‘Bud Sex’ Between "Straight" Rural Men

Having spent roughly 37 years in the closet denying the reality of my sexual orientation, I know all about the mental gymnastics in which one engages to try to convince one's self that "it isn't really true" that one is gay.  The phenomenon isn't unique to me or many others who finally stopped the efforts at self-delusion.  It happens all over society and at all social levels.  A piece in New York Magazine looks at the prevalence in rural America - the supposed home of "real men" and "real Americans."  My personal assessment is that the men described are gay or at least bi-sexual but who, due to family, church and local societal expectations, can't and won't admit the reality about themselves.  It makes some of my mental gymnastics look down right simple.  Here are article highlights:

A lot of men have sex with other men but don’t identify as gay or bisexual. A subset of these men who have sex with men, or MSM, live lives that are, in all respects other than their occasional homosexual encounters, quite straight and traditionally masculine — they have wives and families, they embrace various masculine norms, and so on. They are able to, in effect, compartmentalize an aspect of their sex lives in a way that prevents it from blurring into or complicating their more public identities. Sociologists are quite interested in this phenomenon because it can tell us a lot about how humans interpret thorny questions of identity and sexual desire and cultural expectations.

Last year, NYU Press published the fascinating book Not Gay: Sex Between Straight White Men by the University of California, Riverside, gender and sexuality professor Jane Ward. In it, Ward explored various subcultures in which what could be called “straight homosexual sex” abounds — not just in the ones you’d expect, like the military and fraternities, but also biker gangs and conservative suburban neighborhoods — to better understand how the participants in these encounters experienced and explained their attractions, identities, and rendezvous. But not all straight MSM have gotten the same level of research attention. One relatively neglected such group, argues the University of Oregon sociology doctoral student Tony Silva in a new paper in Gender & Society, is rural, white, straight men (well, neglected if you set aside Brokeback Mountain).

[T]he point of Silva’s project was less to draw any sweeping conclusions about either this subset of straight MSM, or the population as a whole, than to listen to their stories and compare them to the narratives uncovered by Ward and various other researchers. . . . Specifically, Silva was trying to understand better the interplay between “normative rural masculinity” — the set of mores and norms that defines what it means to be a rural man — and these men’s sexual encounters. In doing so, he introduces a really interesting and catchy concept, “bud-sex” . . . as Silva (forthcoming) explores, the participants reinforced their straightness through unconventional interpretations of same-sex sex: as “helpin’ a buddy out,” relieving “urges,” acting on sexual desires for men without sexual attractions to them, relieving general sexual needs, and/or a way to act on sexual attractions. “Bud-sex” captures these interpretations, as well as how the participants had sex and with whom they partnered. The specific type of sex the participants had with other men—bud-sex—cemented their rural masculinity and heterosexuality, and distinguishes them from other MSM.

[B]y seeking out partners who were similar to them. “This is a key element of bud-sex,” writes Silva. “Partnering with other men similarly privileged on several intersecting axes—gender, race, and sexual identity—allowed the participants to normalize and authenticate their sexual experiences as normatively masculine.” In other words: If you, a straight guy from the country, once in a while have sex with other straight guys from the country, it doesn’t threaten your straight, rural identity as much as it would if instead you, for example, traveled to the nearest major metro area and tried to pick up dudes at a gay bar. You’re not the sort of man who would go to a gay bar — you’re not gay!

It’s difficult here not to slip into the old middle-school joke of “It’s not gay if …” — “It’s not gay” if your eyes are closed, or the lights are off, or you’re best friends — but that’s actually what the men in Silva’s study did, in a sense . . . . In other words: It’s not gay if the guy you’re having sex with doesn’t seem gay at all.

One way to interpret this is as defensiveness, of course — these men aren’t actually straight, but identify that way for a number of reasons, including “internalized heterosexism, participation in other-sex marriage and child-rearing [which could be complicated if they came out as bi or gay], and enjoyment of straight privilege and culture,” writes Silva.

While Ward sidestepped the question of her subjects’ “actual” sexual orientations — “I am not concerned with whether the men I describe in this book are ‘really’ straight or gay,” she wrote — it should matter. As Juzwiak put it: “Given the cultural incentives that remain for a straight-seeming gay, given the long-road to self-acceptance that makes many feel incapable or fearful of honestly answering questions about identity—which would undoubtedly alter the often vague data that provide the basis for Ward’s arguments—it seems that one should care about the wide canyon between what men claim they are and what they actually are.” In other words, Ward sidestepped an important political and rights minefield by taking her subjects’ claims about their sexuality more or less at face value.

In all likelihood, when Silva’s subjects say they’re straight, they mean it: That’s how they feel. But it’s hard not to get the sense that maybe some of them would be happier, or would have made different life decisions, if they had had access to a different, less constricted vocabulary to describe what they want — and who they are.

The power of self-deception is amazing - and over time, very destructive emotionally and psychologically. 

Inside the Deranged Mind of Donald Trump

There have been many columns and news stories about Donald Trump's narcissism and the danger his self-absorption would pose to the country and world should he ever make it to the White House.  But perhaps the most accurate description of the man can be found in a column in the Chicago Tribune by Garrison Keillor (thanks to the reader who sent me the link).  That Trump is one psychologically twisted individual with juvenile impulses is an understatement.  Here are column highlights:

Your eyes look dead and your scowl does not suggest American greatness so much as American indigestion. Your hair is the wrong color: People don't want a president to be that shade of blond. You know that now.

