Bullying leads to another kid's death.

Brandon Bitner was just 14-years-old when he intentionally ran in front of a semi truck. He left a suicide note at his home and disappeared in the middle of the night. His family discovered his absence at 3:45 am and were notified of his death at 4:30 am.

Bitner left his home in the middle of the night and walked 13 miles before taking action.

Friends of Bitner say he was bullied at school for being gay. The school, says they know of no such incidents, but Bitner's friends report a regular problem.

What compounds the problem is that the only church Bitner was reported to attend was a fundamentalist church with anti-gay policies. The youth pastor at the church says that kids in the church are encouraged to "reach out to the hurting" but doesn't say what happens after that. The problem is that fundamentalists insist that being gay is evil and sinful and that such "hurting" kids must change, something that doesn't seem possible. Fundamentalists churches reaching out to gay kids is NOT a good thing. It is just theological bullying with a saccharine lilt to the voice, when it isn't screeching hell fire and brimstone.

To illustrate this point the New York Times just ran an article on November 6th reporting how anti-bullying efforts in government schools face fierce opposition from—who else?—fundamentalist churches. When Montana introduce lessons on tolerance and sexuality the fundamentalists went to war, along with help from the Big Sky Tea Party. Rick DeMato, a fundamentalist minister from the misnamed Liberty Baptist Church said: "We do not want the minds of our children to be polluted with the things of a carnal-minded society."

DeMato says they are against bullying but doesn't define how he interprets bullying. But he says all anti-bullying campaigns involving gay students has to be excluded because "the Bible says very clearly that homosexuality is wrong and Christians don't want the schools to teach subjects that are repulsive to their values." Presumably, since DeMato believes state schools are supposed to teach according to a fundamentalist curriculum he would be happy if gay kids were told they were "repulsive," but that bullying is wrong. Of course, most bullying at the schools that is directed at gay kids is more in line with constant verbal taunts quite similar to how DeMato talks.

The right-wing fundamentalist group Focus on the Family has also come out in opposition to anti-bullying efforts in the schools claiming they are "promoting homosexual lessons."

The president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary—those were the people who started their own denomination precisely because they believed God wanted them to own other human beings as slave—says that "gay activists accuse conservative Christians of homophobia" but "they are wrong." He says their anti-gay views "is not rooted in fear, but in faithfulness to the Bible—and faithfulness means telling the truth." I have always opposed using the word homophobia precisely for that reason. Bigotry is not fear, it is is hate. I do not call such people homophobic because they don't have a fear the way many people have a fear of heights. They hold views that require them to hate a person, and hate is not the same thing as fear.

If anything I believe the term "homophobia" lets them off too easily.

Focus on the Family insists that the school should just say it is against bullying and NEVER mention the fact that gay students are disproportionately targeted for such hatred. They want the schools to only discuss "the wrong actions of the bully—not on the bully's perceived thoughts or motivations." Please note that what this means is that the school would not be allowed to take preventative measures regarding bullying by promoting tolerance of all students. To do that would be to discuss motivations. Focusing on actions requires actions to have already taken place. In other words, Focus on the Family prefers schools only do something about bullying AFTER it was already done.

Consider this policy and our latest victim of the bullies: Brandon Bitner. Now that Bitner is dead the school is aware that he was bullied and the school could take action against the bullies but must not discuss the motivation for the bullying. However, prior to the actual death of Brandon the school would not be able to discuss motivations that cause kids to bully one another. They would be unable to take action to prevent bullying, only respond to it after the fact.

Let me be blunt, as if I ever fail at that: the reason that fundamentalists don't want the motives of bullies discussed is because it requires one to talk about the rabid anti-gay prejudices that permeate the fundamentalist sub-culture.

Many fundamentalists have actually resorted to arguing that the disproportionate number of gay teens killing themselves is the result of too much tolerance of gay people. Tony Perkins of the antigay Family Research Council says "there's no empirical evidence for the claim that society's disapproval of homosexuality causes the mental health problems (including depression and suicide) that are found among homosexuals."

Most Americans disagree. A poll by the Public Religion Research Institute was released at the end of October. That poll reported that 72% of the public think that religious messages regarding homosexuality encourage "negative views" regarding gay people and 65% said there is a connection between those views and the suicides of gay kids.

The one group most satisfied with their churches attitudes toward gay people are fundamentalist
Christians.

Only 7% of Americans believe that their are positive messages coming from the churches regarding gay people, 43% say the message is negative and the rest don't know or say it is not discussed. Asked to assign grades to how well the churches deal with the issue only 16% give the churches an A or B grade, while 42% give them a D or F. Thirty percent give them a C grade.

Asked if they believe anti-gay messages in the church contribute to gay teen suicide rates one third say the message contributes "a lot," while another third say it makes some contribution. Only 21% say it has no impact.

The facts are that anti-gay messages do send messages to gay kids and to the bullies. That is what they are meant to do. Fundamentalists repeatedly say they wish all gay people would go back into the closet so that no one had to see them or deal with them. Some, such a major leaders of the old Moral Majority, openly called for incarcerating gay people and publicly supported the death penalty for being gay. The reason fundamentalists don't want motivations for bullying discussed is because they are a major source for providing those motivations.

Thank god for bigots.

In the last couple of days I have come to appreciate the bigots. Take the brain-dead fundamentalist from Arkansas who was vice president of the local school board and yet who posted a message about gay kids killing themselves by saying he would be happy if they all killed themselves.

That message was so raw and so ugly that it worked up a lot of people.

I come out of a fundamentalist background myself. I know precisely how ugly, cruel, intolerant and vicious those sweet, smiling Christians can be when given half a chance. I know first hand how small-minded they are and how prone they are to believe the most absurd and ridiculous thing about anyone that they despise.

The school I attended was associated with what was then the largest fundamentalist church in America. I don't mean denomination when I say church. I mean this one single church was literally the largest church in the world when it came to attendance. I am thrilled to say it is a shadow of its former self these days.

I graduated from their high school and moved on to the seminary. I look back on it and shake my head in wonder. How could I possibly have endured such morons for so long? But I did.

The schools were dominated by Right-wing extremists, often of some very ugly tendencies. The John Birch Society was considered fairly middle-of-the-road by these people even when the JBS started indulging in crazy Illuminati/CFR/Bilderberger nonsense. The far-Right author of None Dare Call It Treason, John Stormer, taught classes I attended, at least briefly. This sort of conspiratorial nonsense was taught as fact.

In addition the church itself had dozens of members who were active in the Klan. The school pushed Bircher theories. I got such theories directly from the leaders of the school and the principal was a key influence in forming the Moral Majority. I also heard him make some pretty racist comments in class about the inability of blacks to learn. He said reasoning was beyond them and that only memorization worked.

With top officials pushing the Birch Society I got involved in the organization. And while the JBS had a public profile of pretending to shun anti-Semites and other such bigots they didn't try very hard.

I was a young kid and these people were feeding me literature about how the Jews were the real conspirators and trying to take over the world. Yes, they actually believed in Jewish conspiracies. From within the Birch Society I was introduced to every extreme theory on the Far Right that you could possible find, at least at the time.

