Christians.") Evangelical Christians also tend to be the most outspokenly sectarian, so this interchangeable terminology is often lazily reflected in the media as well. Barna's survey respondents clearly weren't thinking of the Christians who attend Metropolitan Community Churches or the United Churches of Christ. And I think the survey would have produced quite different results if respondents had been asked specifically about the black church, or Presbyterians or even Roman Catholics.

So let's consider evangelical American Christians in particular. Evangelicals tend to be earnest, generous and accustomed to listening to people in authority. They also tend to be sheltered, ingenuous and suspicious of intellectualism. All of that makes them particularly susceptible to hucksters and demagogues. The history of hucksterism in American evangelicalism is long and storied and sad, but I'm more concerned here with the demagoguery. American evangelicalism in the late-20th and early-21st century has been shaped by demagogues.

The most visible and influential leaders in American evangelicalism are not theologians or clergymen like Billy Graham, John Stott or J.I. Packer, but rather parachurch activists and media barons like Pat Robertson, the late Jerry Falwell and wife-beating apologist James Dobson -- the self-proclaimed spokesmen and self-appointed magisterium of the religious right. Such leaders are not mainly about the spiritual growth and well-being of their followers, nor are they about spreading the gospel. They are about amassing and consolidating power.

The religious right portrays itself as a religious movement seeking to reshape politics, but in fact it is a political movement seeking to reshape religion. Its agenda -- at which it has been distressingly successful -- has always been to turn a church into a voting bloc.

The demagogues of the religious right pursue power -- political and economic power -- by preying on fears and prejudices. Their power depends upon the perception of barbarians at the gate, on the perception that some menacing Other is on the verge of destroying all that their followers hold dear. This Other, the demagogue's scapegoat who must die for our salvation, can't be something that presents a genuine danger, because that would expose the demagogue's impotence to protect his followers from real threats.

Homosexuals make an ideal scapegoat for the demagogues manipulating and fleecing their evangelical flock. The safe-target dynamic ensures that your scapegoat isn't someone your sheep are likely to know or empathize with, and the innocent-backlash claim provides a fig leaf that allows the demagogues to claim that the nastiness they're promoting is justifiable.

The only real difficulty with demonizing homosexuals is that they're not actually demons. Homosexuals don't actually present any kind of threat at all to American evangelicals. The demagogues overcome this obstacle by doing what demagogues are best at: lying. Homosexuals, they claim, are a threat to Marriage, and to The Family, and to the Word of God. Reality doesn't support such claims, so they embellish reality. They claim that same-sex marriage would destroy the institution of marriage because, um, mumblemumblemumble pound pulpit, it just would! Same-sex marriage, they claim, would mean your church would be forced to perform gay weddings.** They claim that hate-crimes legislation protecting homosexuals from violent intimidation would mean that pastors could be arrested for quoting from Leviticus. They claim ENDA -- the bill that would prohibit employment discrimination based on sexual orientation -- would mean your church could be legally forced to hire a gay pastor. It would mean no such thing, and they know it would mean no such thing. The lie is deliberate, intentional, lovingly crafted to nurture fear and the unthinking allegiance that fear can create.

It is no accident that excessive contempt for homosexuals has become the most common perception of American evangelicalism. That contempt has been deliberately nurtured, fed and guided by demagogues seeking to manufacture fear that can be channeled into political power.

By laying so much blame on these demagogues, it might seem like I'm trying to excuse or exonerate the rank-and-file evangelicals who follow them, but I don't think this really provides them with room to boast. I am suggesting that, left to their own devices, those evangelicals probably wouldn't be quite as contemptuous and bigoted as they've allowed ourselves to become due to their unquestioning allegiance to ill-chosen leaders. This contempt and bigotry, the argument suggests, isn't something they would have pursued quite so single-mindedly on their own, merely something they willingly embraced at the behest of leaders who preyed on their fear and naivete.*** That's hardly grounds for congratulations.

The suggestion that evangelicals have fallen prey to demagogues presents a difficult problem. It means they've been duped, and no one likes to admit they've been duped -- particularly when, as is so often the case, the con works by exploiting something less than admirable in the victims' character. This is why crime statistics on scams and con games aren't wholly reliable. Many victims are reluctant -- out of shame and embarrassment -- to report these crimes. Admitting that you handed over your money due to greed or foolishness is not easy to do.

Admitting that you've been manipulated by duplicitous demagogues exploiting your own fears, insecurities and prejudices isn't easy to do, either, so I'm afraid my message here for American evangelicals is something of a bitter pill that I don't know how to sugarcoat. The current situation, represented by the findings of the Barna Group above, is not something they can be proud of. Forced to confront this reality, evangelicals will have to provide an apology of one kind or another.

