words and hammers

Let's imagine a world where Muslims are the majority religion in America. Let's further imagine that Islamic Imam's travel often to a random African State and preach against women who don't wear veils and how they are an abomination and the State needs to take all steps necessary to stop them from ruining the country and the world. This goes on for years, and Mosques in the US send money and anti-unveiled women pamphlets, videos, messages and prayers overseas.

A year or so later, a politician in said state proposes a bill that would make not wearing a veil punishable by imprisonment and/or death, and imprisonment for anyone who doesn't report these women. American Imam's say nothing. A few months later, a local newspaper prints the faces and addresses of women who refuse to veil themselves with the admonition that they should be punished or hung.

Shortly thereafter, some of these women are beaten to death in their own homes.

This scenario is not imagined. The only difference is I've switched the religion and the crime. For years, American Christian pastors, many of whom are "mainstream" and have worked closely with one political party, have done just what I described above, holding conferences, prayer meetings, and sending money and aid to churches in Uganda to fight the "spread" of homosexuality. They have marched in anti-gay parades in Uganda and opened dozens of churches to combat "moral corruption" and raised money in the states to send across the ocean.

After stoking these anti-gay fires for years, Ugandan politicians passed what is referred to as the "kill the gays" bill. The bill makes it a crime to be homosexual, to have homosexual sex, and to not turn someone in for being homosexual. Most ominously, it makes passing on the HIV virus punishable by death.

After the bill, the Rolling Stone (not affiliated w/ the music rag) magazine published a list of "100 top homosexuals" with names and photos urging they be punished or hung. This week, unsurprisingly, another gay rights activist was beaten to death with a hammer in his own home. Upon his funeral, villagers rioted and threw stones, refusing to bury his casket.

How have the pastors stateside reacted? Well, Scott Lively, one of the most prominent, says that he is the REAL victim, having to suffer not brutally being beaten to death, but because he's received almost sixty hate emails. He has also claimed that the brutal beating was probably an ex-lover, not a gay bashing.

Besides the visceral disgust I feel toward this entire situation, the more logical side of me wants to say...as though my blog post will somehow help change things...that people need to realize that the time for even religiously motivated bigotry to end. The excuse "god said so" is no longer (as though it ever was) a valid excuse for creating a culture and environment where people are uncomfortable in their own skin, unsafe in their own communities, and treated as pariahs simply because of who they are.

The pastors who helped to stoke these fires in Uganda are as responsible as if they had given the hammer to the perpetrator of the murders themselves. They have blood on their hands and anyone who supports them, supports their church, or says nothing when the chance to say something presents itself are culpable as well.

Moreover, when you hear homophobic rhetoric and say nothing, you are contributing as well to a culture that teaches young LGBT people that they are not as good as you. You are telling them, tacitly by your acceptance, that they should not consider themselves worth the same dignity and respect as everyone else.

Just remember that the next time you hear some kid say "that's so gay"...then imagine it's your 12 yr old brother, sister, cousin or friend who grows up hearing that--that every bad thing that happens, that every lame-ass or annoying thing in life is "gay"...and then ask me again why we have to have Pride parades or "flaunt" sexuality.

I'll just leave this post at this point or I'll keep ranting and it'll be too long and dissuade people from reading it.