Gay pride and anti-gay shame

People are proud of their political positions. I just passed a truck on the Greenway that sported the bumper sticker: “Give War a Chance”. The gentleman driving the truck is pro-war and proud of it. Personally, I’m anti-war, pro-environment, pro-science, anti-censorship, anti-theocracy, pro-marriage, pro-sustainability and anti-petroleum. I’ve thought long and hard about these positions. I constantly revisit them and test my assumptions against new information – pro-science, remember? I like to study arguments on both sides of the issues because that consideration deepens my understanding.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I’m pro-gay. As a founding member and husband of the president of Equality Loudoun, that’s to be expected. But what does it mean to be pro-gay? It means that I believe human sexuality is variable (as in the Kinsey scale) and that there is nothing immoral or unnatural about where one falls on that scale. All sex between consenting adults who love, honor and respect each other is at worst, morally neutral. Consensual sex between married people, including same-sex couples is a moral good – a mitzvah. Of course there is sexual immorality; pornography addiction, cheating, non-consensual sex, coercive sex, etc.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people are normal people and they deserve equal treatment under the law. As a result of pro-gay advocacy, individuals and institutions that discriminate against LGBTQ people will soon be seen by mainstream society as the extremists that they are. They are really no different from people who discriminate against people of different races or religions. That’s really the point of LGBT advocacy. We have to get out into society and demonstrate that we are authentic and good people. Only then will a majority of people (65% seems to be the magic number) learn that all of the propaganda produced by the anti-gay industry is a pack of lies.

I’ve discussed the small ‘p’ “personal is political” aspect of being pro-gay. There’s also a big ‘P’ Political aspect. We have to work to elect openly LGBTQ candidates to office and we need to enact pro-gay legislation to protect our community against employment and housing discrimination. We need to protect sexual minority youth from institutionalized anti-gay bias and anti-gay classroom instruction ““ the Loudoun drama production policy and the Keith Deltano “abstinence until other-sex marriage” schtick come to mind. We need to stop discrimination against people with HIV and AIDs, and we need domestic partnerships, civil unions and full marriage equality protections.

If the above advocacy is pro-gay, then opposition to that advocacy is anti-gay. Anti-gay is not a slur. It’s a description of an ideological and political position. Why then do people who advocate against gay rights consider the term anti-gay to be a slur? This just mystifies me. In all other cases, including “Give War a Chance,” people are proud of their political positions. Anti-gay crusaders appear to be different. They are ashamed to be anti-gay. They must know that to be anti-gay is to be part of a devious anti-human agenda, that they are on the wrong side of history, and their behavior will be judged. I can’t come up with any other reasonable explanation.

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26 Responses to Gay pride and anti-gay shame

  1. Lumen says:

    Are you anti-life or anti-choice? Neither? Then I’m not anti-gay just because I disagree with some of your “pro-gay” political views.

  2. Jack says:

    Jonathan — a very nice post, even though I disagree with some of it. Let us agree to leave theology out of our personal discussion, because we each know where the other stands, and it will not be helpful to rehash that.

    You have done a good job of describing what “pro-gay” means to you, but a poor job of describing what “anti-gay” means to you. The reason people do not like being called “anti-gay” is that it implies, as you say, a desire to do harm to another person. That is not the case. It is a matter of disagreement about what right and about what is best for society.

    You mention housing discrimination. Let me pose a scenario to you: A young religious family, whose beliefs include that homosexual sex is sunful, want to rent out a room of their house. Should they be allowed to discriminate against homosexuals?

  3. Jonathan says:

    Lumen, I don’t know you and don’t know your views. It’s quite possible to side with pro-gay advocates on the Lawrence decision, and side against pro-gay advocates on marriage equality. If you don’t actively advocate against gay rights, it is proper to claim to be neutral on the spectrum as a whole.

    I am pro-Life (with a capital L) and pro-choice. I think people understand what pro-choice means. Pro-Life (with a capital L) is another matter.

    I didn not see a search engine for the Virginian Federalist blog. If you or your peers have written about gay rights, please provide links. You’re welcome to add Equality Loudoun to your blog roll.