Why doesn't someone in your entourage dare to say these things? So sad. The fans in the arenas are wild about you, and Sean Hannity is as loyal as they come, but Rudy and Christie and Newt are reassuring in that stilted way of hospital visitors. And The New York Times treats you like the village idiot. This is painful for a Queens boy trying to win respect in Manhattan where the Times is the Supreme Liberal Jewish Anglican Arbiter of Who Has The Smarts and What Goes Where. When you came to Manhattan 40 years ago, you discovered that in entertainment, the press, politics, finance, everywhere you went, you ran into Jews, and they are not like you: Jews didn't go in for big yachts and a fleet of aircraft — they showed off by way of philanthropy or by raising brilliant offspring. They sympathized with the civil rights movement. In Queens, blacks were a threat to property values — they belonged in the Bronx, not down the street. To the Times, Queens is Cleveland. Bush league. You are Queens. The casinos were totally Queens, the gold faucets in your triplex, the bragging, the insults, but you wanted to be liked by Those People. You wanted Mike Bloomberg to invite you to dinner at his townhouse. You wanted the Times to run a three-part story about you, that you meditate and are a passionate kayaker and collect 14th-century Islamic mosaics. You wish you were that person but you didn't have the time.

Running for president is your last bid for the respect of Manhattan. If you were to win election, they couldn't ridicule you anymore. They could be horrified, but there is nothing ridiculous about being Leader of the Free World. You have B-52 bombers at your command. When you go places, a battalion of security guys comb the environs. You attract really really good speechwriters who give you Churchillian cadences and toss in quotes from Emerson and Aeschylus and Ecclesiastes.

Labor Day and it is not going well. You had a very bad month. You tossed out those wisecracks on Twitter and the Earth shook and your ratings among white suburban women with French cookware declined. The teleprompter is not your friend. You are in the old tradition of locker room ranting and big honkers in the steam room, sitting naked, talking man talk, griping about the goons and ginks and lousy workmanship and the uppity broads and the great lays and how you vanquished your enemies at the bank. Profanity is your natural language and vulgar words so as not to offend the Christers but the fans can still hear it and that's something they love about you. You are their guy. You are losing and so are they but they love you for it.

So what do you do this winter? Hang around one of your mansions? Hit some golf balls? Hire a ghostwriter to do a new autobiography?

What the fans don't know is that it's not much fun being a billionaire. You own a lot of big houses and you wander around in them, followed by a waiter, a bartender, a masseuse, three housekeepers, and a concierge, and they probably gossip about you behind your back. Just like nine-tenths of your campaign staff. You're losing and they know it and they're telling mean stories about you to everybody and his brother.

Meanwhile, you keep plugging away. It's the hardest work you've ever done. You walk out in the white cap and you rant for an hour about stuff that means nothing and the fans scream and wave their signs and you wish you could level with them for once and say one true thing: I love you to death and when this is over I will have nothing that I want.

If he wasn't such a threat to the nation and so indifferent to others, he would almost be a figure worthy of pity.  He's made money his god and has perhaps discovered that it cannot find him happiness or the acceptance by his betters that he so desperately craves.

The Sick, Bizarre World of Trophy Hunting

Douche bag Walter Palmer and his victim

I will admit that I am anti-gun and anti-hunting.  In part this stems from early exposure to the lawlessness and selfishness of hunters.  Growing up in Central New York we lived in the county we lived on 50 acres and had horses.  During hunting season we had to fear for the lives of our horses and ourselves as hunters trespassed at will despite all the "Posted - No Trespass" signs that were up and down our property lines.  That experience was not unique and family members in the Charlottesville, Virginia, area experience the same problem to this day.  Personally, I think the phenomenon links with a psychological defect that makes some feel like "macho males" only when they kill largely defenseless animals.  Part and parcel with this mindset is an attitude that the law and rules do not apply to these "real men."  With the furor over they illegal killing of Cecil the Zimbabwe lion, much needed focus is coming on the sickness of hunters, especially trophy hunters.  A piece in Salon looks at this sick and disturbing world.  Here are highlights:

Minnesota dentist and trophy hunter Walter Palmer ignited worldwide outrage after killing the beloved Zimbabwe lion named Cecil. Hundreds have left angry reviews of his dental practice on Yelp and a Care2 petition condemning his actions has racked up more than 200,000 signatures. Focusing this rage on Palmer overshadows the bizarre practices and unscrupulous conduct that are a big part of business as usual throughout the trophy hunting industry. When wealthy clients pay thousands to kill exotic species, professional hunting guides face enormous pressure to deliver the goods even if that means breaking the law. Trophy hunters maintain that they hunt for the benefit of nature, but when the interests of profit and animals collide, abuse is inevitable.

The practice of trophy hunting originated as a way for humans to demonstrate power over large, dangerous animals, but now that modern high-powered weapons can subdue even the largest animals, the trophy hunter’s focus has shifted from animals that are dangerous to those that are rare.

[T]oday’s trophy hunters are corporate types who may spend tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands to kill a single animal. And the bigger and rarer and more beautiful the animal, the more a trophy hunter wants to kill it: An African lion hunt starts at around $39,000. For $60,000, power brokers can bag a bull elephant.

Exorbitant prices can pressure hunting guides to deliver a “successful” hunt no matter what. Hunters want to feel that their experience is real and that the hunt has not been staged, but when a hunt costs as much as a new luxury car, guides must practically guarantee that clients will take home the trophy they want. This leads guides to undertake unscrupulous and even unlawful methods to tilt the odds in their favor. Palmer’s guides allegedly used bait to lure Cecil away from the safety of Hwange National Park and illegally disposed of the lion’s radio collar. American hunting ranches use bait stations to concentrate animals and cameras to monitor their whereabouts. On African big game safaris, some hunting guides use bush planes to herd animals into firing range of a waiting hunter.

Trophy hunters argue that their pastime helps to conserve wildlife, but the reality of trophy hunting’s success as a tool of conservation has been mixed: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, for the first time in history, may list the African lion as an endangered species—a move that could ban American hunters from importing lion trophies—citing overzealous hunting as one reason for the big cat’s decline.