That word "apology," of course, has two meanings. It can mean an admission of fault, an acceptance of responsibility accompanied by a plea for pardon and an attempt to make restitution. Or it can mean almost the opposite -- a formal, defiant defense. The demagogues offer the latter sort of apology for the gay-hatin' gospel Barna identifies. Whether or not the rank and file of evangelicals will continue to follow them remains to be seen, but the other kind of apology is their only other option.

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

* These sins were not downgraded due to any conscious theological decision, nor due to any explicit attempt to justify American Christians' disregarding the clear meaning of the text. They are not considered sins primarily because of cultural reasons that are rarely, if ever, explored by those within American culture. See earlier, "Let us reason together."

** You know, just like when President Clinton sent the National Guard into St. Patrick's Cathedral to force Archbishop O'Connor to bless the wedding of two divorced Roman Catholics. (Addendum: To clarify, no, that never happened. And it never could happen. Religious groups are free to perform wedddings only for members in good standing of their respective communities, and they are free to define for themselves such membership in good standing however they see fit. The legal recognition of same-sex marriage would not change that.)

*** H.L. Mencken's ungenerous definition of a demagogue: "One who will preach doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots." In his defense, the old fart was, I think, hoping that by ridiculing suckers for being suckers he might provoke them to stop being suckers.

Comments

[Jesurgislac]

Spel: Having sex with a thousand different men in a year would mean that on average you would have to have sex three or four times a day. Seems like that sort of thing would eventually wear you out. Not to mention that finding a thousand men is a bit different from convincing them all to have sex with you. The whole thing just sounds like far too much work. Why not just take up knitting instead?

My guess is that it's because for most men, knitting does not provide orgasms.

[Brel]

Jesurgislac and Spalanzani: Dobson didn't exactly provide a concrete definition of "sex". As we all know, the meaning of that word is pretty slippery when looked at closely.

For an absolutely stellar example of how even accurately quoted statistics can be manipulated to look like they are saying something they're not, read "The Heterosexual Agenda" here: http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/Articles/000,015.pdf

(See especially the epilogue, but the whole thing's a riot.)

[Dahne]

@Jesu: Okay, yeah, that's probably true.

"feminine make-believe."

Well, of course. That's why all fiction authors, scriptwriters, and poets are female, and that "Secret Life of Walter Mitty" story was about a woman.

[mcc]

Brel: So one interesting thing to me is that if you look at the construction of circa-18th-century homosexuality laws, you find a lot of very strict laws, lots of provisions for enforcement and elaborate effort put into enforcement of laws, against gay men. On the subject of lesbians, on the other hand, one finds absolutely nothing. The standard analysis I've seen as to why this is suggests that the strategy was to hope that lesbianism would not occur to women unless it was specifically suggested to them; thus implying a law would be counterproductive, since the law's very existence would serve to suggest lesbianism as an option.

This approach is probably epitomized by the story that some years later, Queen Victoria supposedly refused to allow provisions on lesbians to be inserted into the homosexuality bill of 1885, because she did not believe that they existed.

[Brel]

mcc: well, yes, because Women Have No Sex Drive, remember? They wouldn't know what heterosexual sex was, either, if no one told them about that.

[G-Do]

"feminine make-believe."

Hello neighbor.

[Jesurgislac]

Brel: For an absolutely stellar example of how even accurately quoted statistics can be manipulated to look like they are saying something they're not, read "The Heterosexual Agenda" here

Oh that's brilliant. Thank you for sharing!

I grew up in a city with a cruising ground for men to meet men that's at least a century old (probably older: police records of men being arrested there go back to 1903). And the circle of my friends and acquaintances includes couples who are monogamous, couples who have an open relationship, couples who have an agreement that anonymous sex in cruising venues is OK but no forming other sexual relationships, couples who became threesomes, one stable foursome... and you know, why not? We're all getting older ;-) but I had friends who, when they were energetic teens and twenties, would easily have had a thousand partners in a year, maybe more. And the notion that this made them bad people, or that this was intrinsically a bad thing to do, just strikes me as ludicrous - they wanted sex, sex with consensual and eager partners was available, they didn't hurt anyone (they were all safe-sex crusaders, and still are: this is the UK generation after the generation of gay men who died), and all of them are now in stable long-term relationships - some monogamous, some not. It's true, I can't imagine wanting to do that - sex with a thousand people in a year - but then, I can't imagine why any woman would want to have sex with a man, or why anyone would want to eat a steak, or why any sentient creature would want to listen to the Spice Girls: but just because I can't imagine it doesn't mean I feel that doing any of these things is wrong.

[Brel]

...I can't imagine why any woman would want to have sex with a man...

I'm curious, any reason why you can't understand this?

[Gay-Hatin’ Gospel « Questioning Transphobia]

[...]Fred Clark unpacks some of the reasons the christian right targets homosexuality so harshly.[...]