With the church and the school pushing similar ideas, I naively thought I had to accept them as true. So I did. All of it seemed to make a sort of consistent sense to me. Based on the false premises I got from the school, the JBS made sense. Based on what they taught about conspiracies the anti-Semites seemed to make sense. The racism seemed to make sense. And then they all would refer to the Bible for their proof.

I went to the summer youth camp that the Birch Society was organizing. I meet the top Birch officials and writers there. I ended up a youth leader in the American Party, an offshot of the bigoted campaign of George Wallace. I attended their conferences as well. Deeper and deeper it seemed to go. The loony consistency of all of it seemed to make sense.

And then one day something happened and I woke up. It was really pretty simple. I saw the real face of this movement and it terrified me. I saw what hate looked like when it was behind closed doors and allowed free reign.

Someone I knew from church invited me to a private meeting held inside a large garage at some one's house. I remember walking up this long driveway to the garage where there were around 50 chairs set up theater style. We sat down and the owner of the home welcomed us and then introduced the speaker. I honestly don't remember his name, it isn't important. It didn't matter who he was. What mattered was what he said and what he did.

From this door to the house come a group of men in full uniform, brown shirts, dark heavy black boots almost up to the knee, armbands emblazoned with swastikas, arms held out in the all-familiar "Heil Hitler" salute. The head of this clownish, in a Stephen King kind of way, band of Nazis stood at a podium. The uniformed would-be thugs he brought with placed themselves in a circle around the audience, as if they were watching us all very carefully.

This man then launched into a tirade about "niggers" and "kikes" and that come the revolution they all would be rounded up, tortured and killed. He gave a long, gruesome description of how those massive tree grinding machines could be used. The Jews, he said, could be tossed into them one person at a time and obliterated into a heap of bloody, fleshy pulp in a matter of seconds. He laughed about it. He found the entire depiction amusing and inspiring.

He did his best imitation of the Fuhrer, sputtering and spitting and hollering at the top of his voice his message of undying hatred. For years all this Right-wing bullshit had been fed to me, but it was all ideas and concepts. This hateful man made those ideas and concepts flesh and blood. He personified all that was wrong with what I had been taught. All the careful wording that used to placate the sensibilities of the media were forgotten that day. He said precisely what he meant and what he intended to do if ever given the chance.

I might have been just a teenager but this experience shook me up. It was so ugly, so inhuman. It started me wondering. I began questioning everything I had been taught, without exception.

I left that church, though not Christianity yet. I moved on to another, smaller church albeit one that was still fundamentalist. I was not yet ready to give that up. I started reading more widely and researching. I took all the conspiracy literature I was given and studied it, and all the books that were footnoted, and then read those books and their footnotes. I went through conspiratorial literature that went back two centuries. And the more I read the more clear it was to me how much nonsense it all was.

My new church disagreed with my old church on some key points. Yet each claimed to be following the infallible word of God. The more I studied the more I was unsure of any of this as well. And eventually I came to dismiss all theology and all deities as wishful thinking.

I was still in the seminary but having doubts. One day a kind and gentle Christian introduced himself and I was so thrilled that the semester was starting off with a new friend. Instead he merely wanted to know my name because he determined that my hair was about 1/3 of an inch too long. His feigned friendliness was a front in order to get my name so he could turn me in and get me in trouble with the school authorities.

At this time along came Anita Bryant with her very ugly anti-gay campaign. It reminded me of what I saw in that garage that day, the same kind of scapegoating. Instead of Jews in the cross hairs Anita was going after faggot and queers who "can't reproduce, so they recruit -- your children." Anita would speak but it was that jackbooted thug that I saw in my mind. Sure she smiled more and didn't want have them killed, just cured, or put back in the closet where they belong.

I wrote a letter to my local paper and signed my own name, opposing Anita and speaking out against her campaign. And from there the last ties I had with fundamentalism came crashing down. All these Right-wing types who saw me as their golden boy, as the teenager who understood their ideas, were furious. I listened to tirades from former friends calling radio shows to denounce me for criticizing Sister Anita. I packed my bags and left. I took a job writing and was soon spending a day with Anita and reporting on it. I went to a Moral Majority/Anita Bryant meeting called to demand that homosexuality be made a felony in the state. Jerry Falwell and Anita were the headliners. I reported on how I witnessed these "Christians" having their kids march around with signs calling for the murder of gay people. But hey, they didn't suggest tree grinding machines.

I may have forgotten the name of the jackbooted Nazi who spit out such hate and venom, but I will never forget the incident and tone and mental stench from the hatred. It started me on a journey, one that I continue every day. From that moment on, no belief I held was sacred, they still aren't. I continually reconsider and change views or modify them, and often reconfirm them as well. I also have moved more in a direction where I see the utter evil of hatred and of wielding power over others.

I don't know what would have happened had I never experience that jolting experience of seeing hate so perfectly illustrated in front of me. I like to think I would have evolved anyway, but I can't be sure. Yes, such things are ugly and horrible to consider but they do have their uses.

When Clint McCance went on Facebook and said he hoped all gay kids would kill themselves his venom was so disgusting that he lite a firestorm. Good for him. I'm glad he did it. In a sense he serves to others the function that Nazi wannabe served for me.

People want to think that the beliefs they hold about other groups or classes of people—gays, Jews, Mexicans, "illegal immigrants," or whoever is the target of the day—are reasonable and "moderate." Few extremists actually think they are extreme. Now and then someone takes their premises and follows them to the logical conclusion. And when that happens the moderates are shocked and horrified. They don't want to excuse it, but they aren't sure how to condemn it either. It causes them great discomfort because, for the first time, they see precisely where their beliefs are leading them.

That Nazi thug scared me because he was taking the beliefs I had been spoon fed by the church and school and moved them in a logical progression consistent with the premises held. He forced me to ask myself whether this was what I really wanted. And I didn't. I didn't want any of this. The images that day horrified me so much that I was terrified that if I said anything they might do some of these things to me. I only wanted to get out of there.

I did get out of there. And eventually I got out of the entire fundamentalist mindset. I became an atheist because I felt the entire god concept didn't make any sense. I abandoned the authoritarians of the Right and became a libertarian. The more I saw hatred the more I became concerned about oppression and people being harmed by the collectivist mob mentality of bigotry.

Clint McCance is a nobody whose ugly hate got him attention he wished hadn't have happened. Fred Phelps is a tyrannical minister filled with hate who abused everyone in his life, in one way or another. Yet his "God hates fags," and "God hates Jews" protest rally massive protests from every community he visits.

These bigots force people to see the logical results of bigoted premises. And that forces people to decided whether or not to cling to those premises, or to change them. We have seen huge shifts in public attention on issues relating to the state-sanctioned oppression of gay people. And one reason for this is because people like McCance and Phelps wake people up. They force them to see where the premises they hold are leading.

When it becomes clear that these premises are so ugly and so cruel, people begin abandoning them. I may not believe in a literal god but I can thank this mythical being for the existence of these bigots. These bigots are changing minds, just not in the direction they intend. Clint McCance got people in Arkansas thinking. He so shocked them that few would publicly defend him. After all, the man said he wished school kids would kill themselves, and he did so based on what he says the Bible teaches.

