When Michelle Shocked gets up on a stage and yells, “God hates fags!” and other ultimate homophobic, homo-hater statements, I don’t mind. She is clear, she is not duplicitous. Maybe she’s needs anger management or to accept her own repressed desires, but at least I know where she’s coming from.

Likewise, while the Westboro Baptist Church can go to hell, at least I know where it is coming from, as it make a spectacle of itself — so much hate in “God‘s” name.

But I began to seethe last night after reading a blog touted as The Best Blog Ever on Same Sex Marriage, written by an Evangelical Christian – the kind that believes the Bible literally and selectively. The blog author spent a lot of time constructing this entry in the interest of “both” sides, meaning Christians, on the one hand, and the queer community on the other. My first thought was: There is no “both” sides, there is only you, and those like you, interfering with my life as a gay woman, trying to impose your values, which are not mine, on a whole population of people.

First this woman, apparently out of her sense of fairness and the goodness of her heart, writes a long section on what Christians need to learn about what the queer community needs them to know.

She goes on to talk about hard it must be to realize one’s sexuality, especially in the teen years, and that’s when we need to support our youth most. Sounds good, doesn’ t it?

The blogger goes on for quite some time about how she has listened to her gay friends whom she loves so much, and what a difficult position she is in, loving her gay friends as she does and believing in Bible scripture as she does. Boo hoo.

She claims she understands her gay friends desires and needs and even why they want SSM (she uses an acronym for same sex marriage, as if it might be a sin to utter the phrase out loud, or in this case, to type it into her blog.)

You’re almost thinking, well, here’s a Christian woman who is really trying to understand and accept.

But then she gets to the heart of the matter – her true agenda: What the LGBTQ community needs to know about Christians. Lady, again, I don’t need to know ANYTHING about you, just leave me alone to live my life. But of course, she, and those like her, won’t leave me alone, or anyone who isn’t like she is.

Here is where she becomes insidious because she tries to sound so fair and rational about it all. I will paraphrase some of her major statements and then translate them into reality.

What worries me, she says, is that when you make something legal, like “SSM” it is then assumed to be “moral” just like “slavery.” No shit, she likened the desire of two consenting adults to marry one another, regardless of gender, to the immorality of slavery. So, what she’s saying here essentially is that homosexuality, or any kind of sexuality other than heterosexuality, is immoral. So, maybe she thinks she understands and loves her queer friends, but really, she is saying “God hates fags,” in a way that is not as clear as Michelle Shocked or Fred Phelps.

Second, she, like one or more of the Supreme Court Justices, worries what “SSM” will do to society in the long-run. There isn’t enough data, one Justice said recently. What did that justice say, something like, “We have 5 years of data on same sex marriage (referencing Massachusetts) and 2,000 years of data on heterosexual marriage. Wasn’t it 2,000 years ago, give or take, that Jesus was born? I’m not sure he realizes himself that in saying such a thing, he is imposing religious values on government. Remember separation of church and state, asshole?

And as if queer people need to be studied, under a heterosexual lens, to ensure those sinners are not the ruination of this very successful society made up of stalwart heterosexual marriages.

But back to my insidious blogger. This woman goes a bit further than the justice, actually, and sounds pretty sure gay marriage will hurt society and the need for a child to have both a mother and a father.

Apparently, even if your father beats you and your mother neglects you, you will have a better chance at being successful as a human being than if you had two mothers or to fathers who loved you unconditionally and with kindness.

Uh huh.

The blogger actually provides the readers with each book:line:verse in the Bible where god admonishes homosexuality. You know, like where God calls it an “abomination” and one of the worst “sins.” I wonder if God used an IBM Selectric when he typed up that bible – or whether he drafted it in handwriting first, before he handed the pages down to some mortals who then did some creative editing in order to control the groups they wanted to control. Um, sounds very modern, doesn’t it? That selective interpretation and the controlling (suppression) of certain populations.

Regardless of God and his hand-written Bible, the blogger had already noted that teenagers were becoming suicidal during their sexual awakening, but here she provides more reason for them to hate themselves by taking the bible so literally and without any sociopolitical-historical context. Here she fuels their self-doubt, by pointing out everywhere the bible calls homosexuality a sin. I wonder how many teenage suicides and depressions she and her kind are responsible for.

She goes on to say that people ARE capable of change and the fact that the queer community writes off The Exodus project is just, well, like totally unfair of us. Apparently, for their sake, we should try to repair ourselves. Below is an excerpt from Wikipedia on Exodus International.