[R]arity itself makes animals more desirable and causes collectors to value killing them even more, a phenomenon Franck Courchamp calls the anthropogenic Allee effect: “The human predisposition to place exaggerated value on rarity fuels disproportionate exploitation of rare species, rendering them even rarer and thus more desirable, ultimately leading them into an extinction vortex.”

Wealthy hunters don’t need to travel to Africa to shoot exotic big game animals. Hunting preserves in the U.S. offer the chance to kill a dizzying array of species, including fallow deer, antelope, zebras and even exotic breeds of domestic goats. Most were bred specifically to be killed, but some game farms purchase animals from exotic animal auctions and even zoos.

In 2014, the Indianapolis Star conducted the first comprehensive investigation into America’s trophy deer hunting industry.  . . . They concluded that the trophy deer hunting business “costs taxpayers millions of dollars, compromises long-standing wildlife laws, endangers wild deer, and undermines the government’s multibillion-dollar effort to protect livestock and the food supply.”

In less than 40 years, deer breeding—which started as a backyard hobby—ballooned into an industry that operates primarily to give wealthy and busy clients the opportunity to kill trophy-size animals with a minimum of effort. The trophy deer breeding industry comprises at least 10,000 farms and hunting preserves in the U.S. and Canada. Over half of the states that permit the hunting of captive wild animals have few or no regulations regarding how captive wild animals are killed.

Chancellor also noted differences in how men and women approach animals right after killing them: “When they approach a kill, most guys high five or have a cigar,” he said. “Women will, almost without exception, sit by the animal, touch the animal. Some say a prayer. Some cry. Some walk with their head in their hands.”

These trophy hunters are a sick bunch and in my view must have microscopic penises if they so desperately need to kill rare and beautify animals so that they can feel like "real men."  Trophy hunting needs to be banned.   As for Palmer, I hope his dental practice is destroyed.  Perhaps he should have spent his wealth on penile enlargement surgery so that he would not need to be off killing prized and beloved animals.

Is Conservative/Religious Extremism Genetic?

The Christofascists refuse to believe that sexual orientation is genetic and not a choice.  Now, new research suggests that perhaps religious extremism and adherence to conservative dogma may somehow be genetic/hereditary.  One of the aspects of the far right and the Christofascists in particular is - at least in my view - an almost sick need for  what some describe as order, structure, closure, certainty, and dogmatism.  And anything that threatens this need - e.g., gays suggesting that the Bible is wrong about homosexuality - is enough to cause these folks to go into hysteria.  A column in the New York Times looks at this new area of research.  Here are excerpts:

It’s been a key question of American politics since at least 1968: Why do so many poor, working-class and lower-middle-class whites — many of them dependent for survival on government programs — vote for Republicans?

The debate over the motives of conservative low-income white voters remains unresolved, but two recent research papers suggest that the hurdles facing Democrats in carrying this segment of the electorate may prove difficult to overcome.

In “Obedience to Traditional Authority: A heritable factor underlying authoritarianism, conservatism and religiousness,” published by the journal Personality and Individual Differences in 2013, three psychologists write that “authoritarianism, religiousness and conservatism,” which they call the “traditional moral values triad,” are “substantially influenced by genetic factors.” According to the authors — Steven Ludeke of Colgate, Thomas J. Bouchard of the University of Minnesota, and Wendy Johnson of the University of Edinburgh — all three traits are reflections of “a single, underlying tendency,” previously described in one word by Bouchard in a 2006 paper as “traditionalism.” Traditionalists in this sense are defined as “having strict moral standards and child-rearing practices, valuing conventional propriety and reputation, opposing rebelliousness and selfish disregard of others, and valuing religious institutions and practices.”

Working along a parallel path, Amanda Friesen, a political scientist at Indiana University, and Aleksander Ksiazkiewicz, a graduate student in political science at Rice University, concluded from their study comparing identical and fraternal twins that “the correlation between religious importance and conservatism” is “driven primarily, but usually not exclusively, by genetic factors.” The substantial “genetic component in these relationships suggests that there may be a common underlying predisposition that leads individuals to adopt conservative bedrock social principles and political ideologies while simultaneously feeling the need for religious experiences.”

From this perspective, the Democratic Party — supportive of abortion rights, same-sex marriage and the primacy of self-expressive individualism over obligation to family — is irreconcilably alien to a segment of the electorate. And the same is true from the opposite viewpoint: a Republican Party committed to right-to-life policies, to a belief that marriage must be between a man and a woman, and to family obligation over self-actualization, is profoundly unacceptable to many on the left.

If these predispositions are, as Friesen and Ksiazkiewicz argue, to some degree genetically rooted, they may not lend themselves to rational debate and compromise.

There are many scholars who challenge the quality of the evidence amassed to date linking genes, politics and values. The field is highly controversial, to say the least. But let’s take a look.

The three psychologists found evidence that they believe demonstrates that authoritarianism, religiosity and conservatism are “different manifestations of a single latent and significantly heritable factor,” the tendency to follow conventional authority “in attitudes toward the structure of family and society, toward religious conventions, and toward conventional attitudes on political issues.” They argue that each of these traits is shared to a substantially greater degree among identical twins than among nonidentical twins

Everett notes, the need for “order, structure, closure, certainty, dogmatism, and discipline are often shown to be more central to the thinking of conservative proponents, whereas higher tolerance of ambiguity and complexity and greater openness to new experiences appear to be associated with liberal cognitive styles.”