Today bigotry is weaker in Arkansas as a result. Just as the horrors of communism in practice discredited communism in theory, the horrors of bigotry in practice discredits the theories on which they are based. That also means that McCance made fundamentalism a little less appealing to some of its adherents. Like I did, some of them have now begun their journey away from hate because McCance made hate so real to them. And that is a good thing.

At least he had the sense to resign.

I am pleased to report that the Arkansas school board member who said he wished all gay kids would kill themselves, Clint McCance, has resigned from the school board.

He says he regrets the remarks. I'm sorry but I have to wonder if he is sorry he said it, or sorry that there was such a response to it. Those are not the same thing.

This man said he would disown his own children if one of them were gay. Wow! What sort of message does he think that sent to his own children?

He says: "The words I used were unfortunate but they can't be taken back." No, they can't. But they were not unfortunate. This was not just an "unfortunate" incident. He chose to say what he said, what is unfortunate, for him, is that he is paying the price. His political career is over.

I am glad he resigned and glad he apologized for the incredibly cruel things he said.

But I am haunted by the words of McCance that he would disown his own children. Such things happen in fundamentalist homes more than most people realize.

In his day the so-called "faith healer" Oral Roberts was well-known for holding the typical anti-gay view. His oldest son and heir apparent was Ronald Roberts. He was considered a highly intelligent man with the perfect family himself. But then Ronnie divorced and admitted he was gay. A few months later, facing nothing but rejection from his fundamentalist family and friends, Ronnie Roberts killed himself.

Ronnie's nephew, and Oral's grandson, Randy Roberts Potts, wrote about his mother's eyes would light up every time she spoke about Ronnie, her brother. Randy says that his want he wanted from his mother when she spoke about him but says that "her eyes don't ling up anymore, and haven't in years—for the last five, at least."

His mother wants little to do with Randy as well. Randy, like his uncle, had married and had a perfect family. And like his uncle he knew he was lying. He too was gay. Apparently the Roberts' family learned nothing from Ronnie's suicide. Randy is now alienated from his own family, living in Dallas and raising his children.

I hope Mr. McCance realizes how easily this can come to his own doorstep. He says he loves his two children, yet he said if one of them were gay he would "run them off."

Anti-gay bigotry is in a unique class of itself. A racist who hates blacks will not suddenly discover his own child is black. But the anti-gay bigot could wake up and find they have a gay child. It has happened time and time again. The adult disparaging gays could be insulting their own children in an incredibly cruel way without ever knowing it.

Photo: Clint McCance

Jihad in Arkansas

Jihad is an attitude, one that says that others actually deserve to die because they violate your own religious fantasies. I have argued that the fundmentalist Christians are basically compelled to cruelty and hatred based on their view of the Bible.

Let us move to that cultural cesspool known as Arkansas where self-proclaimed "Christian" Clint McCance sits on the Midland, Arkansas school board.

First, allow me to remind you of the events that lie behind this astoundingly reprehensible actions by Mr. McCance.

As this blog, and thousands of others, has reported there was a tragic series of young teens killing themselves because they were being harassed and bullied for being gay. The faces in this blog are some of those kids. Please keep them in mind as you read about what Mr. McCance did. Keep in mind that McCance is one of the elected officials in Midland, AR, whose job is to run the school system that incarcerates thousands of students on a daily basis. His job is to "educate" these children.


After the series of suicides there was a national outcry against the bullying and some groups promoted an awareness campaign where students would wear purple on one day to bring attention to these tragedies. Mr. McCance responded to the campaign by saying that he wanted gay kids to kill themselves. I am not making this up. He posted the following on his Facebook page and keep in mind that the "queers" he mentions are young kids. The spelling is his own, indicating one doesn't have to be intelligent to run a school, at least not government schools.

"Seriously they want me to wear purple because five queers killed themselves. The only way im wearin it for them is if they all commit suicide. I cant believe the people of this world have gotten this stupid. We are honoring the fact that they sinned and killed thereselves because of their sin. REALLY PEOPLE."

This self-identified Christian then responded to someone who protested his wording and his monstrous sentiments.

"No because being a fag doesn't give you the right to ruin the rest of our lives. If you get easily offended by being called a fag then dont tell anyone you are a fag. Keep that shit to yourself. I dont care how people decide to live their lives. They dont bother me if they keep it to thereselves. It pisses me off though that we make a special purple fag day for them. I like that fags cant procreate. I also enjoy the fact that they often give each other aids and die. If you arent against it, you might as well be for it."

"I would disown my kids they were gay. They will not be welcome at my home or in my vicinity. I will absolutely run them off. Of course my kids will know better. My kids will have solid christian beliefs. See it infects everyone."

So how has the Midland School Board responded so far. First they removed the names of their board members. Then they disabled their email system to prevent outsiders from using their site to send them emails. McCance has not retracted his comments nor apologized for them.

What kind of moral compass is operating when a school official wish gay students would kill themselves? McCance says his three passions are "god, family and fishing." I can't speak for any god, nor will I pretend to, I will that to theologians, they are so good at faking that they speak for the divine. I can, however, say something about family. And this invoking "family" to justify hating other people's children is as anti-family as one can get. Like it or not gay kids are not found in cabbage patches. They grow up in families. They have brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. And all of them grieve and mourn when their gay loved one dies. "Family" is not a code word for hate, no matter how much fundamentalists pretend it is. Families are cemented together by love and any family that can't say that is not really a family, just a collection of people accidentally related by blood.

In this blogpost I wrote about "telling kids they are worthy of death." I noted how religious messages, especially coming from the fundamentalist sects, are quite openly sending out messages that gay people should die. And they are sending that message to their own children. Even if they never have gay children themselves, which is not something they manage to avoid all the time, they are still sending that message to other children. We should also remember that they are sending this message to kids who then bully and harass other kids precisely because they are gay. These messages give succor to the bullies and help justify their actions. These "godly" messages tell the bullies and bigots that jihad against gay people is divinely sanctioned.

Telling kids they are worthy of death.

I want to remind my readers of something I wrote the other day, and then offer evidence that has now surfaced to substantiate my assumptions. In regards to the spate of young gay teens, and pre-teens even, who have killed themselves, due to anti-gay bullying, I wrote:

When individuals join these sects they rarely think long term. They may imagine have children, always the perfect children that everyone expects. What they get instead are little human beings who are far from perfect and certainly individuals who fall well short of what fundamentalism expects. Few of these parents consciously consider that they may end up being the parent of a gay boy or a lesbian. Those who consider it due to circumstance tend to repress it and consciously refuse to think about it. The mother of the one victim seems to fit that pattern. The most she admitted was that her son was "different" and that he knew he was.

If the family is involved with this church, and it would appear they are since they chose it for the funeral, did they even consider the role that church might have played in the suicide of their son?

Here is a boy dealing with his own sexual orientation, but who could well have listened to sermons describing gay people as moral monster out to destroy the world. No doubt this church actively opposed equality of marriage rights for gay people. This boy would have sat in the pews listening to the people, that he was told spoke for God, telling him that he is evil, that he is immoral, that is doomed to hell, that he is, as the Bible says, "worthy of death."