[Jesurgislac]

Brel: I'm curious, any reason why you can't understand this?

If that's a serious question, there is no serious answer, as I was being frivolous and flippant, as I hoped my inclusion of the Spice Girls would make clear. (Or, the only serious answer is: well, I'm a lesbian, and a vegetarian, and, well, sentient: I don't do sex with men, steaks, or listen to the Spice Girls, and have no personal understanding of why anyone finds the prospect of any of the three attractive.)

If it's not a serious question, there are lots of answers, but the obvious one is just, well, women are better. (On a recent thread on Shakespeare's Sister, several men protested that it wasn't fair if they could be called rapists if the woman changed her mind, because, they said "She'd have to keep shouting YES or how would we know?" to which Portly Dyke wrote a wonderful riposte: "See, I've never really thought of it as a problem if my lover was chanting (or screaming) YES! YES! YES! 'over and over for hours without interruption' during sex.")

[G-Do]

I still think something is missing. The "they're all emotional creatures being duped by cynical leadership" argument doesn't appeal to me. Pas si simple.

First, in politics, everyone uses that theory to explain everything. That argument itself is a kind of "safe-target" tactic.

What I mean is, for example, conservative rhetoric is suffused by the notion that a silent majority of Americans is actually conservative and good-hearted, but is still capable of being misled by Democrat demagogues. This notion has proven very useful to conservative pundits, in that it lets you criticize an Other (the media, the Hollywood elite, the academics, the politicians, the lawyers, etc) without explicitly condemning half the country. To do the latter would most likely alienate your audience, many of whom have liberal family, who believe in the innate goodness of Americans, and who therefore don't want to hate half the country. It goes without saying that your audience is paying to listen to your radio program, or watch your TV show, or read your book, so you can hardly afford to alienate them! This is Punditry 101.

Liberals do it, too, with respect to the recent tactical innovation that the Democrats ought to appeal to the blue-collar American: the fabled "Joe Kansas" who lives in the midwest, enjoys huntin/fishin/gerundin, is naturally good-hearted and politically unreflecting, and would never in his life cleave to a Republican identity if only if it weren't for the vicious conservative punditocracy and their mendacious ways (or alternatively, if only he had a few liberal friends). But Joe Kansas isn't real. He's a cartoon, a fiction. He exists for the same reason the conservative narrative posits that liberals have the wool pulled over their eyes: to let the audience know that they don't have to hate the other side, just the other side's leadership. He's the cognate of the safe-target.

Second, regardless of the media dynamic at work, here, to say this:

Evangelicals tend to be earnest, generous and accustomed to listening to people in authority. They also tend to be sheltered, ingenuous and suspicious of intellectualism.

- makes evangelicals sound less like adult human beings and more like children, or alternatively, Flanders (basically the same thing). An examination of the causes of American homophobia can't begin with a cartoon of evangelicals! Some evangelicals are capable of incredibly sophisticated apologetics; many more have indeed been exposed to life's harshness, both in their own lives and in the course of doing charity. What do we say when these people are homophobic?

Third, even if the cartoon is, for the most part, true, then we have only succeeded in explaining (i) that there is a "transmitter-receiver" relationship underlying homophobia that (ii) relies on a cynical demagogue transmitter and (iii) a naive, blinkered receiver. But we haven't explained why the receiver is naive or blinkered. What fear is it, exactly, that the demagogues prey upon? Why is this fear more easily massaged in evangelicals and not in others? "Exegetical Panic" is the closest we've come to this so far, but I think there must be something else.

[MikeJ]

Oh no! We can't let our son show any signs of an imagination and dislike of athletics! Clearly those sorts of things are "pre-homosexual" behavior and must be stopped now.

Was I the only one who noticed in high school that while the jocks were off playing sports, the cheerleaders were alone and chat-up-able? In my experience, the guy who spends time expressing interest in things girls like gets more hetero sex. But since I'd rather shower with a cheerleader than the football team, the fundies think I'm strange.

[cjmr]

where husbands and wives have *different* rights in their spouse's pension, civil partners get matched with the husband rights, not with the wife rights.

Oh, that's interesting. So who has 'better' rights, husbands or wives?

[jamoche]

given the freedom of dress women now have, it's actually hard for them to "crossdress"

Absolutely. I'm in the choir at my church, and I joke that the dresses I wear - on special occasions only, mind - are my "choirgirl drag". I sure don't wear them anywhere else. I'm more likely to be found in cargo pants (side pockets are much safer places for iPhones than back pockets) and henleys. FWIW, though, I'm straight.

[Brel]

I was just wondering, Jesurgislac. I wasn't aware you were lesbian.

I might as well introduce myself. I've been reading slacktivist's stuff for months (recently I finished reading all the of "Evangelicals" archives); this is the first time I have posted comments though. I felt like the whole gender role issue really needed to be addressed though. Thanks for talking to me!

