The first step for Christian conservatives to win the war against the gay movement is to rebrand the terms, said a few panelists at this weekend’s The Awakening conference at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va.
“‘Gay’ is a left-wing socio-political construct designed to create grounds for fundamental rights [based on] whimsical capricious desires,” said Ryan Sorba, chairman of the Young Conservatives of California. “Gay identity does not exist.”
Sorba proposed alternatives to the word “gay,” which received approval by a unanimous show of hands by the 40-some audience members:
* “Same-sex attraction”
* “Same-sex intercourse”
* “Sodomy”
* “Unnatural vice”
Later in the discussion, it was suggested that gays should also be referred to as “anti-Christian.”
(H/T Leonardo)
Now this would be amusing, except that the LGBT community plays into the same thing. Over on the Prop8TrialTracker, the Admins have scolded the community for falling into the "Gay vs Religion" meme. Why is it that so many progressives are so intolerant of religion and religious believers?
And I ask that as a non-believer.
The conservative Christians have been way too successful in convincing the LGBT community that "Christian" is the enemy. And they've been way too successful in claiming the title "Christian" for themselves. THere are lots of Christians who are very gay supportive (and let's remember that the Roman Catholic laity are more supportive of equality than any other religious group! Much to the despair of their Bishops.) This stuff is absolute crap. In my hopeful moments, I think it's the dying of a world view, and at less hopeful moments, I think it really IS a culture war.
6 comments:
As if any of those anti-gay Christianists had any idea about Jesus's message. Or even the OT message about doing justice and loving mercy. They are ignorant in every sense of the word and proud to publish it. I saw OITS last night. We have an awful lot of work to do - one person at a time. Some will never learn. sigh.
Your link to the American Independent doesn't work for some reason. Here's the working address:
http://americanindependent.com/178239/christian-conservatives-discuss-strategy-for-fighting-war-against-gays-start-with-semantics
Yeah, I don't care for the "gay vs. Christian" meme. (I'm not even going to touch the "gay vs. Religion" meme, as that meme completely ignores that there are other religions out there altogether.) Of course, I do think it's easy to miss the supportive Christians. After all, the RC laity doesn't make the news. Even those Christian organizations who are actively promoting equality for LGBT people tend to be relatively invisible compared to the media coverage that the anti-gay folks manage to get.
That doesn't justify buying into the "gay vs. Christian" meme, mind you. But it would be nice if we could find a way to make the pro-gay Christians more noticeable.
Jarred, thanks for the correction. I fixed the link.
Also, you are right. The media basically sells the "gays vs Christians" meme and I think ignores the many religious activists working for justice for LGBT people.
I'm thinking of a post on this....
Real Christians (and by that I mean those who do not use religion to justify their bigotry) are always happy to denounce the bigots within Christianity but, for some reason (guilt, shame, niceness - I don't know) they absolutely refuse to denounce atheists who deliberately claim that all Christians are bigots in their quest to wipe religion off the face of the planet.
If I attack fundamentalist Christians on my blog I am applauded. If I attack an atheist who is trying to destroy my religion by telling lies or lazily repeating untruths and false logic, I invariably get complaints along the lines of "There you go again, attacking atheists." Nobody ever reads what I actually say, they just see the word "atheist" or "Dawkins" and there is an immediate knee-jerk reaction.
Christians and atheists of good-will need to get real and stop being so apologetic and bloody nice. There is a culture war going on both within the Church and within society as a whole. As you have identified, both antitheists and fundamentalist Christians are more than happy to use each other to strengthen their own campaigns. We will end up with a world of only two polarities if true humanists (religious or not) don't stop being so sensitive about the feelings of all those who want to impose their own ideology on everybody else.
Madpriest, that's why the language we use for the extremists is important. NOT "Christian" but "FUNDAMENTALIST Christian" or "CHristianist". NOT "atheist" but "fundamentalist atheist" or "anti-theist".
At some level *I* can't decide who's CHristian, only you can. And a real weakness in the American discourse is the maineline Christians being, as you say, too bloody nice, and letting the fringe Evangelicals get away with speaking for Christianity.
May I suggest we get rid of terms like "fundamentalist" and "militant" and replace them with that good old, catch-all, English word that begins with "w" and rhymes with "bankers?"
If we just refer to Christian W****** and Atheist W******, I think everyone will know who we are on about and there will be a lot less confusion.
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