The boy in question told people he was gay. But, as I noted, his mother evaded that issue in statements she made. The most she could say in public was that he "was different." (UPDATE: This evening I saw the first comment from the mother acknowledging that her son was gay.) This boy has been buried and his funeral has been held. It was the grandparents who spoke out about the boy being gay, not the mother and certainly not the fundamentalist church where his funeral was held.

The pastor of the church told the media that the service was "going to be on (boy's name) and his life, not on the bullying, and not on the homosexuality." Notice the disconnect. It is "the homosexuality" not the boy's homosexuality. Notice as well that they pastor simply can't admit the boy is dead because he was gay and bullied because of it. Considering that the boy being gay was the very reason he was pushed into suicide, how can that be evaded when it was part of the boy's life? But, this is a fundamentalist church, and what could they say that wouldn't sound cruel and vicious? Of course, they want to avoid the issue; they preached doctrines that gay people are evil and don't deserve equality of rights. The boy had to know this.

Fundamentalist Christianity can play a duo role in the suicides and bullying. One is that it gives support to the anti-gay attitudes that inspire the bullies to beat up gay kids. But equally important is that it teaches gay kids to hate themselves and to see themselves as "worthy of death," as the Bible says of gay men in particular.

Without the remarks from the grandparents this second role of religion wouldn't be so obvious. According to a media report both grandparents "insist their grandson knew from an early age that he was gay." Fundamentalists tend to hate that, they insist that isn't true. They argue that young kids can't know they are gay even though millions of gay adults tell stories to the contrary. Yes, kids can know they are attracted to the same-sex before puberty, just as they can know they are attracted to the opposite sex before puberty. Sexual orientation is not something that happens at puberty, it is set long before that, probably in the womb.

Fundamentalists can not accept that; they say being gay is a sin, and sin is choosing to do evil. So they insist homosexuality must be a choice, and it is one that people make when they hit puberty and begin to have stronger sexual desires. Gays choose to "rebel against God." Any other theory makes their deity a divine version of Hitler engaged in some sort sexual version of ethnic cleansing. If gay people are born gay, and don't choose to be gay, then condemning them for being gay is like damning people for their eye color. Precisely! And studies show that most people who accept that sexual orientation is NOT a choice support equality of rights, while those who think it is conscious sinning, or a choice, oppose equality of rights.

This boy, unlike the other victims of the spate of bullying we have seen, was steeped in a fundamentalist culture. And that clearly played a role in his choose to end his young life. His grandmother said: "He wasn't happy with his orientation. He read the Bible a lot. This was not the way he wanted to live his life but that's what he was dealt with."

Why was he unhappy? Well, reading the Bible a lot, could be one reason. I can assure you that gay kids raised in fundamentalist churches know every anti-gay verse in the Bible. They have heard those voices preached from the pulpit repeatedly. It has to haunt them that the God they worship allegedly said that men who have sex with men "are worthy of death."

This boy was reading a "holy" book that told him he worthy of death. And he was constantly harassed for being gay by other kids, who would hear similar things about gays from the culture around them. His grandmother said he "started getting teased by the fourth and fifth grade," that kids would call him a queer and harass him for it. She said, "He spent a lot of his life frightened."

The day this boy hanged himself he was attacked in park by a group of kids.

Fundamentalism is not the only source of anti-gay bigotry, but in the civilized world, it is the dominant force for such attitudes. The very reason the Republican Party can not accept that principles of rights apply to gay people is because the party is dominated by fundamentalist Christians. These Bible-bigots are "their base."

In my previous post I argued that fundamentalism played a specific role in this boy's views of his own life. I based this on years of experience and knowing he was associated with a fundamentalist church. But it was the comments of his grandparents, which I only discovered yesterday, that confirmed my theory. This boy was a victim of bullying, for sure. But he was also a victim of the religion that he was taught. He was a victim of a Bible that told him he was "worthy of death." He was a victim of a church that puts it's anti-gay attitudes right in it's articles of faith and publishes it on the Internet.

Many years ago, as part of my research for an article I was writing, someone gave me a photocopy of a handwritten suicide letter. This letter was left by a young man who also read the Bible constantly and who was unhappy with his sexual orientation, because he thought God condemned him for it. Like the boy to whom I have been referring, this young man was also involved with a fundamentalist Baptist church. And he explained precisely why he had to take his own life, in order to avoid the "sin" of being gay. Allow me to reprint the entire suicide note he left:

"TO: Those left with the question, why did he do it?

"I loved life and all that it had to offer to me each day.

"I loved my job and my clients. "I loved my friends and thank God for each one of them.

"I loved my little house and would not have wanted to live anywhere else.

"All this looks like the perfect life. Yet, I must not let this shadow the problem that I have in my life. At one time, not to long ago, that was all that really mattered in my life. What pleased me and how it affected me. Now that I have turned my life over to the Lord and the changes came one by one, the above statements mean much more to me. I am pleased that I can say those statements with all the truth and honesty that is within me.

"However, to make this short, I must confess that there were things in my life that I could not gain control, no matter how much I prayed and tried to avoid the temptation, I continually failed.

"It is this constant failure that has made me make the decision to terminate my life here on earth. I do this with the complete understanding that life is not mine to take. I know that it is against the teachings of our Creator. No man is without sin, this I realize. I will cleanse myself of all sin as taught to me by His word. Yet, I must face my Lord with the sin of murder. I believe that Jesus died and paid the price for that sin too. I know that I shall have everlasting life with Him by departing this world now, no matter how much I love it, my friends, my family. If I remain it could possibly allow the devil the opportunity to lead me away from the Lord. I love life, but my love for the Lord is so much greater, the choice is simple.

"I am not asking you to sanction my actions. That is not the purpose of my writing this at all. It is for the express purpose of allowing each one who will read this to know how I weighed things in my own mind. I don't want you to think that, 'I alone,' should have been the perfect person, without sin. That would be ridiculous! It is the continuing lack of strength and/or obedience and/or will power to cast aside certain sins. To continually go before God and ask forgiveness and make promises you know you can't keep is more than I can take. I feel it is making a mockery of God and all He stands for in my life.

"Please know that I am extremely happy to be going to the Lord. He knows my heart and knows how much I love life and and all that it has to offer. But, He knows that I love Him more. That is why I believe that I will be with Him in Paradise. "I regret if I bring sorrow to those that are left behind. If you get your hearts in tune with the word of God you will be as happy about my 'transfer' as I am. I also hope that this answers sufficiently the question, why?

"May God Have Mercy On My Soul."
"A Brother & A Friend."

The young boy who killed himself did not leave a note. He said nothing. He just went home and hanged himself. He ended the bullying, he ended the torment that others inflicted on himself and he ended the torment he inflicted on himself with his constant Bible reading and his own self-hatred for being gay, something as natural to him as his eye color or skin color.

The only thing he left behind was the life he saved. His heart was transplanted into the body of a young boy in Los Angeles, giving that boy a life that nature was ready to deny him.