[Jesurgislac]

cjmr: Oh, that's interesting. So who has 'better' rights, husbands or wives?

Wives. It's assumed in UK pension law, and has been so assumed since - I think - state pensions began, that a wife is likely to have been working at home, housework, child-rearing, etc, and that she will be dependent on her husband's pension, and that the couple will have planned their retirement on that basis. Strictly state pensions (the pension you get from National Insurance, military bereavement) are actually pretty much equal these days: but public-sector pensions give husbands, and civil partners, pension rights dating back to only 1987 (I think?) which is when a man - whose wife was a teacher, and had a better pension than he did - made an application to have the same rights in her pension as she would have in his. Private-sector pensions can award the same rights to husbands and civil partners, but don't have to: you read the small print and get what you pay for.

[Jesurgislac]

Brel: I was just wondering, Jesurgislac. I wasn't aware you were lesbian.

No, you're right, it did need to be clarified. ;-)

[Tonio]

"In my experience, the guy who spends time expressing interest in things girls like gets more hetero sex."

That doesn't jibe with my own experience. I'm a hetero man who has always been more interested in books than in sports. In my school, that was tantamount to wearing a pink triangle. I tried talking about football with the other guys to make myself seem stereotypically macho, but my ignorance about the sport and the teams was probably obvious. Because I wasn't being accepted, I became reclusive and didn't socialize. During high school I spent almost all my evenings and weekends in my room. I didn't have my first date until I was 20. Even today, I'm uncomfortable around men from such stereotypically male fields as sports, the military, and construction, because I worry that in their eyes "I'm gay until proven straight."

[Tonio]

"The religious right portrays itself as a religious movement seeking to reshape politics, but in fact it is a political movement seeking to reshape religion. It's agenda -- at which it has been distressingly successful -- has always been to turn a church into a voting bloc."

So did the religious right take over the GOP like a virus? Or was it more like a Faustian bargain that the party made?

[MikeJ]

You're offering more evidence for my argument, Tonio. You tried to fake an interest in the jock stuff. That is, you were wasting your time talking to guys when you wanted to have sex with girls. Talking to guys about football (or anything else) doesn't help hetero males get laid as much as talking to girls about anything does.

As for what the guys think of you, who cares?

[Jesurgislac]

Tonio: Even today, I'm uncomfortable around men from such stereotypically male fields as sports, the military, and construction, because I worry that in their eyes "I'm gay until proven straight."

And how would being comfortable around men from stereotypically butch fields help you "get more hetero sex"? (Being comfortable around women from stereotypically butch fields would do more in that regard, surely?)

I'm a hetero man who has always been more interested in books than in sports. In my school, that was tantamount to wearing a pink triangle. I tried talking about football with the other guys to make myself seem stereotypically macho, but my ignorance about the sport and the teams was probably obvious. Because I wasn't being accepted, I became reclusive and didn't socialize.

Given that (as I understand it) most US high schools are extremely homosocial, lack of gender conformity tends to mean lack of socializing.

But I don't see how this means that it "doesn't jibe with your own experience": you attempted to socialize with the guys by pretending you were interested in the kind of things that they were all pretending to be interested in because that's what you have to do, and you didn't do very well at pretending. This doesn't say anything about what your experience of socializing with women, interested in the same things you are interested in, would have been like (is like? I kind of hope you're in a better social environment than high school).

[Tonio]

"This doesn't say anything about what your experience of socializing with women..."

True. I should have added that most of the women seemed to make the same mistake as the men about my sexual orientation. One time I was walking down the hallway and three girls behind me said in a mocking tone, "Shake that ass, baby!" I turned around and snarled, "Bitch!" and there was a vice principal nearby who saw the whole thing He told me that wasn't appropriate, and I told him I didn't like being "abused." What I really wanted to do was punch the girls.

[Iain]

And if you meet an American who lends without expectation of repayment and never engages in gossip, then ... well actually, this being America, you won't meet such a person.

Surely this isn't so unthinkable. I have lent without expectation of repayment (and my expectations were met).

I'm not sure I can say that I've never engaged in gossip, though.

[Jesurgislac]

Tonio: I should have added that most of the women seemed to make the same mistake as the men about my sexual orientation. One time I was walking down the hallway and three girls behind me said in a mocking tone, "Shake that ass, baby!" I turned around and snarled, "Bitch!" and there was a vice principal nearby who saw the whole thing He told me that wasn't appropriate, and I told him I didn't like being "abused." What I really wanted to do was punch the girls.

Punching people is bad, of course. But sometimes, really, really tempting. :-(

I remain convinced, from everything I've ever heard about American high schools, that they're designed to make going out to work for American employers seem like a pleasant, enjoyable experience.