The Tea Party's Ideal Nation Rejects Basic American Beliefs

Like the Christofascists who increasingly live in a fantasy world detached from objective reality and in open opposition to modernity and knowledge, the Tea Party's adherents cling to image of America that (i) never existed and (ii) in reality runs afoul of many basic American beliefs -  I attribute the phenomenon to the fact that the Tea Party has an 85% or more overlap with the Christofascists.  Among the thing one hears constantly is the Tea Party meme of returning to the rule of the U.S. Constitution and democracy, yet what they really want is akin to a fascist state where they inflict their beliefs on the majority of Americans. Sadly, too many in today's GOP are only too ready to jump on board the anti-democracy train.  Here are excerpts from a piece in Salon that looks at the hypocrisy of the Tea Party loons:

[I]f a recent Slate analysis of the Tea Party worldview from conservative pundit Reihan Salam is correct, it’s the Tea Party — more than what remains of Occupy Wall Street, or the Davos crowd  — that most stridently represents those citizens who reject actual, real-world American democracy. Salam jokingly refers to the U.S. of the Tea Party’s dreams as “Teatopia,” . . .

What I’d argue, rather, is that the Tea Party’s philosophy of government (again, as understood by Salam) has embedded within it an aversion to basic democratic principles that goes far beyond a typical contempt for Washington, politicians and pundits. When Salam writes that Teatopia is founded on a commitment to a “robust federalism” intended to let “different states … offer different visions of the good life” and allow citizens to “vote with their feet” by moving to whichever state best reflects their values, he’s not describing a common aversion to corruption or a distaste for political theater. He’s describing a childish and essentially anti-political belief that a return to an Articles of Confederation-style U.S. order — in which each state is more of a sovereign unto itself than a member of a larger American whole — will produce 50 mini-nations where everyone basically agrees.

If we take into account the recent Pew report on polarization, which found a full 50 percent of “consistently conservative” respondents saying it was important to them to live in “a place where most people share my political views” vs. only 35 percent of “consistently liberal” and 22 percent of “mixed” respondents saying the same, Salam’s “Teatopia” makes perfect sense. If you’re made uncomfortable by the very idea of sharing sidewalk with someone on the other side, why wouldn’t you pine for a future in which you’re so tucked away among your kind that you come to forget people who think differently even exist?  

[T]he animating spirit of Teatopia is also, at its core, childish. It reflects a psychological makeup that privileges certainty, loathes ambiguity, celebrates purity and is awash with a mild but persistent sense of vulnerability and fear. Teatopia is a place where one never has to wonder about the veracity of her basic assumptions about what Salam calls “the good life.” It’s a place where no one ever has to grapple with the uncomfortable reality of other human beings living full, rewarding lives while concurrently making major decisions one thinks are self-evidently incorrect. It’s a place where one need never acknowledge that there are people who dream vastly different dreams and, what’s more, believe they have just as much right as anyone to make those dreams come true. 

Like the author, I believe that their is a psychological defect - a sickness, if you will - that causes both the Christofascists and their Tea Party first cousins to desperately fear those deemed "other" and anything that differs from their fantasy world beliefs.

Catholic Church Sex Abuse Scandal Heats Up in Australia

While many are still reeling from the disclosure of the cover up conspiracies in the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles via the Los Angeles Times and other news outlets  - although the disclosures coming out of LA should come are no surprise to anyone who has followed the sex abuse scandal since 2002 - things are also heating up in Australia where the same familiar pattern is showing itself.  Adding to the sensation down under is the vehement statements of Philip O'Donnell, a former priest, whose testimony to a parliamentary inquiry board tied the problem of sexual abuse to the Church's policy of priestly celibacy.  For the record, as a former Catholic, I have long believed that the sexual abuse of minors ties directly to celibacy and the corresponding arrested psych-sexual development of brainwashed seminarians and priests inculcated with the Vatican's bizarre obsession  with all things sexual and the portrayal of women as evil temptresses.  The Age (Melborne, Australia's main newspaper) has coverage on O'Donnell's testimony.  Here are highlights:

Many Catholic priests take a flexible approach to celibacy, tolerated by church leaders, and some believe sex with children or men does not count, a former Melbourne priest said on Wednesday.  ''An enormous number of priests struggle with celibacy,'' Philip O'Donnell told the state inquiry into how the churches handle child sex abuse.

''There's a tolerance for imperfection in celibacy, and that may have led to a lessening of outrage at sex with children.''  He said he had no training about celibacy in the seminary and that many priests were ill-equipped. ''Chosen celibacy is a gift, but mandatory celibacy is for many priests a millstone,'' he said.

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Mr O'Donnell declined to speculate on what percentage of Catholic priests, who must vow to be celibate, were sexually active, but another Melbourne priest has separately suggested it is about half.  Asked by committee member Andrea Coote whether priests believed only sex with women counted as real sex (breaking celibacy vows), and that homosexual and child sex did not, Mr O'Donnell said: ''Sometimes.''

The Age article also contained testimony condemning the Catholic Church's Medieval power structure that in many ways mirrors that of the Roman Empire during its imperial period.  And yes, ultimate responsibility for the rampant sexual abuse of children traces direct back to the Vatican:

In other evidence to the inquiry, Catholics for Renewal president Peter Johnstone said the church's handling of sexual abuse was directly related to its dysfunctional government. Although Australian church leaders claimed that responding to abuse was a local matter, in fact the Vatican kept strict control.

The worldwide church was governed by a 17th-century system whereby ultimate power was vested in men who were celibate, often socially isolated, usually old, unable to communicate with the faithful, and under the supreme control of a papal monarch who demanded blind obedience.

Mr Johnstone said Catholics for Renewal was an organisation of committed, progressive Catholics who represented views shared by several Australian bishops and scores of priests who were bound by rigid vows of obedience not to publicly say so.

Asked by the committee to name these bishops, Mr Johnstone said it would be inappropriate. ''If you want to see what happens to bishops who disagree, just look at Bill Morris'' (the bishop of Toowoomba sacked by the Pope last May after suggesting the church might consider revisiting the question of women priests).

The Sydney Telegraph has related coverage.  One can only hope that the Australian parliamentary inquiry exposes the foul filth that is the Church hierarchy.