NOTE: I have not said names as I have no wish to inflict more trauma on the family of this boy. I admit his identity is easy to discover. The lesson that others should learn from this story, however, is important. It is too late for this boy's family to learn the lesson of the evil, anti-life nature of fundamentalism, so I have no wish to contribute to their misery. But the role of fundamentalism in these tragedies should not be avoided.

Photos: All these photos show fundamentalist Christians exhibiting their obsessive hatred for gay people. Please note that none of these photos are of the crazed Fred Phelps cult, these are so-called "mainstream" fundamentalists. These are the type of Christians that the boy in this story would hear at church.

The other victims of the bully.

Above is a news report with Asher Brown's parents. Asher's parent, his family, his friends, were also all victims of the bullying that was going on because Asher was gay.

The school continues to claim that no one reported the bullying to them and that they are blameless. Rot! Here is a video of a girl from Asher's class talking about what happened at school. She tells of the incident where one kid kicked Asher down the stairs. She also recounts listening to students in her school saying: "It's about time he killed himself." Yet, even as she laments what happened she can't ever bring herself to say he was being attacked for being gay. She merely mentions his religion.



There is something that I wish to say, but I hesitate. I hesitate because I don't wish to cause any more pain to those suffering due to the series of untimely deaths. But I wish to speak about the role of specific religious beliefs and how they encourage both the bullying and the suicides.

In one recent case, and I won't name names, the mother of the dead boy seemed to be denying her son was gay. She was very reticent about the issue and avoided it like the plague. Numerous kids from her son's school admitted that the boy had been harassed for being gay. Many of these kids seemed to know the boy was gay, but the mother said nothing about it. Where other parents of victims were enfuriated and spoke out publicly about the bullying, she was silent and said nothing, asking merely for her privacy—which is her right.

I wondered what was happening in the dynamics of that family. Then I learned that they made the funeral arrangements through a fundamentalist, anti-gay church. This church openly says it is anti-gay in its statement of faith. In between all the doctrines about supernatural claims and such they say they oppose "all forms of sexual immorality" including "homosexuality." Given the vicious anti-gay denomination that this church is part of, I am confident that the boy in question heard many anti-gay remarks from his own church, perhaps from his own family. Perhaps this is why the mother says she doesn't want anyone looking for who is to blame for the bullying.

This is a touchy area but it has to be said that many of these kids are not just bullied at school for being gay. But they can't get support from their own families either because of the religious doctrines that these people stupidly adopted. I had a dear, close friend who was gay and who killed himself shortly after graduating high school. I remember having to make the decision NOT to go to the funeral because it was being held in a fundamentlist church, where I knew there was a good chance the minister wouild make remarks that I would not tolerate. Instead of going, and risking making a scene by calling out such remarks when they were made, I stayed home and mourned.

Of late I have been contemplating the negative role that religion has on children. Now not all religions are equally bad, of course. The fundamentalists, in any major religion, are usually the worst of the lot. So it is with Christians as well.

When individuals join these sects they rarely think long term. They may imagine have children, always the perfect children that everyone expects. What they get instead are little human beings who are far from perfect and certainly individuals who fall well shor tof what fundamentalism expects. Few of these parents consciously consider that they may end up being the parent of a gay boy or a lesbian. Those who consider it due to circumstance tend to repress it and consciously refuse to think about it. The mother of the one victim seems to fit that pattern. The most she admitted was that her son was "different" and that he knew he was.

If the family is involved with this church, and it would appear they are since they chose it for the funeral, did they even consider the role that church might have played in the suicide of their son?

Here is a boy dealing with his own sexual orientation but who could well have listened to sermons describing gay people as moral monster out to destroy the world. No doubt this church actively opposed equality of marriage rights for gay people. This boy would have sat in the pews listening to the people that he was told spoke for God, telling him that he is evil, that he is immoral, that is doomed to hell, that he is, as the Bible says, "worthy of death."

Could he come home and talk about the trauma of his bullying? Probably not. If he couldn't tell his mother he was gay, though the whole school semed to know it, how could he tell her he was being bullied for being gay? He might love her deeply, and all indications are that he did, but could he bring himself to tell her the truth when he knew the truth would disappoint her so deeply. It is easier to repress and hide the facts than to risk losing the love of his mother. And if his mother expressed views similar to those of their church he would always have doubts as to whether or not she could love him if she knew the truth.

Over and over fundamentalist Christians have had to face the truth of having gay children. And more often than not they have proven that religion turned them in shitty parents. Fundamentalist parents routinely reject their gay children. Kids who have told their parents they were gay have been kicked out of their homes. Fundamentalist parents have thrown their children out, knowing full well that it may force their son, or daughter, to live on the streets, to prostitute themselves in the hope of being able to eat, or to eat garbage from trash cans. Prominent fundamentalists have done this to their children. Kids who were gay have had their college tuition confiscated by their parents to punish them for their sin.

Put yourself in the place of these gay kids. At school they are picked on for being gay. In church they hear that they are evil and worthy of death. At homes their parents spit out the words queer or faggots, implying that there is nothing worse in the world than a gay person. Everywhere they look their is only rejection.

Other kids at school hear the same things and repeat them to this gay kid. Maybe they physically assault them. Most the gay people I know were assaulted in school, one time or another, because they were gay. They can't tell their fundamentalist parents because they fear rejection from them. They can't talk to their homophobic minister who has regularly consigned them to hell fire for eternity. Is it any wonder that so many of these kids decide they would rather die?

I'm an atheist, I think religion is inherently irrational, a fantasy that people use so as not to face the difficult task of thinking. But some religions are more toxic than others. It is one thing when adults choose to join a irrational, bigoted, hateful sect. But routinely they bring children into the world and inflict that religion on those children, often with very tragic circumstances. Religion is part of the problem. It is not the entire problem and admittedly some atheists can be bigots as well. But surveys show that the religious tend to be more prejudiced than the non-religious and fundamentalits tend to be the most hateful of all. If you simply can't give up the illusion of a supreme being then at least pick a sect that isn't likely to impose self-hatred upon your children.

Suffer the little children...

Seth Walsh is 13-years-old. If he is very lucky he will see 14.

Seth is in a coma and chances of survival are not good. Reports are sketchy but the young boy was found unconscious and not breathing. He had had tried to hang himself from a tree.

Seth was being bullied at school in Tehachapi, CA. The local television station reports that friends and neighbors "said the boy is openly gay and taunted by bullies for years, at school and at a local park."

UPDATE: Sadly I must report that Seth died .

Apparently the situation was so bad at the school that the boy went on independent study so he wouldn't have to attend classes, but his friends reported "he was still bullied outside of school."

As I have said before, the kids who bully other kids for being gay learn their attitudes from adults. As I see it, part of the blame for these suicides belongs to every adult who has said bigoted things about gay people, to every preacher who damns gay people from the pulpit, and every Republican who appeals to hatred in order to secure the votes of fundamentalist assholes.

Gay kids are vulnerable. They often feel entirely alone. Many have no place to go, no one to turn to. Many can't tell their parents because their parents hate gays. They can't seek out support easily. Seeking help may make the bullying worse.