Bullying of students who don't conform to the gender stereotypes happens in UK schools all the time - it's the single most common excuse for bullying, from all I've read, as well as to a certain extent from my personal experience.

Uch, anyway.

Hope you're in a better social space now.

[nieciedo]

Great essay. It confirms exactly what I've thought all along. GLBT people are the new Jews.

[Tabigarasu]

Jesurgislac:

Not all American schools are extremely homosocial. I was a military brat growing up, and at every school I attended, boys and girls mixed freely. We were all as likely to have a best friend of the opposite gender as of the same.

Of course, in tv and movies and the popular imagination that's completely unheard of, and seen as deeply weird by people of our parents' generation. I suppose its possible that lots of high schoolers have angst about being friends with people of the opposite gender, but if so, it didn't seem to stop any of my peers.

[hapax]

Coming in late, but I think Brel is making an important point. Human thinking seems to have an almost desperate need for categorization -- male/female, domestic/foreign, meat/vegetable, tame/wild, good/bad, sea/land, and so forth.

Items that fall between the cracks, that resist easy categorization, are charged with power. (See the laws of kashrut, for example.) Some people see this power as positive -- from the Backwards Warriors of the Plains natives (I forget exactly what they were called), to the mystique of raw vegetables (far beyond their nutritional value). Some people see this power as dangerous -- the supernatural power of Teh Gay to destroy our het marriages! Creatures that part the hoof but don't chew the cud! Brown people who aren't instantly classifiable as African Americans!

I'm not sure what exactly causes people to have these different reactions to transcategorical phenomena. Mary Douglas argues that it's cultural, stemming from a particular society's experiences with the Other. I am more inclined to think that it relates to personality type, with the authoritian personality (far more prevalent in fundamentalist religious subcultures) equipped with a revulsive horror of the ambiguous.

[Tonio]

I'm straight and to my knowledge I'm not effeminate. I've been told that I walk funny, which I always attributed to physical uncoordination.

The climate at my school seemed to be not just homosocial but also anti-intellectual. One boy called me a "studious student" sneeringly, and said my slogan was "Hooray for Idi Amin." I don't know where he came up with the latter, since I had never mentioned the Ugandan dictator.

[Chuck]

MikeJ: In my experience, the guy who spends time expressing interest in things girls like gets more hetero sex.

Tonio: That doesn't jibe with my own experience.

It hella jibes with mine. Us straight guys who were into theater? We did pretty well. In college, the [straight male] a cappella singer did well, and the [straight male] dancers did insanely well. They were good-looking, obviously talented, and knew how to talk to women like they were people. It's amazing how well that combination works.

[McJulie]

"...it was Jimmy's fantasy world that caused everyone the most concern. He had a "make-believe" life in which he spent hours alone in his room drawing cartoon characters."

I am completely tickled by the idea that spending hours alone in a room drawing cartoon characters is a cause for parental concern. Well, naturally! Cartoonists are all subversive freaks!

makes evangelicals sound less like adult human beings and more like children, or alternatively, Flanders (basically the same thing). An examination of the causes of American homophobia can't begin with a cartoon of evangelicals!

Well, in my experience, evangelical Americans are pretty much exactly like Flanders. Except the ones who are mean. But the nice ones, the ones I like personally -- they're Flanders. Well-meaning, naive, and deeply in denial. Their naivite is often deliberately cultivated, as a contrast to being "worldly."

Like a lot of people, they feel the modern world is chaotic, confusing, and threatening. So they envision retreating to a simpler, more innocent time. You know, a time when they could pretend abortions never occurred because they didn't hear about them on television.

They aren't the ones driving the gay-hating agenda -- in fact, the antics of people like Fred Phelps probably appall most of them -- but they are enablers. They don't actually speak out to condemn people like Phelps. They give money to people like Dobson. And then they go to the polls and quietly vote against gay rights legislation.

[straight]

All of those things are expressly and unambiguously prohibited and condemned in the Bible, but they're not really considered sins by American Christians.

I'm an American Christian who believes that gossip is a sin, and I make a big deal about it to my children precisely because it's one of the sins that's mostly accepted as OK in our culture (unless you happen to be the target of the gossip). Which is not to say that I never find myself doing it. I definitely notice and respect people who have a habit of speaking positively of others rather than tearing them down behind their backs. God, how I wish Christians were known as the people who don't gossip.

The Roman Catholic Catechism has a wonderful passage about gossip:

2477 Respect for the reputation of persons forbids every attitude and word likely to cause them unjust injury.277 He becomes guilty:

- of rash judgment who, even tacitly, assumes as true, without sufficient foundation, the moral fault of a neighbor;

- of detraction who, without objectively valid reason, discloses another's faults and failings to persons who did not know them;278

- of calumny who, by remarks contrary to the truth, harms the reputation of others and gives occasion for false judgments concerning them.

