142. varlet

I forget sometimes what an absolute bastard John Calvin was. For how much Protestants laud him and his theological contributions, his reign of holy terror in Geneva during the sixteenth century was comparable to any of the Catholic inquisitions or the holocausts of fascist regimes. In 1531 he had thousands of religious nonconformists burned at the stake (that is, for believing differently from what he was teaching). In 1547, he had an atheist named Jacques Gruet tortured for a month and then beheaded for alleged atheism.

There’s the tragic case of Michael Servetus, a physician Calvin had burned at the stake for heresy—namely, denying Trinitarianism and infant baptism. Servetus could have been spared his fate, except that Calvin took a personal dislike to him. According to descriptions, it took half an hour for Servetus to die, and it was an excruciating death. The Calvinists built his pyre of half-green wood that took a long time to burn. They also placed a wreath of sulfur on his head. Yet even as he was burning slowly to death, he still cried out to God for deliverance.

Compare that to the remarks made this past week by our friend Pastor Charles Worley, who thinks that gay people are so revolting that they should all be locked up in a concentration camp until they all “die out.”

We’re presuming he believes that homosexuals somehow breed more homosexuals, which anyone who took biology in middle school knows is absurd. However, given his folksy grammar and inability to pronounce words properly (or formulate logic), I rather doubt that Pastor Worley made it past the third grade.

In a way, the GLBT community should be thankful for someone as patently mean-spirited, ignorant and offensive as this man because he’s the poster child of the anti-gay movement. While others like Tony Perkins, Michele Bachmann and James Dobson manage to craft their homophobic rhetoric with the silver tongued glibness of a smarmy politician, Worley wears his bigotry on his sleeve for all the world. “The Bible’s again’ [sic] it [homosexuality], God’s again’ it, I’m again’ it, and if you got any sense, you’re again’ it!” he said in his sermon. He’s proud of being a bigot, and he wants everyone to know it.

And—here’s the important part—he thinks God is pleased with his bigotry. His is the God of the Old Testament who decreed death for such crimes as murder, rape, kidnapping, cursing a parent, blasphemy, idolatry and witchcraft, but also adultery, bestiality and sodomy. A woman could be put to death for not “crying out while being raped,” but also for being found to not be a virgin on the night of her wedding. This is Worley’s God—a pagan god of wrath and judgment.

This is what Worley and the rest of the anti-gay crowd have in common with John Calvin and his merry band of inquisitors: hatred of anyone different from themselves. They have made God in their own xenophobic, ignorant, intolerant and bigoted image, quick to label sins and mete out the severest of punishments. They desire to enforce their Talmudic and draconian views on the entire world, bringing believer and non-believer alike under the iron fist and rule of almighty Jehovah. Of course, in this theocracy they would be the ones ruling in God’s stead, making a heaven on earth for themselves—or, in our case, a hell.

This is what enables parents like mine to reject their gay sons and daughters. In the case of my parents, they refuse to accept me as I am, which is just as much a rejection, choosing instead the version of the son they want to have or believe that God gave them. As much as they claim to love me, this is the same spirit that leads parents in countries where extremist religion is dominant to kill their own children rather than let them live in opposition to the religion they were born into.

And the ironic thing is that in doing so, they violate the very commands God gives them in the Bible:

• Judge not, that you be not judged. (Matthew 7:1)
• Never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” (Romans 12:19)
• Do not resist the one who is evil. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. (Matthew 5:39)
• To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? (1 Corinthians 6:7)

If they truly believed what’s in their holy book they’d expend that energy they’re currently wasting in spreading anti-gay propaganda and legislation on saving us wretched sinners, not condemning us to hell every other minute. Instead of sentencing us to death, they’d let us live our lives in the knowledge that someday we’ll stand before God and give an account for our sordid time on earth, and that they led quiet, humble lives of devotion to God. But with every sermon like this, with every heretic burned at the stake, they testify to the fact that they truly believe that the only judgment we face is here on earth, in this life and not the next. In trying to make this world into a theocracy, they prove that they’re storing up plenty of treasure here instead of the next.

There may well be a God after all. I don’t know. Lack of evidence does not necessarily equate to non-existence. However, if there is indeed a Sky Father, it is a negligent and uncaring deity who allows its followers to run rampant as they do. Frankly, it’s people like them that facilitated my rejection of God and religion. If it weren’t for their hypocrisy and uncharitable behavior I might still be a Christian today as I’d have no reason to question what I believed.

So Pastor Worley, Michele, James, and this charming little southern belle… thank you for saving me from Christianity.