Exodus International is a non-profit, interdenominational ex-gay Christian organization that seeks to limit homosexual desires. It was founded by Frank Worthen, Michael Bussee, Gary Cooper, Ron Dennis, and Greg Reid. Exodus International asserts that reorientation of same-sex attraction is possible,^[3] but warns its members not to go to counselors who claim they can help eliminate all attractions to the same gender.^[4] It does not conduct clinical treatment but holds the position that, “reparative therapy – a holistic, counselling approach to addressing unwanted same-sex attraction – can be a beneficial tool.”^[5] Techniques “can include abstinence, lessening of homosexual temptations, strengthening their sense of masculine or feminine identity, correcting distorted styles of relating with members of the same and opposite gender.”^[6]

Founded in 1976, Exodus is an umbrella organization which has grown to include over 120 local ministries in the United States and Canada and over 150 ministries in 17 other countries.^[7] Although Exodus is formally an interdenominational Christian entity, it is most closely associated with Protestant and evangelical denominations. Alan Chambers is the current president of Exodus.

Our blogger, so “fair” and compassionate in hearing “both” sides, is telling us that it is unfair that the queer community writes off this project that can provide “reparative therapy” to homosexuals. What she is saying here is, “You have something wrong with you and you need our help.”

She goes on to say that God NEVER created a homosexual. This translates again into, “God Hates Fags.”

This woman received many comments — long, well-written diatribes on how she has nailed the issues, and how fair and good of her to help bring “both sides” closer together. I had been one of her blog followers, but I had to un-follow her before I told her she was worse than Fred Phelps and Michelle Shocked because she is the enemy that is harder to see. Before I said, “Go fuck yourself lady, or go fuck your husband, but stop fucking with my life.”

I might have been able to write off her high-level expression of homophobia, but after reading her insidious post, I did some Googling and found that there are many, many like her, waving the bible in the faces of gays and lesbians and queers, religious zealots who are hellbent of saving the world from us. Because, you know, we are apparently going to ruin the world for them.

I don’t see this as both sides. There should not be “sides.” I am not interested in this woman’s church or her version of god or getting married among a bunch of bible thumping fundamentalists who call me a sinner. Likewise, I am not asking her kind to come to my wedding held far from her “church.” I’m just asking her to leave me alone. Stop trying to save me. Save yourself, if you must, fuck up your own children with your fundamentalist pseudo-intellectual fairness, but leave me out of it.

I think the only thing the Supreme Court got right is that they shouldn’t be hearing same sex marriage cases. Same sex marriage should not be judged in court, nor should it be legislated by states, nor should it be decided by popular vote referendum.

The issue is really quite simple: If consenting adults want to marry, the government (NOT ANYONE’S CHURCH) should issue them a marriage license. Just as they issue them a W-4 to pay taxes.

There are mainly three reasons why this blogger and others like her (including some our Supreme Court Justices) turn this into such a complicated issue.

1. We don’t know how this will affect society going forward. We only have 5 years of data on same sex marriage but we have 2,000 years of information about heterosexual marriage. That is called imposing your religious ideology on others and not understanding the separation of church and state. 2,000 years is a reference to the birth of Jesus, even if you are unaware that you are making such a reference. And you’re a fucking Supreme Court Justice.

2. The purpose of marriage is procreation. This ideology is called “Heterosexism,” in that when you peel away the layers of what is being said, you are left with the right of a man to fuck a woman in order to “procreate.” I have a feeling a few on the Supreme Court have never even heard the word, “heterosexism.” Think of it as “racism,” but with regard to sexuality rather than the color of a person’s skin. It is also this kind of reasoning that leads to our “rape culture.”

3. The LGBTQ community does not respect our deeply held religious beliefs and they will be the ruination of civilization. First, you don’t respect who I am so, no, I don’t have any respect whatsoever for your insistence on imposing your “deeply held religious beliefs” on my life. I don’t believe what you believe, so, leave me alone and I will leave you alone with your 50% divorce rate, okay? As for the “ruination of civilization” from the likes of those pinnacles of wisdom (Kirk Cameron and the like), this is just another way of saying, “God hates fags.”

I received a communication from a man in Uganda who has been imprisoned for being gay and committing gay acts. Uganda is continually trying to pass a “Kill the Gays,” bill that would impose capital punishment on homosexuals and long sentences on those who harbor and/or support them.

Blogger lady with “the best blog ever on same sex marriage,” you would be appalled by this on the one hand, wouldn’t you? Yet on the other hand, you would call this poor soul in Uganda a sinner. You might try to save his life so you can have him repaired into heterosexuality. Because as you say, “God never created a homosexual.”

You say you do not like Fred Phelps. I say you are more dangerous than Fred Phelps.

And as for your post about “SSM,” I say it is the worst blog ever on the topic.

Readers and commenters, please note: I will delete any opposing comments to this post. This post is not a democracy; this post is to express my horror that there is an entire population of religious zealots who are more obsessed with queer people than queer people are with themselves. So, feel free to comment if you are to be supportive, because support is what I need right now.

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