NYT | What's Their Real Problem With Gay Marriage? (It's the Gay Part)

[Shallah Kali]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/19/magazine/19ANTIGAY.html?oref=login&pagewanted=print

But for the anti-gay-marriage activists, homosexuality is something to be fought, not tolerated or respected. I found no one among the people on the ground who are leading the anti-gay-marriage cause who said in essence: ''I have nothing against homosexuality. I just don't believe gays should be allowed to marry.'' Rather, their passion comes from their conviction that homosexuality is a sin, is immoral, harms children and spreads disease. Not only that, but they see homosexuality itself as a kind of disease, one that afflicts not only individuals but also society at large and that shares one of the prominent features of a disease: it seeks to spread itself.

SNIP

But as I learned spending time among the cultural conservatives who are leading the anti-gay-marriage charge, they have their own reasons for doing so, which are based on their reading of the Bible, their views about both homosexuality and the institution of marriage and the political force behind the issue. In the words of Gary Bauer, president of American Values -- one of what is now a total of 61 organizations under the Arlington Group banner, with a combined membership of 60 million -- gay marriage is ''the new abortion.'' He meant that, as with abortion, conservatives see gay marriage as a culture-altering change being implemented by judicial fiat. But gay marriage is also the new abortion in that it is for groups like Bauer's a base-energizing and fund-raising issue of tremendous power.

SNIP

I found what Racer had to say on the subject of homosexuality a clear and direct summation of the views of the others Laura had invited over that night and of the other anti-gay-marriage activists with whom I spoke. ''The Hebrew words for male and female are actually the words for the male and female genital parts,'' he told me. ''The male is the piercer; the female is the pierced. That is the way God designed it. It's unfortunate that homosexuals have taken the moniker 'gay,' because their lifestyle and its consequences are anything but. Look what has happened in the decades since the sexual revolution and acceptance of the gay lifestyle as normal. Viruses have mutated. S.T.D.'s have spread. It shows that when we try to change the natural course of things, what comes out of that is not joy or gayness.''

The others in Laura Clark's living room, sitting with paper plates balanced on their laps, nodded and added supporting sentiments. Explaining how homosexuality resembles an insidious disease, Racer said, ''If you have a same-gendered union, you have no natural, biological way to propagate your philosophy.'' So, he explained, it seeks to spread itself by other means, including popular culture. Bryan Simonaire added: ''We have to recognize that they have a strategy to propagate their lifestyle. Think back 10 or 20 years ago, when you had the first openly homosexual person on TV. It was shocking to a lot of people. Now it's the norm on television, so you don't have the shock factor. Then they had two men with a passionate kiss on TV. That's the road they're heading down. They have a strategy.''

There is alot more interesting things I can't quote so please read the article for yourself. Some of the sections were chilling as they sound exactly like things that were said about Jews and blacks thoughout history; speaking of them as if they were a disease that needs to be eradicated {shudder}. Other parts are so rediculous like homosexuals being the reason for STDs. :rolleyes Thoughout most of history only heterosexuality has been socially acceptable yet stds have always been rampant. As for 'propagating' themselves, i wish these groups would take this to apply to themselves and stop trying to recruit the rest of us! Imagine for a moment if non-Christian religions, much less homosexuals, went door to door handing out pamplets trying to convert people! 'Hi we're from the First Temple of Cthulhu and wish to spread the dread and awe with all our neighbors!' :b

[tecelote]

1. All people in America should have equal rights.

It's the lefts whose rights should be limited.

----

Marriage - A promise to God.

"...till death do us part."

If they believed in family values, then Divorce should not be legal. It's a legal loophole to break a promise to God.

How many times has Rush promised God to be faithful to one women?

[Kipling]

2. Your Republicans call them family values. Here in the UK....

Thatcher called them what they really are: Victorian values.

[Shallah Kali]

3. Family Values is just a code phrase means whatever a person wants

while actually meaning nothing. They use it conjer up a time and place that never existed outside Leave it to Beaver. The Good Old Days when men were men, women were women and mules were frightened.

Shallah, in a snarky mood

[Catfight]

4. Discrimination is always wrong, that's why civilized people have a

hard time accepting things that that wonderful bible endorses...such as slavery, abusing women, having several wives, etc....if you replace all the mentions of 'gay' with 'inter-racial' marriage, you have the exact same argument used throughout history. White men should not be allowed to ever make laws over women, and people of diversity and color. They should only be able to create laws against other white men, society would quickly see the truth of this world, all laws are designed against any human that is not white and male. These so called christians are so blind, they do not have the ability to walk in someone else's shoes. They should have taken the lessons of Christ to do exactly that...have compassion, that means, walk in someone else's shoes.

"I never met a christian I liked," me.

[Placebo]

5. What a scary article.

It's sad that our nation is so...backwards. *sigh*

[Shallah Kali]

8. Even scarier is this Southern Poverty Law article "Holy War"

The fundies are calling this the second civil war:

http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=522

[applegrove]

6. Neocons like Strauss were looking for a way to build a repuke big

tent. Important in that was religion that could be used to create good Calvinist workers. So too patriotism could be used to get the poor & middle class to vote against their own best interest and for the elites (who think themselves the only people worthy to rule the USA). Hating gays fit in great with that. Would be an example of the hedonism of liberals.

And then it turned out that as economic entities go - gays are the most hard working and productive (creative class) of all. Oh no! Oh well - they just with a wink and a nod include the gays with them in the elite class if they are repukes and slam them if they are liberal gays.

So it worked out perfect. Except for the people who are gay or the people who love the people who are gay.

But all the ducks were already in line. No way to 'activate' the reptilian part of Christian brains with hating 'outsiders' without the gays. Then once you teach Christians that hate is good - and you are a neocon.. you are rocking!!! You take that learned hate and you get your patsy followers to hate people outside your country as well as inside the country. Congratulations.. you have a nation of adolescents who do nothing all day long but follow the leader be in on faux news or their activist church elders (who see a chance at big money and power when the boundary between church & state is erased).

Now... for the neocon the problem is how to shut the religious patsies up once they have done their job and elected the neocons.

[MasonJar]

7. As our retired bishop said in a sermon at my church last week,

the Bible says that homosexual acts are an abomination; the Bible also says that eating shellfish is an abomination. We are Episcopalian and so many of our priests and bishops are quite open to feeling that all people are equal in the eyes of God and Jesus. The Evangelicals and others who are narrowminded in their interpretation of the Bible are giving Christianity a very bad name.