The New Yorker Exposes AFA's Bryan Fischer: Extreme, Ridgid, Bigot and From a Broken Home

I'm not a subscriber to The New Yorker, so I can only quote from an article abstract that focuses on AFA's anti-gay bigot in chief, Bryan Fischer, as well as a piece on Right Wing Watch.  But what's interesting is the picture that emerges of Fischer.  Like Maggie Gallagher (who engaged in what the GOP and Christian Right would describe as slut behavior and found herself pregnant and abandoned by her "boyfriend") and it seems all of the prominent "ex-gays for pay," Fischer seems to have come from a f*cked up family background and the man still suffers from psychological issues that he's never properly dealt with.  Instead he projects his anger and venom on others, Native Americans, gays, immigrants of all sorts and Hispanics being among his preferred targets.  In my opinion, the man is a mental case and it is telling that he's typical of the hate merchants of the self-professed Christianists.  Rather that ranting and spewing hate towards others, Fischer ought to be seeking a significant mental health intervention.  Here are highlights from The New Yorker abstract:

[E]vangelical radio talk-show host Bryan Fischer. .   .  .  who hosts “Focal Point,” a popular Christian radio talk show, is one of the country’s most vocal opponents of what he calls “the homosexual-rights movement.” As he puts it, “A rational culture that cares about its people will, in fact, discriminate against adultery, pedophilia, rape, bestiality, and, yes, homosexual behavior.” His goal is to make this view the official stance of the Republican Party. 

[The article] tells about Fischer’s upbringing. He attended Stanford University and the Dallas Theological Seminary. Fischer directed Biblical studies at Cole Community Church in Boise, Idaho for thirteen years. Discusses Fischer’s growing political activism and tells how he came to be affiliated with the A.F.A.

 

Right Wing Watch fills in these details that I cannot access until the current issue of is past current status.  Here are some telling details:

 

Readers who are already familiar with Fischer’s extremism will likely be much more interested in the details about how he came to be what he is today, starting with his upbringing and relationship with his parents:

Fischer’s political activism, however, began years before the advent of same-sex-marriage laws. In fact, his preoccupation with family dysfunction seems to have started with his own. Though Fischer loves to talk, he does not like to talk about his childhood, and spoke about it only grudgingly. He was born in Oklahoma City, in 1951, and his father, John, a descendant of German Mennonites, was a Conservative Baptist minister whose pacifism was so strict that he became a conscientious objector during the Second World War—a choice that makes Fischer uncomfortable. […]

 

Fischer didn’t volunteer anything about his mother, but, when pressed, said, “My parents divorced when I was about twenty. It just rocked my world.” His mother, who worked as an interior decorator at a furniture store, was “chronically late,” and the bus driver on her route to work would always hold the bus for her. Eventually, he said, “my mom fell for the bus driver,” deserting him, his father, and his younger sister. “I don’t want to go into it,” Fischer said. “But I saw the devastating impact it had on other people in my immediate family.” Asked how his father fared, Fischer turned away, then said, “He looked like an Auschwitz survivor. It was akin to that ordeal.”

 

Dennis Mansfield, a Christian conservative who was friends with Fischer for twenty years, said that Fischer also “had a deep-rooted disappointment in his father, for not being strong enough.”

Later, as a student at Stanford, Fischer gravitated to David Roper, a chaplain at the school, and began attending his evangelical church in Palo Alto. Fischer told Mayer that he was attracted by the “manliness” of the church: “It was the first time I’d been around a real muscular Christianity,” he told me. “It had a kind of strength and virility to it that would appeal to men.” Roper told Mayer he found this characterization “odd” and is no longer close to Fischer. In 1993, Fischer was crushed when Roper retired and endorsed a different successor. […]  

But friction had grown between the two men—and between Fischer and the congregation— over various doctrinal issues. “The central issue was gender,” Fischer told me. The church, he said, had “adopted policies that would have allowed women to exercise authority over men.” He opposed this, citing the Apostle Paul.  .  .  .  .  “Somebody’s got to have the tie-breaking vote,” he explained to me. “According to God, that’s the husband and father.”

 

Four years later [in 2005], Fischer was kicked out on the street by his own congregation – again manliness was to blame:

“It was the gender issue again,” Fischer told me. “Because of my Scriptural convictions, I wasn’t able to budge. A female friend of the wife of an elder wanted a leadership role. I felt those roles should be reserved for men… . When I objected, they said, ‘You’re fired.’ It was very abrupt. I didn’t know what I was going to do next. It was very painful.”

 

The picture that is painted is that Fischer is not only and insufferable bigot but a total asshole to boot.  I'd also add that given the findings of the recent University of Rochester study on homophobes and their suppressed homosexuality, Fischer has all the hallmarks of a self-loathing closet case.  Not to mention attributes of someone in need of serious mental health care.  That Fischer stands as a major voice for the Christianists is indicative of how utterly f*cked up most of them are.

A Christianist Sexual Morality Chart

Click image to enlarge.

Nothing gets the Christianists more in a sweaty dither than SEX. Their emotional/psychological problems on the issue are immense even though in their hearts most I suspect desperately want wild rambunctious sex desperately - especially the tortured closeted gays (and, of course, Catholic priests and Baptist pastors, preferably with minors). The chart set out above from the Friendly Atheist - I found it via Joe.My.God - lays out the twisted analysis of when sex is OK for the tortured fundamentalist/conservative Catholic crowd. Obviously, the most important criteria is that sex NOT be enjoyable.

