An excellent suggestion: No more "free passes" for homophobes who claim to hate the "sin" but love the sinner

"This may come as a shock to the 'hate the sin, love the sinner' set, but by quoting that verse, it's not God saying that gays should be put to death -- it's YOU. It's not simply a personal religious view or a debatable 'political difference' or a great talking point. YOU are saying that I should be put to death."

-- Waymon Hudson, in a recent Bilerico post, referring
to the homophobes' go-to quote from Leviticus about
a man lying with a man as he would lie with a woman

by Ken

I see from the comments that I wasn't the only one who really enjoyed Howie's post earlier today which, among other things, told the story of coming to grips with his sexual orientation. One thing I think it's important to remember about that post was that he contrasts his luck in finding his way to self-acceptance and the acceptance of the people around him with the misfortune of the tormented right-wing homophobes who think they have no chance of achieving either level of acceptance and are forced to live in their closets of self-loathing. One difference, perhaps, between my response and that of other readers is that I knew Howie all through the period he retraces, and knew his family (Lee, I guarantee you would have loved his mother), and didn't know most of the stuff I read today.

My story is much less interesting, in fact so dull as to barely qualify as a story, but one thing I finally learned is how crucial that level of self-acceptance is. When everyone in a position of authority is telling you how perverted and abnormal you are, it takes a lot of grit -- and ideally a lot of sane community -- to arrive at the realization that they're wrong. Some of them are wrong for the most obvious and understandable reason: It's part of the indoctrination they grew up with. But too many of them are wrong for a much more sinister reason: They have an investment in segregating and even loathing anyone who doesn't fit into, and thus threatens, their perverted and abnormal social orthodoxy. Man, it can't be easy to be a well-trained fire-breathing homo-hater and meanwhile discover that you are the very thing you spend so much time and energy denouncing. Ironically, the more self-loathing you can build up, the easier it must be to muddle through, since you know how desperately important it is to keep your filthy, disgusting secret.

Of course I realize I'm preaching to the choir, as it were. But the very fact that such a community of readers, straight as well as gay, exists, and that we can now talk about this so casually, is a measure of how much the world has changed. Nobody knows it better than the die-hard homophobes, which is why they're digging in so frantically. One of the especially good reasons for that panic is the realization, at least among the smarter homophobic enforcers, of just how little they have to back up their homophobia -- beyond their proud tradition of bigotry, that is.

Really, what it comes down to is "the" passage from Leviticus, the one that says, "They shall surely be put to death and their blood shall be upon them." As those smarter homophobes know, this is merely one prohibition ripped out of an enormous series of prohibitions many of which can only be described as crackpot. The less-informed homophobes probably don't even know what Leviticus is, and would no doubt be horrified if strict enforcement of all the "laws" suddenly became a high church priority. Irony of ironies, the most committed Leviticus-worshiping homophobes tend to be the most vicious anti-Semites, who would normally spit on the Old Testament rather than cite it as the word of God.

Of course it isn't the word of God. It's a bunch of mumbo-jumbo written by descendants of primitive nomadic tribes. You can, of course, claim that the mumbo-jumbo writers were inspired by God, but the writing was done by humans, and not surprisingly reflects either (a) the common prejudices and suppositions of their time or (b) attempts by the self-anointed guardians of higher morality to counteract prejudices and suppositions they didn't like.

Usually my response to the inevitable flaunting of the one piece of "evidence" the homophobes have in support of their bigotry is along the lines of the above: a reasoned response pointing out the selectivity of the zealots' attachment to Leviticus, with maybe a gentle underscoring that we have simply codified the beliefs of a bunch of people who had actually given some thought to law and ethics but were hardly experts, and whose expertise, such as it was, related only to their immediate world. In the Bilerico post I've quoted from at the top of this post, Waymon Hudson takes a simpler, more direct approach that I have to say I love.

He staked out his territory straightaway: "Let's get one thing straight, fundie homophobes -- you don't get a pass when you 'quote' the Leviticus Bible verse." Waymon, it appears, has had his fill of blowhards, from American beauty-pageant princesses who like to insist that they don't hate gay people to bloodthirsty Ugandan Crap Christians intent on rewriting their civil laws to make it easier to persecute homos.

Think it's a stretch to mention the Ugandan Pastor and a California Beauty Queen in the same post? It's not. It's the "trickle down" hate effect. Leaders crow about how gays should die and then small-minded bigots use it in casual conversation. It's all the same hate.

That's why it's important that we don't give passes to people like Miss Beverly Hills. She invoked 'death for gays' in a discussion on gay marriage (and pageants) and wasn't challenged by the interviewer. That's how accepted the talking point has become. That's what we are facing.

And that's why we have to always call it out.

Let's be clear: when you trot out this Bible verse, you are endorsing it, embracing it, and wrapping yourself in it. No amount of "I have gay friends", "it's just the act", or excuse-making will soften it. YOU are saying I should be killed.

You can't wipe your hands of it, you can't act shocked when violence happens to LGBT people, and you can't distance yourself from it. YOU own it. YOU are part of it.

And no amount of fancy pageant walking will change that.

I really encourage you to read the whole post. It's wonderfully angry and wonderfully funny and wonderfully wise.

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