  4. Holly Dawn Hewlett says:

    Hi, let me jump into the fray! Lumen and others like you: The easiest way to differenciate between your politics and mine are: You spend you time justifying why another human being shouldn’t be allowed to live their life in full happiness and fulfillment of their human potential. I spend my time living as good and fulfilling a life I can while being attacked by people like you. If you took 1/2 of the time you spend judging and politicizing my life and put it towards reaching your own full potential of being a loving friend, son, brother, father, and maybe husband, imagine the life and world you would be living in. YOUR OWN POTENTIAL..perfect health, travel to all the places you’ve never seen, bills paid, making more love with the one you hold dear, children who are safe and strong, having read all the books you wish to read, tried all the food you’ve never tried. At the end of your day, it comes down to this: My being alive has absolutely no affect on your life.
    At the end of my day: You have wasted my precious time having to defend my right to live and prevented both of us from being better human beings in our own lives.
    There is a great bumper sticker that says it all: What is the difference between tattood
    people and non tattood people? TATTOOD PEOPLE DON’T CARE!!
    The difference is we both have and are entitled to our beliefs, but your kind try to make your beliefs into law, while I just live mine and offer that as an example what I believe the world could be.
    Please, go find a cure for cancer, or poverty, or world hunger they are much larger and more devastating to human kind than my one life of loving a human who happens to be the same sex as myself.
    Have a great day, Holly

  5. Jack says:

    I’m going to guess “your kind” are Democrats, Holly. (My apologies if I am wrong about that.) Democrats do indeed try to put their believes into law.

    Democrats try to take away our right to defend ourselves, with the result (demonstated in the U.K., Australia, and Canada) that violent crime goes way up.

    Democrats try to take our money for “Universal Health Care,” with the result (also demonstrated in the U.K. and Canada) that quality of care goes down, costs go up, and waiting times multiply.

    Democrats fight freedom of association (various private golf clubs), freedom of speach (campaign finance reform), and freedom of religion (the Boy Scouts).

    No, I am not presently working to find a cure for cancer — I am working to stop the missile of a madman from reaching us and our allies.

  6. Jonathan says:

    Holly,

    Please don’t respond to Jack. He has affirmed that LGBTQ people are “tools of Satan”, an affirmation places him ideologically at odds with our commenting policy:

    We have zero interest, however, in “debating” people who believe that we don’t or shouldn’t exist.

    I have instructed Jack to leave us alone and to use his own blog (he is a blog author on another venue) to publish his work. If you reply to him, Jack will prattle on about how we can continue to exist, just not as proud LGBTQ people, in which case we would have to turn Equality Loudoun into NARTH Loudoun. I don’t think we are going to do that any time soon.

  7. Jack says:

    What Jonathan is saying is that he is incapable of defending his position logically and biblically. It is my hope, Holly, that you can.

  8. Jack says:

    I should also say that he and David labor under the common confusion between what we do and what we are. As a common example, when someone in my field is asked, “What do you do?”, the response is “I am an engineer.”

    But we have had those conversations, and, I thought, agreed to disagree and to move on to other topics. However, it appears that since I cannot accept their argument on those topics, they are unwilling to engage me on any topic.

  9. David says:

    I don’t see the relevance of these partisan statements to the topic of equality for all without regard to sexual orientation or gender identity. Nor is there any point, as I said before, of continuing an exchange that doesn’t go anywhere – it only degenerates into unkind and inaccurate attributions, as in the two comments above. Our existence as whole, self-affirming LGBT people is non-negotiable, and why shouldn’t it be? That is Jack’s frustration.

    Holly, you have beautifully presented here the difference between those of us who insist on living our own lives with integrity, and those who waste their time and ours because, for whatever reason, they can’t tolerate coexisting with us. Their solution to their “problem” is to demand that we lie about who we are. It’s not going to happen, not anymore. Thank you.

  10. Jack says:

    You are correct, David, that there was no relevance in my statements “to the topic of equality for all without regard to sexual orientation or gender identity.” Nor did I intend there to be.

    My intention was to point out that both Democrats and Republicans endeavor “to make [their]beliefs into law,” even if such laws impact how others are allowed to live their lives.

    I thought we had cleared up your last point, but obviously not. So I will repeat myself, so that to Holly, at least, my position is clear. I have never demanded that you lie about who you are. I will grant you there are many people who have. I am not one of them. I have repeatedly and consistently made the distinction between what you are and what you do.

