The Straw that Broke This Pervert's Back

I read a couple of gay-centric, somewhat political blogs (Towleroad and Joe.My.God being my two favorites and well worth the time to read) to keep abreast of politics, entertainment, and religion in regards to the gay community. Many of the reports are items you'll never see via the mainstream media, less left-leaning than the right knows or would like to admit. There is a rise in anti-gay hate crimes. There are websites, churches, and seemingly whole religions that seem to have been created solely to spew anti-gay rhetoric and to destroy our community and our people. Ex-gay ministries are still thriving, desperately trying to "convert" homosexuals to heterosexuality. It's all very frustrating when you sit on your couch or in your cubicle and read all this bigotry and hatred, especially when it's masked by the words and face of God and/or Jesus.

But as disgusting as it can be (World Net Daily can be especially crazed when it comes to anything that steps out of the "norm" of their bible. Right now it's "birther" central over there. And a quick perusal of their forums will scare the bejeebus out of you rather than into you!) I make sure to read through a goodly portion of what's out there in order to "know thy enemy." While I've been mentally writing rebuttals to some of these items, it wasn't until recently that I felt the true motivation to put those rebuttals online in the form of this blog.

The straw that broke this pervert's back was when I stumbled across a commentary by John C. Wright. In his article, More Diversity and More Perversity in the Future!, which discussed GLAAD's (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) recent "report cards," handed out to the various television networks grading their portrayals of diversity within their programs (which they call the Network Responsibility Index). Apparently, the SiFi Channel (or SyFy, as it now wants to be called) received a rather poor grade, an F to be exact, because its shows and programming sorely lacked gay characters or representations. Much to Mr. Wright's chagrin, SyFy has agreed to add more diversity to its programs in the future.

John C. Wright (from his commentary): "The head of Sci-Fi channel has contritely promised to include more homosex in future shows, and to do it nonchalantly, just as if this abomination is normal and natural and worthy of no comment. The shows will not actually come out and say sexual perversion has no bad side effects. They won't actually lie and tell you homosex won't destroy your life. But they will imply the lie. They will play along. It's only polite! It's so tolerant!"

Mr. Wright is a bit perturbed, which in turn perturbed the shit out of me, as did it perturb a multitude of commenters that read his post (the post and the comments have been deleted by Mr. Wright because too many Internet "trolls" clogged up the heated, yet stimulating, debate that the post generated, which is a shame because the comments were more interesting, delving and telling than the post itself). While, I afford Mr. Wright his opinions on the subject, I take umbrage with his delivery, as well as with the flawed logic, or lack thereof, of his argument.

Without rehashing the entire post (I encourage you to read it in its entirety before continuing), I'll let you know that he goes on, in a rather snarky manner, presumably attempting to be humorous, to equate homosexuality with pedastry, bestiality, and necrophilia (his pro-commenters also tossed in a healthy dose of incest, as well). Apparently, like marijuana is a gateway drug, homosexuality is a gateway sex act. Not sure how that happens, since I've personally never been attracted to a sheep or a child, but to Mr. Wright, and his ilk, it's all up for grabs once you've dabbled in same-sex sex. Well, I'm going to let his presentation and hyperbole stand aside for the purposes of this post and focus on a couple of words he used to shore up his opinion.

The first word that caught my eye was: natural. Within the context of Mr. Wright's post: "...just as if this abomination (homosexuality) is normal and natural and worthy of no comment." I'm also going to disregard the ever-popular "abomination," because anyone who uses such a dramatic word can not be reasoned with (yet, here I go trying). Now, what I see from this statement is that Mr. Wright is mixing biology with religion. He uses the word "natural" in regards to what he believes is "natural" within his religion. But the word 'natural' is derived from the word 'nature,' which is not a religious construct but a physical construct. In nature, homosexuality has been documented in over 1500 species of animals, refuting Mr. Wright's claims of homosexual sex being unnatural (in the comments section, he stated this much more firmly). While homosexual sex may not be "natural" within the context of a Biblical world, it certainly is natural within our physical world. There is no disputing that. Biology trumps Religion in the fact that biology is tangible, it exists, it can and has been documented, where as religion is a theoretical construct of the mind and the imagination. I ask: which is more natural?