Libertarians have to stand up for the rights of these kids, to speak out against the hatred and the prejudice. We can acknowledge that bigots have a right to believe their own stupid theology, but we don't have to condone the hate they preach. We are on morally sound ground to condemn the bigots, to name them, and to shame them. More importantly, I believe that any of us who value human life and human rights have to condemn the bigotry. We must speak out against it.

Call it political correctness if you want. I don't care. If political correctness means private, community pressure against prejudice and hatred, then I'm for it. I yearn for the day when every bigot is afraid to express their prejudices, not because they will be arrested, but because decent people will no long wish to be associated with them.

How many more kids have to kill themselves?

Yes, if you don't think gay people have the same rights that you have, then I am blaming you, in part, for this tragedy. I don't give a damn if you claim your prejudice is sanctioned by a magic man in the sky or some "holy" book. Hatred is still hatred, even if you pretend a deity sanctions it.

The adults spreading these messages are infecting their own children with the same sort of venomous hate. And those kids go into the schools and make life a living hell for other people's children. What really disgusts me is that these monsters claim they are doing this "for the children."

Who will protect the children from them? The hatred they spread, in the name of the children, is what causes young kids like Seth to hang themselves. The bigots are not protecting children but helping to kill them. Maggie Gallagher: this is, in part, your doing. Mormon prophets and elders: this is, in part, your doing. Pope Benedict the enabler: this is, in part, your doing. Knights of Columbus: this is, in part, your doing. Republicans of America: take a look, this is, in part, your doing. Fundamentalists of all faiths: be proud, this is, in part, your faith in action.

Be proud of yourselves. Relish your accomplishments. You have managed, through the spreading of your hatred, to get another school kid to try to take his own life. Aren't you just fucking wonderful!

When the theocrats in Iran executed teens for homosexuality, by hanging them, people were outraged. Theocrats in America don't like to get their hands so dirty, they prefer harassing kids until these distraught children kill themselves, allowing these "Christians" to pretend they bare no responsibility. In that sense the Iranian theocrats are at least a bit more honest.

Anti-gay preacher sued over sex with young men.

This is not personally surprising to me. This has happened so often that I have come to expect it. I generally assume that any anti-gay bigot is going to be exposed eventually. Bishop Long is a fundamentalist Baptist, a leading black conservative, and an active opponent to equality of rights for gay people.

This report indicates that two young men from Long's church have said he regularly seduced them and offered them material goods in exchange for sex. As I understand it, a third law suit, from yet another young man, has been filed well. Catching an anti gay conservative in bed with men is about as rare as finding out that the priest has been molesting children.

New film attacks Darwin, evolution and Mencken.

The Religious Right is about to unleash a new drama, based loosely on the Scopes Trial. The purpose I suspect is to make Darwin and evolution look bad by weaving in a fictional story about eugenics and forced sterilization. Let us first cover the Scopes Trial.

Tennessee had passed an anti-evolution. The ACLU wanted to test the law and John T. Scopes, a teacher in Dayton, volunteered for the case. One of the great puffing baboons of that era, Williams Jennings Bryan, a man who was a socialist and a fundamentalist, rode into town like a tinhorn messiah to save the law. Clarence Darrow, a political ally of Bryan’s, but an opponent of his fundamentalism, defended Scopes.

The great libertarian writer, H.L. Mencken, came to Dayton to cover the story for the newspaper column that he wrote. A fantastic film was made of the story, Inherit the Wind, which also weaved in fictional characters but often used verbatim transcripts from the trial as script. The film, however, was clearly a dramatization of the story and not meant as history. Few people with a lick of sense take their history from such dramas. However, fundamentalists have hated the film since it first showed up on the movie screens their preachers forbade them to see. And it appears they are now getting even.

A new fictionalized account of the trial has been made. This version is written by Fred Foote, who also financed the film through a family-run foundation “which supports Christian-based artistic and educational endeavors. “

Foote says he wrote about “how the media gave the whole world the wrong story about the Scopes trial.” One paper says that Fundy Fred’s version of the story, Alleged, shows the “trial was actually a tool of the progressive elite of the time, to promote Darwinism for its own darker purpose.” The creationist web site answersingenesis says the film “reveals how the major media delivered a distorted view of the trial in an attempt to attack biblical Christianity.” Foote, shall we say, is a very right-wing character. He gave $2000 to the theocratically inclined Rick Santorum campaign. He also gave money to Keith Butler, a fundamentalist minister seeking the Republican nomination for Senator in Michigan, as well as to Rep. Dick Chrysler, one of the co-sponsors of the anti-gay “Defense of Marriage Act.”

Foote needs a villain, so he attacks the libertarian Mencken. “Mencken was the greatest reporter of the time, who almost singlehandedly shaped this story for public consumption. If he didn’t invent spin, he was an early master of the art. That became the core of my story: the kid who comes under his sway and how far he’ll go on that path if it conflicts with his own views of what’s right and wrong.”

Trailers for this film indicate that it is about dishonest bias in the media, with Mencken as the prime culprit. The fictional Charles Anderson comes under the evil influence of Mencken. As the film’s website portrays it, this is about how Anderson “is torn between his love for the more principled Rose, his fiancée, and the escalating moral compromises that he is asked to make as the eager protégé of H.L. Mencken.”

In addition to Rose and Charles, the script invents Abigail, the half-black, half-sister of Rose who is to be sterilized by the eugenicists who are the result of Darwinism, which the nasty, biased, dishonest Mencken supports. However, this could not have taken place in reality, at least not in Tennessee where Dayton is located. Many states had laws allowing forced sterilization, but Tennessee had no such law and no compulsory sterilizations were performed there.

Foote likes to talk about “truth” and getting at the facts, but he write a screenplay that intentionally distorts history. Foote says he decided “the best way to tell the real story is do another movie.” But, apparently the “real story” requires him to make false claims about Mencken in order to promote his own anti-Darwinian agenda.

Consider poor Mencken: he was a columnist and to say he was biased is like saying Billy Graham is theological. Mencken’s job was to write biased, one-sided takes on the issues of the day from his own libertarian viewpoint. He was not a historian. He was a columnist expressing personal opinions—opinions worth reading for the sheer amusement value alone. Of course he was biased, he was supposed to be.

From what Foote and his website say, the film portrays Mencken as pushing the fictional Anderson into making ethical compromises for the sake of Mencken’s progressive agenda. In reality there was no Anderson and Mencken did no such thing. But Mencken’s columns wounded fundamentalists and they have never forgiven him.

But Mencken was no eugenicist. His American Mercury magazine published one of the first major blasts on eugenics in an article by Raymond Pearl, entitled “The Biology of Superiority.” Conservative Jonah Goldberg notes that Clarence Darrow, the great defender in the Scopes trial, wrote “his anti-eugenics piece for HL Mencken’s American Mercury, hardly a journal that spoke authoritatively for elite progressive opinion…” The two major Darwinists in Foote’s film were both anti-eugenics with Mencken publishing articles attacking eugenics.