  11. David says:

    I thought we had cleared up this “what you do” and “who you are” thing, too, but you still don’t seem to understand. Let me explain one more time what it is that we “do” so that you understand there is no confusion on our part. What we “do” is live our lives with integrity, in accordance with, not in denial of, who we were intended to be.

    What people like you are demanding is that we live as if we were intended to be something else – heterosexual. That would be dishonest. That is what I mean by demanding that we lie about who we are, and that is what I mean by claiming that we don’t, or shouldn’t, exist. This is not something we are interested in debating.

    The distinction that Holly makes, which you try hard to ignore and gloss over (and which has nothing to do with party affiliation), is the one between the right of a group of people to live without the burden of discrimination, and the right of another group of people to discriminate against them. The “impact” of those things is not equivalent – in fact, they are qualitatively different. If your fundamental right to be who you are is predicated on the right to deny someone else full citizenship, I would say that you have a big problem.

  12. Jack says:

    So you were “intended to be” gay. Intended by whom?

    Are you telling me that a person cannot be gay unless he has had sex with another man? Of course not. That would be silly. So you see, being gay is not the problem. It is
    the doing that is a sin.

    What you are demanding is that people deny what the Bible teaches, and not just accept your actions, but affirm them legally. I ask again, should a religious family be forced to rent a room to a homosexual?

    So what “full citizenship” are you being denied? What rights do I have that you do not?

  13. David says:

    Yes. By the creator, or the Creator, or the universe, or however you prefer to conceptualize this.

    I have no idea what you are talking about in your second paragraph, or how you would reach this conclusion (although some of your allies do in fact make this peculiar claim, raising some interesting questions about themselves). I don’t see how I can be clearer than I have been about integrity. If you demand that I live as anything other than a whole, self-affirming gay man, you are demanding that I be someone else. The answer is no.

    Is a racist family forced to rent a room to a person of a race that they believe to be inferior? Please provide examples. As far as I know, non-discrimination law applies to public accommodation, not private living arrangements.

    For answers to any other questions, visit the “issues” page at Equality Virginia, and stop insulting our intelligence.

  14. Jack says:

    By the Creator? Can you prove that? In our baptismal vows, we are asked, “Do you renounce the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?”

    Mark 10:6-8 “But from the beginning of the creation, God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’; so then they are no longer two, but one flesh.”

    As you know, a racist family is NOT forced to rent a room to a person of another race. but I did not ask you what IS, I asked you what SHOULD BE. I ask yet again, should a religious family be forced to rent a room to a homosexual?

    OK, I’ve gone to your Issues page. It starts with Bullying. Everyone is subject to bullying, not just homosexuals. Next we have Marriage Equality. You have the same marriage rights I do — you can marry any unmarried, not-closely-related woman that will have you. Lastly is Drama Policy. Since kids cannot even sing Christmas Carols at the “Winter Program,” or say a prayer at a football game or at graduation, I think our rights are about equal there, too.

    So what “full citizenship” are you being denied again?

  15. David says:

    What I said was to see the issues page at Equality Virginia, not here. Ours is more specific to events in Loudoun County, and is not intended to be an exhaustive analysis of issues in Virginia or nationally. There are already plenty of sources for that information.

    The reason that this conversation can’t go anywhere but in circles is that your premise is simply at odds with what we have clearly laid out as the foundational premise here: our right to exist as whole, self-affirming LGBT people, with enjoyment of equal treatment under the law.

    Furthermore, not everyone identifies as a Christian. While you and I might be interested in and able to debate Christian theology, applying those arguments to our entire, religiously diverse community is pretty pointless.

  16. Jonathan says:

    David,

    I’m beginning to regret my decision to ask Jack to “go away” because he is making the case for a future post in which I will argue that it is not possible to be anti-gay and Christian. It would be nice to see Jack make his arguments on the NoVA Town Hall blog. That blog should have higher readership since it is not as narrowly focused as this blog. His arguments will get broader exposure there than the comments appearing here. If Jack makes a compelling argument that warrants a response, he’ll get one. I’d be interested – since Jack is an engineer – if he learned to design systems to handle exceptional conditions.

  17. Jack says:

    It seems my post didn’t get through. Please accept my apologies if this is a re-post.

    David — Sorry I misread your post. I’ll go check out the Equality Virginia page.