2478 To avoid rash judgment, everyone should be careful to interpret insofar as possible his neighbor's thoughts, words, and deeds in a favorable way:

Every good Christian ought to be more ready to give a favorable interpretation to another's statement than to condemn it. But if he cannot do so, let him ask how the other understands it. And if the latter understands it badly, let the former correct him with love. If that does not suffice, let the Christian try all suitable ways to bring the other to a correct interpretation so that he may be saved.279

2479 Detraction and calumny destroy the reputation and honor of one's neighbor. Honor is the social witness given to human dignity, and everyone enjoys a natural right to the honor of his name and reputation and to respect. Thus, detraction and calumny offend against the virtues of justice and charity.
found here: http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a8.htm

[xj]

G-Do:"feminine make-believe." Hello neighbor.
Now that was funny. Which side are you making fun of?

@Jesurgislac - I have trouble understanding why any woman would want to have sex with a man also. It just doesn't seem attractive. But I'm glad that some of them do, particularly my wife.

And I think that this is also part of the reason Lesbians are not quite equally vilified. Having sex with women is more understandable.

However the big reason probably has to do with power. The perception is that it's much easier for a man to force sex on someone else, therefore male homosexuality is seen as a threat, female homosexuality is seen as an opportunity. How will this perception change as women get more of an equal footing? If Margret Thatcher and Hillary Clinton came out as gay would that begin to equalize the vilification of male and female homosexuality?

[cjmr]

*tries very hard to squelch the immediate mental image of Hillary and Margaret getting it on*

Sorry, but, EWWWWW!

[Jesurgislac]

niecedo: GLBT people are the new Jews.

*bakes challah*

xj: And I think that this is also part of the reason Lesbians are not quite equally vilified. Having sex with women is more understandable.

I think it has more to do with straight people not quite believing that two women can have sex. (Or the belief that if we do, it's not "real" sex.)

Lesbians have been seen as threatening when they appeared to be usurping a male role.

If male privilege was removed - if we no longer lived in a patriarchy - then lesbians would be exactly as vilified as gay men. Hopefully, that would be not at all.

If we lived in a matriarchy, which was dependent on female privilege in heterosexual relationships, lesbians would be more vilified than gay men, and gay men would be invisible. (See Gerd Brantenberg's novel The Daughters of Egalia, for a fictional account of how this would work.)

Orson Scott Card missed an opportunity utterly when he invented his matriarchal city in the Call of Earth pentology. In a city in which no man can ever own a house, and no man over 14 can sleep within the walls unless he is married, and where unmarried men must live outside the walls, a powerless and excluded underclass, Card has set up a society in which lesbians would be visible and villified - women who set up households with each other, lived together, brought up children together, used men for engendering children and nothing else. They would exist, they'd be a visible component of society in Basilica, and they would be bitterly resented by men - who have enough power in Basilica to make that resentment felt, if not enough to enforce any legal discrimination. Gay men would be invisible and no one would care about them one way or another - they would exist outside the wall, vilified only if one succeeded in concealing his nature and marrying a woman. (Even then, she would probably, simply, not renew his contract.) But instead, Card adopted standard bigoted Americana about gay men in Basilica, and rendered lesbians invisible and unthought about.

[Bugmaster]

tries very hard to squelch the immediate mental image of Hillary and Margaret getting it on

Aaargh arrgh it's IN MY BRAIN !

I fear that now I understand the true meaning of slash...

[BC]

I think one reason that lesbians aren't vilified as much as gay men has to do with polygamy. If a man had several wives who lived together, it was very possible that some of the wives would engage in lesbian activity on their "nights off." Another reason that gay men are vilified is because many of the Evangelical Christian men are like Ted Haggard - they have fought against being gay all of their lives, so they assume this is a struggle that EVERY MAN is faced with. That is the choice - to continue fighting against being gay or choose to engage in gay behavior. They simply cannot fathom there are men who don't have the same "demons" they have.

[zzyzx]

On a recent thread on Shakespeare's Sister, several men protested that it wasn't fair if they could be called rapists if the woman changed her mind, because, they said "She'd have to keep shouting YES or how would we know?"

In defense of that argument, the context makes it sound like the woman never clearly communicated her change of mind. Once someone says no, then yes, you have to stop. If someone never makes it obvious though that she wants the activity to end, should that be a crime? I know that I have trouble understanding signals sometimes. Forcing sex upon someone should be a crime no matter what. Missing a vague signal shouldn't be.

[hapax]

If someone never makes it obvious though that she wants the activity to end, should that be a crime? I know that I have trouble understanding signals sometimes.

Well, here's the thing. Among the "vague signals" men have claimed to miss in my life have included saying, "Wait" "Hold on a minute" "Stop", crying, screaming, physically pushing them away, passing out, running away, and hitting them with a blunt object.