141. gambit

I really shouldn’t give these people any more attention than they’re already getting, but I have an overwhelming urge to smack that smug little beatific smile off of Kalley Yanta’s face (the friendly face of fascism—every regime has one), and this question has been coming up a lot lately: “Is it true that Minnesota’s marriage law has no rational basis and only exists because of moral animosity toward gays and lesbians?”

The answer is yes.

Thus far, no sufficiently convincing argument has been brought forward by conservatives to prove that homosexuality is unnatural or harmful to society. The studies that they cite are decades old, and carried out by biased individuals who often have a religious agenda to support. Just recently, Robert Spitzer, one of the original proponents of clinical study into reparative therapy, recanted his 2001 paper that lent so much credibility afforded to the ex-gay movement. He has apologized for the harm his work has done to the GLBT community, though it will be interesting to see what move he makes next.

In the video, Yanta claims that Federal Judge Vaughn Walker’s verdict in the Proposition 8 trial was unprecedented, and that “no other federal judge has ever reached such a radical conclusion” (and unsurprisingly casts doubt on his verdict since he’s a gay man himself and obviously can’t reach a fair decision). Which is probably what they were saying about the 1967 Supreme Court ruling on Loving versus Virginia, which effectively overturned the nation’s anti-miscegenation laws and finally opened the door for inter-racial marriage, a concept which was as irrational to legislate against as same-sex marriage is today. To prohibit two human beings from being together based on something as arbitrary as the color of their skin or their sex when doing so doesn’t harm anyone isn’t rational.

Research is rather showing that homosexuality is likely congenital, like left-handedness. While probably not genetic—it’s dubious that scientists will ever find that elusive “gay gene”—those of us who are gay likely acquire our orientation the same way that heterosexuals inherit theirs. But that’s not where conservatives start. In order to continue their campaign of hatred and bigotry they have to begin with the premise that homosexuality is a choice, ignoring all evidence to the contrary. The Mormon Church issued a statement recently that it will continue to use the findings in Robert Spitzer’s 2001 study, though Spitzer himself has recanted it. Though there’s doubtless confirmation bias happening on each side, it falls to the anti-gay crowd to produce any credible, rational evidence that homosexuality is errant, detrimental or morally wrong.

Faith is by very definition irrational. Merriam-Webster defines faith as:

2 a (1) : belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2) : belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion b (1) : firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2): complete trust

3 : something that is believed especially with strong conviction; especially : a system of religious beliefs.

 

The Bible itself defines faith as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). Faith does not demand proof and rather demands absolute acceptance on little to no evidence. The current traditional reading of the Bible claims that homosexuality is an abomination to God, even though there are hundreds of other practices that are also banned (e.g., tattoos, eating shellfish, blending cloth, haircuts, etc), and despite the fact that there is no scientific evidence that homosexuality is detrimental.

So we’re currently at an impasse between Christians who insist that homosexuality is an abomination based on what their Bible says and the scientific community that has found nothing wrong with it. Yanta claims that banning same-sex marriage “is not only rational, but is in the common good.” I’ll let “rational” slip by for now, but by “common good” she evidently means the “Christian good.” No one else benefits from these discriminatory laws except for religious conservatives who are seeking to protect the status quo and enshrine their irrational, dogmatic beliefs.

It ignores the fact that, according to the Bible itself, the definition of marriage has included…

According to the Christian Bible, monogamous, heterosexual marriage was rare in the patriarchal ancient Middle East, and it’s surprisingly silent about such modes as polygamy. You’d think that if God had intended for “One Man One Woman” that he would’ve been a little more more explicit about that, so we have to assume that since men like Abraham, Isaac, David and Solomon all had multiple wives, and that since it was acceptable for women to be forced to marry their rapists that there’s more than one way to be married.

Wait—but that was a different time! That was an acceptable cultural practice back then, but we have different standards now!

Bullshit. Either the Bible is true for all peoples in all times, or it’s just another book that we can either disregard like all the others or glean what wisdom we can from it and chuck the rest. One can’t keep moving the goalposts and expect to maintain credibility.

But as to the claim that there is no animosity towards gays and lesbians in the fight to define marriage as being between one man and one woman, it’s preposterous. Lurking beneath those polished, fresh-faced veneers are fearful, intolerant bigots who think that gay people are icky. They attempt to justify their prejudice by validating it a matter of faith (which requires no proof or evidence), which is a direct violation of the Separation of Church and State. While they decry government interference in their religious practice, they think nothing of forcing their beliefs on everyone else and enshrining them into law, then cry discrimination and persecution when the secular community objects. As a friend of mine wrote me in an email the other day, “I believe in moral absolutes so I want Christians to be in control.” There it is.

