To say that the horrific murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. , last month stunned the nation is an understatement. And in the face of horror, people want to know two things: 1. Why did this happen? and 2. Who is to blame?
There are, of course, no easy answers. As the fast and furious debate about gun control and/or mental illness rages, people scramble to come up with a satisfactory explanation.
Until, that is, James Dobson — founding overlord of the antigay Focus on the Family — opened his mouth Dec. 17, just three days after the shootings, to share with his radio listeners the answers they’ve been looking for: 1. God and 2. Gays.
“Our country really does seem in complete disarray,” Dobson lamented in a broadcast focused on the Sandy Hook shootings. “I’m not talking politically, I’m not talking about the result of the November election. I am saying that something has gone wrong in America and that we have turned our back on God.”
Yeah, don’t get him wrong. He’s not talking about the fact that we rehired a gay-loving Socialist Muslim for president. Although he does just want to give a shout-out to how that’s gone and fucked everything up.
“I mean millions of people have decided that God doesn’t exist, or he’s irrelevant,” he continued, “and the institution of marriage is right on the verge of a complete redefinition. Believe me, that is going to have consequences, too.”
Oh, do go on, Mr. Dobson. Whatever could you be getting at?
“And a lot of these things are happening around us, and somebody is going to get mad at me for saying what I am about to say right now,” he said, “but I am going to give you my honest opinion: I think we have turned our back on the Scripture and on God Almighty and I think he has allowed judgment to fall upon us. I think that’s what’s going on.”
To sum up his comments: God is pissed because of all the gay marrying going on, especially in Connecticut where gays and lesbians may legally marry. And the consequence is for God to possess a young man with some apparently very serious mental problems to go to an elementary school with guns. And some folks might get mad at him for saying such a thing, but it’s just what he thinks. Amen.
Look, Dobson. I’m no religious scholar. But if your god gets pissed off at you for “turning your back on him,” i.e., not paying enough attention to him, and sees to it that a bunch of first-graders are mowed down with an assault rifle in order to teach you a lesson, I don’t really know what good you see left in the guy. I mean, seriously. Atheism, Buddhism, even Wicca must be starting to look really good. And isn’t it convenient that what Dobson claims pisses off God are the very same things that piss off Dobson?
Let’s be clear: Blaming gays for pissing off God every time something horrendous happens makes folks like James Dobson no different from the hateful Westboro Baptist Church picketing the funerals of dead soldiers and announcing plans to picket Sandy Hook funerals with signs that read, “God sent the shooter,” the words surrounded by bloody handprints and splatter.
Dobson and his disgusting message should be just as reviled.
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.