Watch out homos, because the religious right is going to take the gloves off and punch you in your icky gay face. What would Jesus do? He would cage match the sin out of you is what.
According to People for the American Way’s Right Wing Watch, that was more or less the message of a workshop led by Liberty Counsel’s Matt Barber and other antigay stalwarts at the How to Take Back America conference.
The workshop, titled “How to Counter the Homosexual Extremist Movement,” was Sept. 25 from 3:30-4:30 p.m., which meant that conference-goers had to choose between it and other workshops, including “How To Defend America Vs. Missile Attack.” While some folks might have felt conflicted (only God can be in two places at the same time), the choice for true Christians was obvious. After all, the missiles that pose the greatest threat to America can be found in the underwear of gay men.
“Christ wasn’t about being nice,” Barber said at the workshop. Yeah, that’s right! Jesus was a total dick. Always making the sick sicker, blinding people, stoning adulterers to death, stealing all the fish and bread and stuffing his face like a total glutton. Not to mention that whole walking-on-water thing. Dude, get your feet out of the water. Gross.
Barber and his crew “urged people to be loud rabble-rousers when opposing the teaching of tolerance or sex ed in public schools. They said not to worry about being nice or polite or liked, but to push God’s antigay agenda forcefully,” according to Right Wing Watch.
It shouldn’t come as any surprise that the drown-out-and-conquer tactics used by the right to address healthcare and President Obama’s legitimacy as president should transfer to the antigay agenda too. After all, the squeaky wheel gets the grease — and by “grease” I mean Fox News coverage.
The revolution will be televised, my friends, especially if the revolution includes shouting down a woman in a wheelchair who dared to ask a question at a healthcare town hall. That’s the level we’re at, folks.
Apparently the right doesn’t believe it’s been wrong about gays all of these years, even though so many of their claims have been widely discredited. They’ve come to the conclusion that they just haven’t been loud enough. If saying something repeatedly doesn’t make it true, YELLING SOMETHING REPEATEDLY MUST.
According to Right Wing Watch, “There was some small disagreement (during the workshop) about how much people should rely on religious arguments in the public sphere, with Barber urging people to focus on the ‘ick’ factor around gay sex and on claims that homosexuality is a health threat, which he called the movement’s ‘Achilles heel.’”
In other words, Barber believes that a bunch of hairy leather daddies in ass-less chaps tongue kissing each other is a much stronger argument against homosexuality than, say, Leviticus. He’s banking on the average Joe’s homophobia more than the average Joe’s allegiance to the Bible. There’s no room for wishy-washy “love the sinner, hate the sin” sentiment.
It just proves that the holier-than-thou attitude of the antigay right is all for show. This so-called culture war isn’t based on Christian principles at all, but rather on the complete disregard of gay people as human beings. Barber thinks Jesus would be fine with that.
D’Anne Witkowski has been gay for pay since 2003. She’s a freelance writer and poet (believe it!). When she’s not taking on the creeps of the world, she reviews rock ’n’ roll shows in Detroit with her twin sister and teaches writing at the University of Michigan.