God Did Not Write the Bible

I often criticize the Christianists and far right Christians who claim that the Bible is inerrant and engage in a form of idolatry that makes a mockery of their supposed self-professed beliefs in the Gospel message. Likewise, I often attribute the fear and hatred of others to their weak faith and fear of the unknown that pushes them to attack and denigrate anyone who is perceived to threaten their house of cards religious belief construct. Interestingly enough, two different columns at Religion Dispatches look at the issue. One is in the form of an interview with retired Episcopal Bishop and author, John Shelby Spong, and the other is a column that looks at Rick Santorum's religiously twisted psyche and why he cannot accept that LGBT individuals are entitled to full equality under the nations (and states') civil laws. I believe that these issues and criticisms of the Christianist mindset need to be pounded home over and over to undecided members of the public so that they will realize that it is the so-called "family values" crowd, not LGBT Americans, who are a threat to the principles of religious freedom upon which this nation was founded, First highlights from the interview with Bishop Spong:

Retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong is used to being a lightning rod for religious debate. Known affectionately as “Jack” to his friends, Spong has been taking religious literalists to task for over 40 years.

Spong’s new book Reclaiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World . . . on page 15, Spong writes: “I do not think for one moment that Bible is any literal sense the ‘Word of God.’” This book is Spong’s way of putting the Bible back in its right perspective—as a collection of “tribal” stories that sprang from “the experience of human beings seeking to make sense out of the life they are living and the things they are experiencing.”

RD: Erstwhile candidate Michele Bachmann was even asked in one debate whether she believed the Bible required her to be “submissive” to her husband. Politicians are trying to enforce that aura around the Bible and competing to be seen as taking it the most literally. What do you make of that?

SPONG: I think it’s sick, though I think there is less of it now than during the Bush years—we’re making progress, as strange as it sounds. . . . . I think it’s a reality show. I think it’s the strangest group of candidates I’ve ever watched run for office and I would be embarrassed at almost any one of them being the president of the United States.

It seems to me that what the Christian faith says is that every life is holy, every life is loved, and every life is called and empowered to be all that it can be. That’s not what you hear. Christianity has been a religion of victimization if you look at its history. We victimized Jews during the Crusades. We victimized Muslims in the 14th century. We victimized heretics. We victimized people of color. We victimized women. We victimized homosexuals. We victimized the environment. We’re currently victimizing immigrants. It’s all the same mentality.

What is it about Christianity that makes us constantly be a victimizer? I think it’s because we’ve adopted victimizing theology. We spend all our time in church talking about how sinful and evil human beings are. The only way you can tolerate listening to that is to pass it on. We have to pass on this hostility that we have. The idea that God killed Jesus because you were a sinner is a really strange idea. It makes God an ogre. It makes Jesus a sadomasochistic victim and it makes you and me guilt-laden.

Guilt never produces life. If guilt is your message, the best you can produce is a hidden righteousness. You repress your negative feelings in public and you pass this guilt on because it’s intolerable. I think what we’ve turned Christianity into is a sick religion and it comes out politically.

Exceptionalism is in every religious system. Religion is a human social invention to keep insecurity in check because being human is a very insecure thing to be. We’re self-conscious. We know we’re going to die and we have to relate to that. Animals don’t have to relate to that, they just live until they die. Human beings are the only animal that commits suicide or uses drugs. Religion is part of our defense system against the radical insecurity of life.

In order for religion to make you secure you have to make excessive claims. You have to say that, “We are the chosen people,” or “The Pope is infallible,” or “Our way is the only way,” or “the Bible is inerrant.” You have to make a claim that locks security up tightly.

Christianity is not supposed to make you secure. . . . If you’ve got to spend your time proving that you’re better than someone else—males are better than females, whites are better than blacks, heterosexuals are better than homosexuals — you’re always building yourself up by pushing somebody else down. But, you shouldn’t need to build yourself up unless you’re radically insecure. Religion feeds into that radical insecurity with triumphalism—ours is the only religious route you can take to get to God. That’s a really strange idea.

Religion is not about truth, it’s about security. The sort of thing I’m presenting is never going to be the majority view but it’s going to be the minority point of view for those who are bold enough to look at life as it really is and not to need a narcotic to get through it but as something that gives them the strength to embrace the radical insecurity of life, and I think that’s worth doing.

Christianity is not about saving people from their sins. It’s about expanding the sense of what it means to be human. That’s a very big difference. I’m tired of being saved from my sins.

The column on Rick Santorum is equally damning although more focused on Santorum's own very damaged mental state that likely arises from his tradition Roman Catholic upbringing. Here are some highlights:

It’s been widely observed that religious foes of LGBT equality frequently make arguments of convenience. These arguments are usually guised in the language of rhetorics other than that of religion. Thus homosexuality is pathological (medical), destructive of society (sociological), narcissistic (psychological)—anything, really, as long as it’s bad, which is what opponents of equality really mean.


Last week, for example,Rick Santorum argued that same-sex marriage would be a slippery slope, because “in terms of pleasure,” polygamous marriages offered as much pleasure as gay marriages do. This strange new line of thinking presupposes that the only reason for same-sex marriage is pleasure, just as the only reasons for a homosexual “lifestyle” are pleasure, lust, and so on.

This is, of course, absurd. Gay couples get married for the same reasons that straight couples do, with pleasure being pretty far down the list — behind, say, love, companionship, taking care of one another, societal recognition, raising children, and so on. Santorum’s ignorant comment (one of many, of course) assumes, incorrectly, that homosexuality is a (changeable, optional) predilection of the gonads, rather than an orientation of the heart. Lust, not love.

If we assume that Santorum is being sincere in his bigotry rather than purely opportunistic, what he’s really interested in is religion, not social policy. If it were social policy that motivated him, he’d read the studies of same-sex couples in Massachusetts and in other countries, which show that they raise children as well as opposite-sex couples, form stable families, and the rest. But what Santorum is motivated by is actually religion: a fear of sexuality and of women souped-up by a misreading of Leviticus, Romans, and Corinthians.

But he can’t really say that on television. If he were honest, he’d just come out and say something like: “I’m sorry, but God just cannot abide any homosexual behavior.” But he isn’t.