Knowing this, I think holding out for "yes I said yes I will Yes" isn't such a bad idea.

[Rosina]

Once someone says no, then yes, you have to stop

I just wish she'd make up her mind.

[hapax]

Bugmaster: I fear that now I understand the true meaning of slash...

No, slash is HAWT.

As is, for many men, the thought of lesbian sex. Which is the true reason lesbianism isn't vilified.

Jesu: Orson Scott Card missed an opportunity utterly

Isn't that pretty much a blanket truism whenever OSC discusses sexual relationships?

[Vendor Xeno]

Fred, I too, have enjoyed this series so far and found it both really well written and, in many cases, enlightening. This last piece, however, commits the single biggest crime I see among Christians these days, and that's deciding that, "it's not we us Christians, it's them um Christians!"

Trying to suggest that the perception of anti-homosexuality among Christians is primarily an evangelical issue when literally hundreds of thousands of Italian Catholics marched against same sex unions while Mein Pope continues to rant and rail against non-catholic homosexuals seems very ‘head in the sand’ to me. When my own extremely liberal and only mildly Presbyterian mother still has problems with gay marriage based, as she admits, purely on her Christian background, we have to question how wide spread this demonization is through all of Christianity, and I think the very obvious conclusion we reach is that it is entrenched at almost every level. From the Mormons to the Methodists, ample segments of every facet of mainstream Christianity embrace this overt and excessive contempt.

So I'm sorry, but I really think you're suggesting here that what is clearly a 'family' problem is just the fault of a few problem children, and nothing I see in either my daily experience or the associated press driven news supports this claim. I'm not replacing 'Christian' with 'Evangelical Christian.' It's clearly the Catholics, the Mormons and a host of other Christian block faiths side by side with the evangelicals on the front lines.

[Fraser]

Scott: "Thank God the left needs no enemies to demagogue against, no tirades against "the rich" or "corporations" or "the top 1%"....."
And libertarians don't go paranoid at the thought of government doing well ... anything.
As for the "feminine makebelieve" article, I find it interesting that Jimmy seems to have been "girly" from age 4, yet everyone still insists that Dad somehow made him that way. Because it couldn't possibly be innate in anyway.

[Cyllan]

I think it has more to do with straight people not quite believing that two women can have sex. (Or the belief that if we do, it's not "real" sex.)

There's also the Porn Myth that if two women are having sex, they're doing so for a man's enjoyment. Even when it's not really true, the myth of it means that the traditional gender roles and power dynamics aren't nearly as threatened by female homosexuality as they are by male homosexuality.

And I think that's really the basis behind the politics - fear. Not of those "evil homosexuals" but of the rapid pace of changing gender roles, family dynamics and social place as personified by gays (men in particular). If you accept a family situation where there are two men, a basic assumption of many conservative family life (man = head of household) breaks down.

This is how gay marriage destroys traditional marriage. If two men get married, who is the head of the household? How do they tell? If there isn't a Head of the Household, what does that mean for Joe and Jane Conservative? Does this mean that they don't have to have a HotH? Could Adam and Steve swap off these duties, and does this mean Jane and Joe could do the same? If the wife is supposed to stay home and care for the children, but Steve is shown to be just as capable at rearing well-adjusted, healthy children as Jane is, does this mean Joe might do well staying at home while Jane worked?

Changes in the traditional family bring changes in power structures -- both in the home and elsewhere. I think that's a big reason these changes are fought so hard; people who have power don't like to give it up easily.

[Geds]

This last piece, however, commits the single biggest crime I see among Christians these days, and that's deciding that, "it's not we us Christians, it's them um Christians!"

Thank you. I was massively disappointed when I realized this was Fred's final conclusion. I just couldn't figure out what the major component is.

I tend to see it as a combination of the five things, with the politics of the issue being cynically used by certain parties to keep things going. I don't, however, think it explains the perception. Lots of evangelicals and fundies I know can't stand Dobson/Falwell/Robertson et al., but still think homosexuality is wrong.

How does the political issue explain that?

[Spalanzani]

Vendor Xeno: "This last piece, however, commits the single biggest crime I see among Christians these days, and that's deciding that, "it's not we us Christians, it's them um Christians!"

But Fred is an Evangelical Christian himself, so that's not exactly what he's doing. Still, I agree that Fred does misstep a little in this last post by saying that the making of Christianity into a voting bloc is a purely Evangelical problem. Despite Fred's claim that the Barna study's results are really about the perception of Evangelicals, I think that the politicizing he talks about applies just as much to Catholics and other Christian groups.

[hapax]

Geds, I don't think Fred was trying to explain why many Christians of all flavors "think homosexuality is wrong." I think he was trying to explain why the dominant perception of Christians is one of Virulent Gay-Hatin'.