The GLBT community may not have an absolute right to same-sex marriage, but neither are there grounds to ban it either in context of a civil government.

140. besot

I have an almost preternatural affinity for getting into situations that make my relationships fantastically and needlessly complicated, and in particular, falling for guy friends who turn out to be unavailable in one way or another. They’re either straight (and therefore not interested), gay and simply not interested in me, or gay and already partnered.

At Northwestern College, most of the guys I had a yen for were (presumably) heterosexual, and while there were apparently Talmudic discussions over whether I was or not, for all intensive purposes I was functionally heterosexual as far as anyone was concerned. I never made advances on any guys, flirted, or did anything besides do a lot of jerking off (admittedly to the mental pictures of some of my painfully gorgeous classmates). But who knows how many guys were jonesing for me from afar as well, stuck in the closet and unable to confess their feelings for me liked the horned up twentysomethings we were.

Most of the guys I’ve fallen for since entering the gay dating scene have fallen into the second category—gay and not interested for one reason or another. And there have been many, many disappointments. I was crushed when this incredibly hot, sweet guy named Chris turned me down, even though we were very attracted to each other. I don’t think he wasn’t out to his family and that might’ve been a mitigating factor. Or maybe he just wasn’t into me as a potential partner. Most infamously in this set is Seth, the only guy I’ve ever been in love with, who only saw me as a friend and whose rejection basically catapulted me into atheism, and has since led to the dissolving of a number of mutual friendships.

This past weekend I was helping a guy in the a capella group I’m in move out of his apartment in Uptown in Minneapolis to his new apartment in downtown Saint Paul. We weren’t 100% sure whether or not he was gay, and he wasn’t disclosing anything so we left it alone, but that didn’t stop me from developing a huge crush on this poor unsuspecting guy. There were a lot of things that I liked about him, many of which are things that I’m looking for in a potential boyfriend/husband.

Long, tortured, angst-ridden story short, I learned this weekend while moving him out of his apartment that not only is he gay but he was moving into his new apartment with his partner of two years. I’d seen the guy several times after practice, and he’d always been referred to as a “friend,” and I kind of suspected that they might be together, but wasn’t sure. Thus on Saturday when he introduced himself to me as “the partner” was my heart was broken for the umpteenth time.

There’s an aggravating, weird, awkward male social etiquette about asking a guy about his sexuality, the only analogy to which I can think of is asking a woman about her age or weight. You wait for a guy to drop a hint or proffer information, but as a rule you don’t ask. There are some guys who don’t fit into the rigid gender boxes our culture has constructed, but are 100%, vagina-loving heterosexuals. And there are burly lumberjack-esque guys who are totally gay and who you’d never guess were into guys. So it’s likely that there were manly über men at Northwestern who might’ve been in love with me who thought that I was just another one of those unattainable straight guys they’d never have a chance with.

It’s not so much the disappointment of finding out that he was single as it is the mounting frustration of feeling like I’m that hopelessly far behind everyone else, or missing something obvious that everyone else automatically gets. I feel like the kid who suddenly finds himself stuck by some fantastical clerical error in an advanced physics class when he was just starting to learn pre-algebra, with no clue what’s going on or how everyone just jumps on a problem regarding eigenmodes of a vibrating tetrahedron.

As Cecily quips in Oscar Wilde’s play, “I’ve now realized for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest.”

The other day my friend Matt and I were discussing his coming out to his family as an atheist and how that went over. He and I come from very similar home circumstances, having been raised in the church and with people firmly committed to their religious beliefs. In Matt’s case, his family took the news well and it sounds like they’re so far respecting his non-belief and refraining from emotional blackmail or trying to re-convert him. Which is not how it went for me.

We’d talked about his coming out to his family, and to his dad in particular, who is a pastor. While I understand all too well how difficult it is to hand your parents’ religion back to them, at the same time, what kind of a relationship is it where you can’t share something so deeply personal without worrying about being attacked, threatened or disowned?

Part of what keeps many of us in the closet is that fear of being isolated from the herd, especially those of us that grew up in Christian fundamentalist communities. They have us believing that there is no community outside of the church. The only people who truly care about you are your brothers and sisters in Christ.

Harvey Milk said in 1978: “You must come out … Once and for all, break down the myths, destroy the lies and distortions. For your sake. For their sake.”

I’m very “out” as both a gay man and as an atheist. I try not to be obnoxious about it, and it’s mainly to people I have relationships with. But if we stay in our closets and don’t share who we really are with people, things will stay as they are.

And gay boys like me will keep falling for guys who are already taken.