Mr. Wright tosses a lot of other "negative" words around in his post: vice, perversion, moral(ity), values, malfunction (one of my favorites), all to condemn homosexuality as something unnatural and abnormal; but from what stand-point? All these words, within the context of his post, are rather vague, theoretical words. Morality: who's morality? Is there a set morality for the world? No, there is not. Question 10 people about their idea of morality and you'll get 10 different answers. Same with values. Perversion: according to Merriam Websters is "to cause to turn aside or away from what is good or true or morally right." Again, more vaguery. What is good? What is true? What is considered morally right for ALL of us? These are straw words when used in arguments, and just about the only kind of words anyone coming from a religious standpoint can use because there is no concrete on which to stand in the middle of religion.

Is homosexuality the norm? No, of course it's not. Studies have homosexuals making up anywhere from 4-10% of the population, not the majority by a long shot. But does that make it abnormal? No, because homosexuals have existed since recorded history. If it was abnormal then nature would have eliminated it hundreds, if not thousands of years ago. It would have died out via evolution (and no arguments that HIV/AIDS tried to do that since it has been documented to have existed in simians long before making the leap to humans). And if you're a creationist, then God, being all powerful, would have eliminated it (supposedly he tried back in Sodom and Gomorrah but even that didn't quash it--though it led to Lot impregnating both his daughters, talk about abnormal morality!). And this history of homosexuality via art and literature and numerous other documentations lends itself to refute the entire generation of Mr. Wright's post: "why should homosexuals be presented in science fiction in the first place?" Because it's always been a part of the landscape, Mr. Wright, and it always will be, no matter how loudly you beat your bibles and shove your gods at us. It hasn't worked thus far, what makes you think it's going to work by the year 2073?

There is just so much more in Mr. Wright's posting that could be picked apart: "persons with serious sexual-psychological malfunctions," and believing in beings that no one can see is not a psychological malfunction?; "no rational argument to defend the Leftist position," though one could argue that the belief in a higher being is beyond irrational, bordering on psychotic, and then to base one's entire argument upon that irrational belief would be truly irrational, and might warrant a prescription for Lithium; "the lack of self control in sexual matters, where self control is paramount," I'm not even sure what this is about: self-control is paramount in regards to sexual matters? I guess anything outside of the missionary position is considered perverted.

All this said, the fact of the matter is that the religious right (of which Mr. Wright is a member because he subscribes to their rhetoric just as surely as I subscribe to the liberal left's rhetoric, though I think it's interesting to note that Mr. Wright is a self-proclaimed former atheist but has now been directed by a god to walk the righteous path. Prone to extremes much, Mr. Wright), is fighting a battle in the name of the god that supposedly made me as I am. They seem to believe that I am in the wrong for acknowledging, accepting and living within my sexual orientation, just as they live in their sexual orientation everyday. They seem to believe that it is my duty as a child of god to fight these desires and not succumb to the vice of perversion that is homosexuality. They seem to believe that they are right and everyone else is wrong. They don't seem to believe, or even entertain the possibly that I might be here to help them. What if their god created me as a test of their love and goodwill and acceptance of all that he created, and they are failing that test miserably? They, the religious zealots, need to step outside the confines of their churches (created by men) and step outside of their dogmas (created by men) and look into their hearts (created by god) and see the world that he created for what it is and for what it possesses.

They need to retake the test but study more this time.

Jeffrey

PS: After the deluge of comments after his initial posting, Mr. Wright, however contritely, did extend an olive branch to the many people offended by his post, which I commend whole-heartily. While he does have to make his digressions from this offering to call out the Left as a "nation of whiners," state that we are entirely too politically correct these days (which I might have to agree with), and that he is offering said olive branch merely because God has told him too, the overall offering is welcomed and appreciated.

Also, I want to explain that I am not targeting Mr. Wright for any other reason except for the fact that his posting was the latest that I have seen in a long stream of like postings and opinions. The religious right, the zealots, are becoming more aggressive in their need create us all in their images (not gods) and I can no longer sit idly by. I need to speak out for myself. Mr. Wright just happened to be the first one I took aim at. No offense to him personally, just his kind.

JR