There's a huge difference between thinking something is wrong, and making it the spittle-flecked centerpiece of your red-faced tirades. I don't think that the latter characterizes even such a social reactionary as the Pope. The evangelical leadership, though, really does have little else going for it (at least in the public perception)

[Daughter]

"The religious right portrays itself as a religious movement seeking to reshape politics, but in fact it is a political movement seeking to reshape religion."

Here's an article on a backlash among evangelicals toward this very phenomenon: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/28/magazine/28Evangelicals-t.html?_r=1&ei=5087&em=&en=5b6318ccb514f1c9&ex=1193716800&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin

[Jeff]

he pointed out that the man in question was an oathbreaker--that someone who was faithless to one person could not be trusted to be faithful to many.

The priest is a WARLOCK! ZOMG!

=================

Do you think that this could be grounds for justifiable homicide?

If you're in a public school, it's grounds to have him dismissed. If you're not, why are you there (serious question)?

=================

That panic wasn't JUST natural--BushCo carefully nurtured it for maximum political gain. Thankfully, even they weren't able to keep it going at maximum intensity forever.

And still do (although Guilianni's "Noun + Verb + 9/11" may be biting him in the ass since NYC has launched a formal investigation into his corrupt and incompetent dealing with emergency phones).

=================

My guess is that it's because for most men, knitting does not provide orgasms.

Knot one, purl twooooooooooh! Right there, baby! Ooooh! (I know NOTHING about knitting, as this comment probably shows!)

=================

"See, I've never really thought of it as a problem if my lover was chanting (or screaming) YES! YES! YES! 'over and over for hours without interruption' during sex."

[After seeing hapax's post, I agree that people in general miss "vague clues" (such as being hit with a blunt object) especialy in "the throes of passion" when the brain shuts down more than a bit. I'll even say that men tend to miss these "vague clues" more than women. That said:]

I'd think there was a BIG problem. Occasional "yes" or "YES!", sure. But 'over and over for hours without interruption'? That sure sounds like a problem to me. So much so, I'd stop and make sure she really was OK.

=================

One time I was walking down the hallway and three girls behind me said in a mocking tone, "Shake that ass, baby!" I turned around and snarled, "Bitch!"

It took my a while to learn that the proper response is not "Bitch!", but "Work it! Fierce!" with an extra wiggle thrown in.

=================

I don't know where he came up with the latter, since I had never mentioned the Ugandan dictator.

Could it have been the foot you were chewing on?

[Rob]

Third, even if the cartoon is, for the most part, true, then we have only succeeded in explaining (i) that there is a "transmitter-receiver" relationship underlying homophobia that (ii) relies on a cynical demagogue transmitter and (iii) a naive, blinkered receiver. But we haven't explained why the receiver is naive or blinkered. What fear is it, exactly, that the demagogues prey upon? Why is this fear more easily massaged in evangelicals and not in others? "Exegetical Panic" is the closest we've come to this so far, but I think there must be something else.

I think the rub is in combining Fred's post with Brel's diagnosis of the role of religion in reinforcing gender roles. Anybody from even a somewhat conservative and sheltered background would be prone to homophobia, and if you're religious it's going to be extra difficult to adapt your thinking when confronted with the changing sexual mores, especially considering Christianity's traditional role in reinforcing those mores.

This entirely understandable, traditionally reinforced bigotry makes them especially prone to hucksters who emphasize this particular issue.

With regards to the truth of the cartoon – well, yes, it's true that it is somewhat reductive. However, it is pretty well established that some people do have more confidence in authorities for authority's sake, and that large groups of people can be rather easily conditioned to do so. In this way, Reagan was right. They ("We") are basically good, kind, and conservative, and it does take the influence of intelligent, persuasive thinkers to change their (our) minds when it comes to anything but the most pressing catastrophes. It's still wrong to think that the opening of minds through communication is automatically a bad thing.

[zzyzx]

Well, here's the thing. Among the "vague signals" men have claimed to miss in my life have included saying, "Wait" "Hold on a minute" "Stop", crying, screaming, physically pushing them away, passing out, running away, and hitting them with a blunt object.

For the most part though, those are the same thing as saying no. I'm not going to defend anyone who claimed, "How was I supposed to know that her hitting me as hard as she could with what she could find and then running away," meant that she was not interested. There's being clueless and then there's being intentionally obtuse.

I'm just saying that there has to be a way that a well meaning person could understand that the other person wanted them to stop. I used to be totally paranoid about misunderstanding someone to the point where I probably could have rationalized someone constantly saying "yes" as potentially saying what I would want to hear because she was too intimidated to say no. Reading Off Our Backs at an impressionable age leads to some interesting issues, although Dykes to Watch Out For made up for it.