Melissa Hendricks wrote of Pearl’s article and Mencken in Johns Hopkins Magazine:

So when Pearl decided to expound the fallacies in eugenics, he turned to the Mercury. In 1924, he sent a letter to Mencken, proposing the critique. "It has seemed to me for a long time that there is a dreadful lot of bilge talked by the self-constituted leaders of the eugenics movement," he wrote. Mencken accepted the proposal, but first he would publish his own essay, "On Eugenics." In typical Mencken style, he uncloaked those who claimed to have inherited their superiority, informing his readers: "Beethoven was the grandson of a cook and the son of a drunkard, and Lincoln's forebears for many generations were nobodies.

Mencken was actually one of the first to ridicule the eugenics movement. He did so years before the Scopes Trial. His 1918 work Damn! A Book of Calumny ridiculed eugenicists for believing “that a physically healthy man is the best fitted to survive. This is true of rats and pediculae, but not of the higher animals… In these higher animals one looks for more subtle qualities chiefly of the spirit.” Edwin Black, who authored a major history of the eugenics movement, War Against the Weak, says that one major eugenicist, Harry Laughlin, was the subject of “a forty-seven-page lampoon written under the pseudonym Ezekiel Cheever, who in reality was either the irreverent Baltimore Sun commentator H.L. Mencken or one of his associates.”

The textbook used on evolution in the Tennessee schools did promote eugenics, but apparently Bryan didn’t find that disturbing. He never once pointed out the section on eugenics and never attacked it—just the teaching of evolution and how evolution leads to moral decay. The creationist Discovery Institute published a piece by conservative Benjamin Wiker, saying that that the text used in Tennessee was “offensively racist and blatantly eugenic” How offensive and blatant they were to Bryan we don’t know, but we know he either didn’t notice the remarks or, if he did, didn’t find them offensive.

This is not to say that people associated with the trial did not express sentiments akin to eugenics. But it wasn’t Scopes who did so, or Mencken or Darwin either. The guilty party was Bryan’s wife, Mary. Bryan’s biographer, Michael Kazin wrote that Mary called the “mountain people” who flocked to her husband “pathetic” and ridiculed how they dressed. Kazin writes: “The wife of America’s leading foe of Darwinism thought so little of the crowd, most of whom admired her husband, that she scribbled a phrase any eugenicist could applaud.” Mary Bryan wrote that ‘this mass of people… have no real part in American life” but “marry and intermarry until the stock is very much weakened.”

Bryan himself expressed sentiments not far from eugenics as well. He wrote that he was proud to be a “member of the greatest of all the races, the Caucasian race.” He called whites the “advanced race” and supported segregation and denying blacks the right to vote in areas where they lived in large numbers.

Certainly the idea that the Scopes Trial was a battle between Progressive elites with some dark agenda (eugenics) and good Christians is wrong. Bryan, not Mencken, was the progressive. Mencken, as Forbes.com noted “first rose to prominence as a Progressive Era dissenter.” Another writer says, “Mencken was a libertarian to the core. Nothing could be more absurd than the claim that he somehow resembled the ‘progressive’ liberals of today.”

While Mencken was an opponent of the progressive movement, the same can’t be said for Bryan, who was often the most prominent spokesman for the progressive agenda. Bryan and Darrow, another progressive, were old friends and allies who shared common political goals. They differed on the criminalization of teaching evolution. It is true that many of these progressives were racists and supported eugenics, but Bryan, not Mencken, was associated with progressivism.

Foote says his film is not a rebuttal to the classic 1960 film Inherit the Wind, with Spencer Tracy, Fredric March and Gene Kelly. That film was a fictionalized account of the Scopes Trial and not history. It invented dialogue, plot lines and created additional drama that actually didn’t exist —such as the relationship between Scopes and the daughter of a creationist minister. If Inherit the Wind could fictionalize, then why can’t Foote?

Obviously he can do it, but the question is whether he is being ethical. I think he isn’t. The major difference between the films is that Kramer’s was openly fictionalized while Foote pretends his is the “real story.” You won’t see a character named Clarence Darrow in the Kramer film. Neither will you see characters named Mencken, Bryan, or Scopes.

Foote’s fictionalized version, however, pretends to be the “real story,” not a dramatization based on a true story. Kramer’s 1960 film had the integrity to make its fictional elements clear, by given the characters fictional names. But the Foote screenplay is about Mencken, Darrow and Bryan.

The extent of hypocrisy in the Christian producers of Alleged can be seen in their using the film’s website to encourage readers to compare Kramer’s fictionalized account “with the facts of the actual Scopes trial.” But why? Kramer didn’t claim to give the “real story.” Where does the film site send people for the “truth” about the Scopes trial? Try a site called TheMonkeyTrial.com. And the registration contact for that site just happens to be Frederick C. Foote—the same Fred Foote who wrote this screenplay.

Mencken wrote his scathing accounts of the fundamentalist mind set and now some adherents of the faith he ridiculed are finally getting even through a time-honored method of Christian apologetics: faking history.

Catholics, Protestants, Hispanics and Gays

First I wish to cover some poll numbers that are not surprising. Next I will follow with how a major Religious Right leader takes those numbers and makes an incredibly silly statement because of it, even by fundamentalist standards.

A survey of Californians was taken which showed that the Latino community was divided on the topic of marriage equality, with a small plurality of Latinos being supportive. But, it was found that Catholic Latinos were far more supportive of marriage rights than were Protestant Latinos. Among Catholics, 57% said they supported marriage equality while only 22% of Latino Protestants held that view.

I suspect the reason for this stark divide is that Latino Protestants tend to be fundamentalists, often Pentecostals. It is fundamentalist Protestantism that has most strongly infiltrated the Hispanic community. Non-fundamentalist Protestants tend to be Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses, both extremely antigay religions. According to the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, 85% of Latino Protestants are members of fundamentalist sects.

That Hispanic Catholics tend to be supportive of marriage rights for everyone upsets the Religious Right loon Bryan Fischer, of the American Family Association. (Note that fundamentalists use "family" much the way the Klan uses "race," as code for hate.) Fisher notes that a Baptist leader, Richard Land, has said he wants a way for immigrants (without permission slips) to become citizens.

Is this Southern Baptist mellowing and recognizing the common humanity of others as the source of all rights? No, not at all. His reasoning is that Hispanic values are conservative.

"Hispanics are hard-wired to be like us on sanctity of life, marriage and issues of faith," Land told CNN recently, describing political similarities between Hispanics and white Southern Baptists. "I'm concerned about being perceived as being unwelcoming to them."

Fischer says that Land thinks Hispanics "will be the natural allies of the conservative movement." In other words, Land isn't concerned about the rights of these people, just hoping to enlist them in a movement to deny other people rights and as a way of imposing "biblical" values on the country through coercive government.

But Fischer is aware of the polls showing Catholic Latinos are supportive of the rights of gay people while Protestant Latinos are the only safe enclave of bigotry that conservatives can count upon. So Fischer suggests that "perhaps Dr. Land can be persuaded to amend his recommendation and give preference to Protestant illegal aliens." But Fischer says that illegitimacy rates may show that Hispanic "pro-family values" are not "as strong... as Dr. Land wants to believe."

