Religion's War on Gays

Via City Watch

A piece in City Watch has an interview with Mel White, founder of Soul Force, which takes a pretty negative look at the status of gays in America - at least gays living outside of progressive major metropolitan areas (which excludes pretty much all f the cities in Virginia).  Despite the "It Gets Better" campaign, White maintains that for many in the LGBT community, things may actually be getting worse in "fly over states" as the Christian Right ramps up its efforts to denigrate and marginalizes gays and their families.  He gives particular focus on Lynchburg, Virginia which has come to be dominated by Liberty University and its creationist believing and gay-hating zealots.  While White may take too gloomy a view in someways, his indictment of religion is dead on.  Here are some excerpts: 

White and hundreds of Soulforce volunteers protest outside megachurches that preach hatred and bigotry in the name of religion. White travels to communities where young gays, lesbians, bisexuals or transgender people have committed suicide.

He holds memorial services for them in front of the church doors. He accuses the pastors of these churches of murder. His books “Stranger at the Gate: To Be Gay and Christian in America” and “Holy Terror: Lies the Christian Right Tell Us to Deny Gay Equality,” are two of the most important works that examine the innate cruelty and proto-fascism of the Christian right.

At its heart it is the church. The churches should be convicted, not just Ravi. He’s just an extension of the hatred that people feel about this threat, this gay threat. Pope Benedict XVI should be on trial. Richard Land from the Southern Baptists should be on trial. Religious leaders, Protestant and Catholic, should be on trial. They made this happen, but too few Americans make the connection.”

White applauds President Obama for taking a personal stand for marriage equality. But he also notes that the president’s statement was accompanied by a reiteration that states have the right to determine their own policies toward marriage.

Despite gains by gays in the wider culture, especially in the entertainment industry, and despite the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the civil rights of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people in most states are deteriorating, White said. 

White and Nixon left Virginia for California a few weeks ago because the culture, he says, had become increasingly inhospitable to gay couples. In distressed communities across the country there is a correlating rise in intolerance, hate talk and homophobia.

“When I moved to Lynchburg it was a blue city, in spite of Liberty University being there,” White said.   “We had an amazing progressive woman, Shannon Valentine, as our state representative. She visited our home. We had a progressive mayor and a progressive City Council. In 2009 everything went to hell. Our new attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, is crazy. 

“We have 29 states that do not outlaw discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation,” White said.   Transgender Americans are invariably the worst victims of discrimination and violence. And yet there are 44 states that do not outlaw discrimination on the basis of gender identity. There are 44 states that have laws or constitutional amendments denying us the rights of marriage, claiming our relationships are unholy, that we’re sick and icky,” White said.
 
“Too many of my sisters and brothers in the gay community don’t seem to understand the power of religion,” White lamented. “They have been rejected by religion. They hate the idea of religion. Therefore, they’re not going to deal with religion, which is fatal, because religion is the heart of homophobia.

“Without religion there would be no homophobia. What other source of homophobia is there but six verses in the Bible? When Bible literalists preach that LGBT people are going to hell they become Christian terrorists. They use fear as their weapon, like all terrorists. They are seeking to deny our religious and civil rights. They threaten to turn our democracy into a fundamentalist theocracy. And if we don’t reverse the trend there is the very real possibility that in the end we will all be governed according to their perverted version of biblical law.”  

Yes, it's a grim perspective, but living in a state like Virginia where we just witnessed religious extremism on a wide basis in the Virginia General Assembly, it is very important to recognize that the ultimate enemy of LGBT equality is religion.