    You’re right that this conversation cannot go anywhere, which is why I don’t bring it up. (You did.)

    You are also correct that not everyone identifies as Christian. Nonetheless, a higher percentage of Americans call themselves Christians than Israelis call themselves Jewish. In such a majority-Christian nation, you have to be able to deal with the sensibilities of Christians of you expect to advance your agenda.

    Jonathan — I diagree with you, sort of, that one cannot be Christian and “anti-gay.” I do not think Jesus wants Christians to be “anti-gay,” which is why we ask for forgiveness of sins known and unknown. Still, I think your definition of “anti-gay” differs from mine.

    Anyway, I have done posts on request. Upon what topic would you like me to expound?

  18. Jack says:

    OK, David, I’ve read the Issues section on the Equality Virginia site. Jonathan, is there any particular issue over there that you’d like me to tear apart on NovaTownHall?

  19. Jonathan says:

    I posted a comment on the anti-gay Too Conservative thread that inspired me to write the original post in the first place. My comment at the end of this comment was a response to Ben Dover who tried to dismiss Loudoun Insider’s anti-gay rant by making fun.

    Insider’s rant included:

    Jonathan, I meant exactly what I said. I didn’t say I was superior, simply that I don’t approve of GLBTQ behavior. I’m not denying you your right to engage in such, and would never have any desire to do so. That said, you can’t tell me that I have no right to think this way. I’d rather not get into a discussion of what I’m referring to as “revolting”. I think you know what I mean.

    I knew it was just a matter of time before I was called on the carpet by the Equality Loudoun gang. Looks like I’m getting it from both sides of the Loudoun political spectrum now!

    Ben defended Loudoun Insider with:

    1) I thought that “Anti-Gay” meant, “Opposed to being cheery, bright or pleasant.” Personally, I think that LI is pro-gay, or an advocate of cheeriness, and pleasantness.

    Here is my response to Ben. Insider isn’t talking. Like Michael Farris, and Eugene Delgaudio, he feels that our existence stifles his free-speech rights.

    ========================================
    Ben Dover,

    Thought you’d like this story about the “Be Happy, Not Gay” t-shirt case:

    http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/news/story.aspx?cid=4094

    Notice the careful wording: “in support of homosexual bahavior”, “opposing point of view” in the anti-gay ADF’s press release.

    The ADF’s framing itself is anti-gay. It’s equivalent to a “Christian” group wearing a t-shirt that said “Be Jewish, Accept Jesus” based on the argument that “Christians” have nothing against Jewish people, just their belief that Jesus is not the Son of God who died for man’s sins and was Resurrected. If the Jews don’t accept Jesus, they are hellbound souls, in need of “help” from the “Christian” group. The “Christian” group is expressing an opposing viewpoint to the “Jewish agenda” and the “harmful” propoganda that “Jewish is good”.

  20. Jack says:

    Sorry, Jonathan, but I don’t follow how “Be Happy” equates to “Be Jewish.” Being Jewish has nothing to do with whether one believes Jesus is the messiah. One young woman I dated for several years was a Messianic Jew.

    If it makes you feel any better, my daughter participated in the “Day of Silence” at her high school, not in support of homosexual behavior, but in opposition to bullying of homosexuals.

  21. Jonathan says:

    Jack,

    The purpose of the “Be Jewish, Accept Jesus” exercise is to put yourself into the shoes of Jewish students who are perfectly grounded in their faith.

    Question about your Messianic Jewish girl friend who you dated for several years. During those several years, did you have a sexual relationship with that woman?

    Please congratulate your daughter for supporting the “Day of Silence” and ask her to add this blog to her bookmarks.

  22. Jack says:

    OK, makes sense now.

    Yes, we did. It was wrong, and sinful, and I know that now. In fact, that sin between us is why we broke up. (Don’t worry about my wife’s finding out — they were friends back then.)

    My daughter gets very little internet time, except for homework research. She has, however, read some of our conversations here.

  23. David says:

    I would like to thank your daughter, also. That’s really what the Day of Silence is about. All the noise about how it’s intended to advance the “homosexual agenda” just signifies that the “agenda” these folks think is so horrible is to make sure every student has an educational environment free from harassment.

  24. Jack says:

    On this we can agree, David.