Santorum and other homophobes cannot speak frankly because their real motivations are private, emotional, and incoherent. It’s not as though Santorum dispassionately selected Catholicism from a menu of religious ideologies. He believes because he feels. Even before his wife’s miscarriage (in 1996), before his political career, some concatenation of circumstances installed what some have called religious “software” in his brain. Things are good when religion is dominant, bad when it is not. This is the truth of his experience.

They [Santorum and anti-gay Christianists] have wedded their fundamental sense of okay-ness to the truthfulness of a set of doctrines. Not only is sociology not at issue for Rick Santorum, Romans isn’t either. What is at stake is his very sense that the world is a good place, that things are basically okay, and that he himself is okay as a result. That may be expressed in a theological framework, but it is a psychological reality. If I marry my partner, therefore, Rick Santorum is not okay.

The fake secularism, the fake science, the bogus constructions of homosexuality — all of these are so transparently false because they are mere props. As one after another of them collapse, anti-gays will eventually be left only with their convictions, and the reasons why they have them. Perhaps only then, echoing Portnoy’s therapist, might we say “Now we may perhaps to begin.”

Be it due to religious brainwashing, limited intelligence or some sort of psychological malady, Santorum and those like him who claim the Bible is inerrant are motivated primarily by fear. Fear of who they really are. Fear of the future or fear of life after death. Fear of anything that rattles their sense of safety and security. And unfortunately, that fear quickly transforms itself into hatred of anything and anyone who threatens that artificial sense of safety and security that stems from mindlessly checking off the boxes on the Christianist list of rules to live by. Ans sense gays challenge the Bible materialists we are rewarded with a special level oh hate and animus by the Santorums of the world. The ones who are damaged goods are not LGBT individuals but rather the Christianists, Rick Santorums and Pope Benedict XVI of the world.

A Wonderful Mom's Reflections on Sharing Her Story of a Possibly Gay Son

Back in August I noted a post done by a wonderful mother who posted about her 6B year old son who had a crush on the character Blaine on the TV show Glee. Her openness and acceptance of her son was very moving and should have been an inspiration for all parents. As she discovered, some Christianists were none to happy with her acceptance of her child however God created him. She also heard from many LGBT children and youths who related their fears to her and also their wish that she were their mother. Now, she has shared some insightful reflections on her experience in the aftermath of her blog post going viral on Huffington Post. Given that today is the anniversary of my mother's death, her thoughts hit home with me. Here are some highlights:

On August 16 I learned what viral meant. I wrote an essay about my oldest son and his love of a popular gay television character, Glee's Blaine, and how this crush led to him telling me he wanted to kiss boys, not girls. I naively posted it to a blog, thinking some fans of the show might think it was cute.

Within 24 hours it had been reposted and "liked" over 30,000 times on the blog's website. It wasn't long before messages started flooding in, other websites began posting it and people were commenting. The response was overwhelming positive.

It also made some people uncomfortable. Of the criticisms, the most common is that my son is six years old and doesn't know anything about sex. While I fully acknowledge this may not be the end-all-and-be-all to my son's sexual orientation, I object to the idea that being gay is only about sexual acts. Our emotions and feelings, our attractions and compulsions, all contribute, not just our body parts. . . . . Plus, for every comment I've read saying my son is too young, I have received multiple messages from adults saying "I knew when I was little, too."

It got me thinking and after awhile I started to feel like I knew this big secret that shouldn't be a secret at all: Every gay adult used to be a gay kid. It's not as if all children start off as straight until some time later when someone flips the gay switch. We are who we are from the very moment we are born.

The horrible and hate filled words of the Michele Bachmann's of the world take on a whole new level of disgusting when picturing them being screamed at a group of kindergartners and first graders. They are unnatural. They are sinners. They are going to hell. They are dirty, wrong and sick. These people would tell my innocent little boy (who currently wants to be a fireman-ninja when he grows up) he is the biggest threat the American family... because he wants to kiss boys and not girls.

The reality is they are pounding these words of ignorance and hate into the ears and minds of gay children every day. And those children are hearing them. I know because many of those kids are now writing to me. Kids as young as 14 have sent me messages. So many are scared children, who sure as hell did not choose this for themselves, living in fear of their family finding out because they know full well what their mom and dad will say. And they tell me they wish I was their mom.

[T]he solution is obvious to me. Keep it away from all our kids. It's my responsibility as a mother, as a human being, to stand up and say "No more." No, you are not allowed to say those things in front of my children, not unless you want to deal with me. Because I will not allow any of my sons to be viciously attacked without seeing me defend them. They will never have to doubt for a second exactly where their parents stand, and never have to live in fear of who they are.

While my mother never wrote a blog post, I suspect her thoughts mirrored those of the wonderful "Amelia" who authored the August post and this piece on Huffington Post. I know for a fact that during the years she headed up a lab at the Portsmouth Naval Hospital she looked out for some young gay Navy boys. Would that all mothers - and fathers - were so loving and decent.

