Pandemonium

A Counterblast to Homophobia

I have a number of friends who happen to be gay or lesbian. At a local charity, I worked with a gay Australian director for three years (maximum period of office). He gave up the opportunity to return to his native Sydney for the Olympic Games there because of his dedication to duty. So, lovely people all, then, and I love 'em to bits. 8-)

Consequently, I'm getting fed up to the back teeth with all the ignorant, barbaric, filthy-minded and vicious homophobia I keep bumping into. Mostly it's from the ultra-right-wing American god squad but, annoyingly, it's jumped the Pond. The self-appointed guardians of the public's morals have been creeping out of the woodwork over here too, of late. What is it with these hostile fanatics? Do they have so little faith in their god that they feel they have to speak for him? Do they think their god is not up to the job? Or is it just a mixture of over-blown arrogance and prurience on their part?

Mention the word 'gay', and their minds instantly leap to anal sex? Why? There are other options, and anal sex is not exclusive to homosexuals. I can't help wondering, if these religious zealots met my husband and me at a party, would they immediately be asking themselves what we might or might not get up to in bed? Would they agonize for the rest of the evening about whether or not I 'take it up the arse'?

Contemplation of other people's private behaviour never enters my head. Am I the odd one out here? I just take folks as I find them. So long as they're pleasant and friendly, I couldn't give a tinker's cuss about their sexual activities which, like mine, are no one's business but their own - provided it's consensual and doesn't scare the horses. ;-)

After anal sex, the next platform of their campaign of hate against the gay community is paedophilia because, of course, all homosexuals are paedophiles. {rolls eyes} No, no and thrice no. Paedophilia and homosexuality are NOT synonymous - not even close. Acts of homosexual love take place between consenting adults - stress consenting; stress adults. Paedophilia is all about exploitation, domination and control. Children cannot give informed consent. Sex with anyone underage is abuse and is thus against the law for homosexuals and heterosexuals alike.

Those who take an aggressively anti-gay stance keep banging on about homosexuality being "a choice" - that gays and lesbians could be as 'normal' as the rest of society, but deliberately choose to be 'deviants' and 'perverts'. Well listen up, folks. Your sexual orientation does have a genetic component.

Clearly, the homophobes don't pay much attention to science. You don't have to be a geneticist to keep abreast of up-to-date developments and discoveries. There are a number of journals available from your local newsagents which will keep you informed, giving basic information which is uncluttered by obscure scientific details. So don't take my word for it. Check out, for example:

http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/research/story/0,9865,1508092,00.html

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6519

and

http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:iLo7nCqvWjsJ:www.newscientist.com/article.ns%3Fid%3Ddn6612+%22New+Scientist%22+gay+gene&hl=en

Then stop talking nonsense about 'choice'. After all, who in his or her right mind would choose to belong to such a maligned and persecuted minority group whose members are subjected to beatings, bombings and appalling abuse? Pur-lease!

Then there's the vexed subject of gay marriages. Why should two people, who love each other and wish to make a commitment to each other, not do so? Why should they be deprived of all the benefits - and responsibilities - of that commitment, solely on the grounds of their sexual orientation? Will the world fall apart? Will the sky fall, as these 'Little Chicken Clucks' would have us believe? Of course it wouldn't, any more than it did when the Wise and the Good decided to
give equal rights to women and to people of other ethnicities.

Yet these homophobes declare gay marriages to be an attack on the sanctity of 'normal' marriages and 'family values'. The basis of their argument here is that gay couples cannot have children - at least, not by 'normal' means. Of course, the sole purpose of marriage is to produce children, so if you're getting any pleasure out of it - any pleasure at all - you're obviously doing it wrong. Especially if you're female... And it's not as if the world's over-populated, is it?

But they seemingly have no objection to marriages between couples who are infertile, or who are of sufficiently advanced years that pregnancy would require nothing short of a miracle, or - perish the thought - assisted pregnancy. And isn't it funny how, when one lady in her sixties chooses (chooses - smirk) to give birth, certain parties run around getting their knockers (typo, but I'm leaving it in - {g}) in a twist in their haste to pass laws preventing any more female pensioners from doing it because, you know, if one old lady gets away with it, they'll all want to get pregnant. NEWSFLASH: No. They won't. No way! Trust me on this. Of course, if you're a bloke and can still get it up, no problem... And let's not mention the sanctity of Britney Spears' 55 hour just-for-fun marriage. Oops, I did.

Then we get the fatuous and immature question: if two gay guys can marry, can I marry my dog/cat/sheep/horse/ [insert animal of choice]? Because your dog/cat/sheep/horse/ [insert animal of choice] understands the meaning of marriage, can speak its consent and sign the register? Yeah, right.

The thing that irks me most is the way the homophobic rabble-rousers cite the Bible to justify their bullying. This book is several thousand years old. It has gone through many interpretations, translations, re-evaluations, misinterpretations, additions, revisions and mistranslations. (By men. We weren't allowed to have anything to do with it.) Even if it began as 'The Word of God', by now, it has pretty much become duck soup. Not that there isn't a lot in it worth paying attention to - the bits Jesus said about forgiveness, compassion, unconditional love and such like.

The ultra-right-wing god squad however, in a purple passion of "do as I say, not as I do", tells us we cannot cherry-pick which bits of the Bible we should accept, or choose which bits to reject. It's a kind of all-or-nothing deal and homosexuality is bad-wicked-evil, because it says so in the Bible. Funny, while they can give you chapter and verse on those bits, no one has yet given me a reference to anything Jesus said against homosexuals except that which has been filtered through 'Saint' Paul. But that's okay. The Bible's aggin it and that's what counts. All or nothing, right?

But the Bible also states 'If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not listen to the voice of his father' [ ... ] 'all the men of his city must then stone [the son] with stones, that he die." Don't know about you, but I feel disinclined to worship a deity with inferior parenting skills to my own. But, this is The Word of the Lord, which must be obeyed. All or nothing. Right? However ridiculous.

Furthermore, in the case of rape, the Bible (Deuteronomy) states that the rapist must marry the victim. (That'll learn 'im, huh?) This is The Word of the Lord, which must be obeyed. All or nothing. All right?

*Ping* The lightbulb over my head just lit up!

Rape isn't exclusively heterosexual, is it? Men can get raped too. So, if the victim has to marry the rapist, then the Bible supports gay weddings. And if gay marriages are mandatory in the case of rape, then there can be no objection to gay marriages in general, can there? The Word of the Lord must be obeyed. Right? All or nothing...

So, to any homophobes reading this, please, let's learn to live and let live, huh? No harm, no foul, no questions asked. Believe what you want. I don't care. I'm not asking you to give up your beliefs. Just stop trying to make other people live by them.

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