Church Hierarchy Ignored Advice of Mental Health Experts

The steady drip of a water torture equivalent continues to dog the Roman Catholic Church as the sexual abuse scandal continues in the news daily. Yesterday, I wrote about correspondence demonstrating the Pope Benedict XVI clearly knew of problems with sexual predator priests despite denials to the contrary. Today, a story in the New York Times bursts the balloon of the Church's claims that decisions were made on expert advice that in retrospect was flawed with a story by a psychologist who unequivocally states that mental health expert advice was routinely ignored by Church officials who obviously put the interests of dangerous priest ahead of the safety of children and youths. Indeed, this expert states that "It was a surprise for me to see how many psychopaths I met in the priesthood” Personally, I have long believed that the celibacy requirement in the Roman Church and the culture of secrecy and no accountability on the part of the hierarchy created a uniquely attractive refuge for those who were psychologically damaged and who suffered from emotional issues. What is so amazing/disturbing is that with everything that is coming out why anyone continues to give any deference whatsoever to the bleating of the bishops, cardinals and/or Pope. Here are some story highlights:
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Leslie Lothstein has seen them all: priests sexually active with adult men, others with adult women, others with adolescents, others with children. By his own count, Dr. Lothstein, a psychologist at the Institute of Living, in Hartford, has treated about 300 Roman Catholic priests, not only those with sexual problems, but also those with alcoholism, depression and other mental illnesses.
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And, when interviewed in his office last month, he was not at all surprised by the continuing revelations about sexual abuse by priests in the Catholic Church. “I had predicted 15 years ago that this would go up to the pope,” Dr. Lothstein said.
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He unwittingly found himself in the news almost 10 years ago, when it was reported that the Catholic Church had sent priests to the Institute of Living for treatment without always telling the doctors the full details of the priests’ transgressions. (One of those priests was the superpredator John Geoghan, whom Dr. Lothstein treated.) What’s more, the Catholic hierarchy often ignored the institute’s recommendations about the priests’ fitness for service. “I found that they rarely followed our recommendations,” Dr. Lothstein told The Hartford Courant in 2002. “They would put them back into work where they still had access to vulnerable populations.”
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[G]iven his vast experience, as well as his independence from the church, his insights are disturbing, but also helpful. “It was a surprise for me to see how many psychopaths I met in the priesthood,” Dr. Lothstein said. “Glib, callous, could say anything to you and be charming.”
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And as the therapists continue to discover, no therapeutic technique can heal a church of all its pathology. “And I treated half a dozen priests who fathered children,” Dr. Lothstein said. “I treated priests who had two children. I treated priests who got women pregnant and got them abortions. “I said to one of them, ‘Why didn’t you just use a condom?’ And he said, ‘Because birth control is against the law of the church.’
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Until it recognizes that sexuality is NORMAL and a part of the human condition, the Church will continue to f*ck up minds and lives with sad consequences that might have been avoided. And yes, it will continue to pin all its moral bankruptcy on gays rather that admit the Church's enormous doctrinal flaws.

Homophobia - What Really Drives It?

I have often noted that some of the worst gay-hating homophobes among the professional Christian set strike me as a tad too hysterical over gays and gay sex. Yes, there are some Christianists who are solely motivated by power and the money they can rake in via anti-gay propaganda. James Dobson and Tony Perkins strike me as falling in this latter category. But the former group is much larger and includes for example Robert Knight, Peter LaBarbera, Matt Staver, Matt Barber, etc., These guys are almost downright deranged when it comes to the level of their homophobia. Why? Because in my view they are either self-hating closet case or have severe insecurities about their own masculinity and sexual orientation. Why else be so afraid? A column by a therapist with over 30 years experience in the Sonoma Valley Sun seems to support my conclusions. Here are some highlights:

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With the passage of Proposition 8 last year, we must confront the reality that, in spite of tremendous progress, we still live in society with widespread homophobia. Gay people face a level of discrimination, prejudice and anger unlike any other group. They still face a public debate as to whether their very existence is acceptable. Could anybody get significant media time making the argument that any other race, creed or religion was inherently inferior or cursed by God?

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The archeological and sociological record indicates that homosexuality exists in every society throughout history. While penalties as severe as death have driven gay behavior underground at times, it appears to exist everywhere in roughly the same percentage of people. This constancy of both persistence and level are the strongest evidence that sexual orientation is simply a normal part of the human genetic equation.

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Yet since it provokes so much fear, it must be perceived as a threat. What is the threat that homosexuality holds for heterosexuals? . . . If we were all straight, then same sex groups would be instantly free of sexual tension. More than some nonsense about being from different planets, this is why men and women tend to congregate with their own gender. No sexual preening behavior is needed. While a man or woman is instantly identifiable, not so for a gay person.

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What if they’re not the only one? What if you felt attracted to them before you found out? What if they want you? Better to chase them out of the group while firmly establishing yourself as straight, perhaps by attacking them. Ridicule, marginalization, and persecution have been used throughout history to purge the group of that which is different. But as has always been the case, it is the oppressor who is really afraid, and the fear of confronting what it is in themselves, that causes them to persecute another. It is their fear of what is within that drives them.

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More to the point is a column entitled "Homophobic? Then You're Probably Gay" by Johann Hari at Huffington Post that contains some gems of information concerning the severely homophobic. Here are a few highlights:

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Professor Henry Adams at the University of Georgia conducted a major study in the 1990s, where he took several groups of men who identified as heterosexual and expressed hostility to gays, and wired them up so the blood flow to their penises could be monitored. He then showed them gay porn -- and some 80 percent became aroused. He concluded that since "most homophobes demonstrate significant sexual arousal to homosexual erotic stimuli", anti-gay hatred is probably "a form of latent homosexuality."

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But we know from decades of sexual research that almost everyone -- especially as a teenager -- has a period when they have omnivorous sexual urges, with attraction to the 'wrong' gender cropping up for a while. . . . . The question is: how do you deal with them? If you see this as an interesting, natural part of human experience, they will soon fade from your mind. If you see them as shameful or immoral, they will fester -- and you will subconsciously project them outwards, onto the demonic, disgusting fags, who should be punished for tempting you.

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How do we break through this? It has to start with honesty. Homosexuality is not some unnatural intrusion, wrought by demonic perverts, as the pre-modern religious texts so absurdly assert. It is an inevitable part of nature -- birds do it, bees do it -- and it is, fleetingly, part of the sexual development of most teenagers. If you are full of hate for homosexuals, the evidence suggests you have a psychological problem, based on denying part of yourself.

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If only the Christianist gay-haters would go and get some much needed mental health care, the world would certainly be a far better place.