The idea that only Protestant immigrants should be given a path to citizenship is astounding if you think about it but consistent with the historic values of American fundamentalism. It is no accident that the virulently anti-immigration Ku Klux Klan was heavily fundamentalist in religious make up. If there has been one trend among fundamentalists over the last century is their unique ability to always hate some identifiable group. Over the years different groups have jockeyed for their attention and often the emphasis has changed but favorite targets of organized hate campaigns have been blacks, Jews, immigrants, Mexican immigrants in particular, gays, Catholics, "liberals," and feminists.

The error that Fischer and his fellow fundies make is that they equate "pro-family" with a fundamentalist morality system. Prof. Joseph Palacios, of the Center for Latin American Studies at Georgetown University said that the pro-family attitudes of Latino Catholics is precisely the reason so many support rights for gay people.

Latino Catholics orient their social lives around the family and extended family even in the context of high Latino single-parent households (estimated 33% of all U.S. Latino households; 36% of all Latino Children in California live in single-parent households). Family solidarity is strong and even though children may not follow "traditional family values" as projected by the church and the U.S. society, parents want to keep their children within the family. It is not surprising that Catholics in general and Latino Catholics in particular, as the Public Religion Research study shows, see that parents learn about gay issues from their children. Their moral and ethical judgments are primarily made through this social reality rather than abstract pronouncements from their church leaders.

While the Vatican wouldn't approve, these Catholics see marriage as a way of binding families and they want their gay relatives bound to the family as much as their straight relatives. In truth marriage equality is the pro-family position. It is fundamentalism that pushes people to reject family members and splinter families in the name of morality. Parents in fundamentalist sects are encourage to reject and cast out family members for a variety of sins including being Catholic.

One of the great ironies of modern politics is that the pro-family movement is made up of sects that are inherently anti-family. Fundamentalism puts adherence to the faith ahead of family unity. The "you're no son of mine" mentality is rampant in such circles. Daughters who get pregnant are often pushed out to fend on their own, sons who are gay are rejected and told to leave the family. Over and over high profile fundamentalists have rejected their own children because of their perceived moral shortcomings.

Fundamentalism is not pro-family at all. It is a force that rips families apart. Latino Catholics don't necessarily follow the fundamentalist moral code but they do embrace their families. And their families include homosexuals. One indication is that Catholics are more likely to listen to the views of family members regarding this issue than are fundamentalists, who are more likely to take their views from a church leader. The family, especially for Latino Catholics tends to be source for moral values, while for Protestant Latinos (read fundamentalists for the most part) tend to take religious dogma over family.

Prof. Palacios also has an observation that is of interest to my readers in particular.

It is important to note that modern Latin Catholicism has a dual nature: it is "conservative" in the sense of family communalism and tradition that the church offers, yet it is classically "liberal" in the sense of not wanting the Catholic Church to have power in political life-- particularly after the long historical experience of the Latin American Church "meddling in politics." As Mexicans put it: "No meta en la política." A sizeable majority of U.S. Latino Catholics shares these attitudes with them. Increasingly they are joining their Latin counterparts in accepting gays and lesbians as part of the social family that is both Catholic and liberal.

This is a simple truth that fundamentalists have trouble understanding. One can be supportive of basic moral values without wanting to a church/state alliance forcing people to be moral. One can be personally conservative and classically liberal politically. Just because a moral principle is a good one to follow doesn't mean that it must be imposed at the point of the gun.

Note: For the record, Argentina has now legalized gay marriage, joining Spain and Portugal and parts of Mexico, with Uruguay next most likely to include gays in marriage laws. The photo is from Argentina.

Bat-crazy Christians hold public bitchfest

One year ago, June 28, police in Fort Worth "inspected" a newly opened gay bar. Wearing full uniform they rushed in and started knocking people around accusing them of being drunk, without doing any testing. Witness after witness recounted belligerent police officers who were unnecessarily violent. In just seconds the thugs in blue had arrested 16 people and injured several, including one seriously.

A full investigation was launched and the results showed the police had violated multiple procedures, did rough people up needlessly, and then lied about the incident in an attempt to cover-up the facts.

Agents of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission were involved and had also been found to have violated policy in regards to raid. Three TABC agents were fired and two were disciplined.

The Fort Worth city council decided that the time had arrived to have a police liaison officer who works with the gay community to prevent these sorts of abusive actions. It seemed as if everyone was happy until the bat-shit crazed fundamentalist Christians started protesting.

One minister, Richard Clough, claimed that the the media and gays conspired and "distorted the facts of what happened the night of the Rainbow Lounge to promote the homosexual agenda." Ah, those clever gays. See how they get police to come in, beat them up, and then use that to promote their devious agenda. That is a really bizarre theory but one befitting the man's theology. Consider that he believes Jesus was god, that he planned to come to earth and die, and that he got some nasty people (Jews and/or Romans depending on who you believe) to torture and kill him, so that he could forgive the sins of the world. Similar in a way as both theories contend the victim had an ulterior motive and manipulated the attack to their own ends. I just never figured out why a god, who is all powerful, didn't have the power to forgive sins without all that torture and killing going on.

One news account says the fundamentalists claimed the city "didn't take their Christian beliefs into account."

Wrap your mind around that for a minute? The police aggressively and unnecessarily raid a gay bar and start hurting people in the process. To help prevent such future incidents a police officer is assigned as a liaison to the gay and lesbian community. And this somehow violates the "Christian beliefs" of these bat-shit crazed fundamentalists. What beliefs were ignored here?

Are they saying that their belief is that gay people should be beaten by police officers? Are they saying that basic civil rights of gay people should be ignored simply because they are gay? What are they saying?

What Christian doctrine is at stake here? When it comes to Christian doctrine I think of things like the virgin birth, atonement, resurrection, the trinity, etc. Apparently there is a Christian doctrine that applies to police pushing around gay people. And since these fundamentalists are complaining about measures to stop such activities I have to assume that the doctrine they think exists is one requiring violence against gay people.

About 100 of these people turned out to protest measures to end violence against gay people.

Let me state something quite clearly, as if my views are ever in doubt: fundamentalist Christians HATE gay people. They want gay people hurt. They want gay people stripped of rights. They want gay people to disappear from public view. They don't want a shred of evidence to exist which indicates that gay people exist. When they say they oppose "special rights" they mean equal rights. I sat in their meetings and heard them screaming for state executions of gay people.

Over the years I've met these lunatics. I met Jerry Falwell several times. I knew Moral Majority founder Robert Billings. I met Pat Robertson, Moral Majority bigwig Rev. Greg Dixon, and anti-gay leader Rev. Richard Angwin. I even met Phyllis Schlafly and then later met her gay son.

I went to their schools and attended one of their seminaries. I heard them when no "outsiders" were listening in. These people would do everything in their power to destroy all records that gay people even exist, if it were in their power to do so.

Rev. Dixon is a good example. He told his congregation that he is asked if gay people should have civil rights. His reply: "Absolutely not! Criminals do not have their civil rights." In another sermon he said: "I don't know how in the world you can get a society that won't even put their murderers to death, I don't know how you can ever get them to put these homosexuals to death but God's word would uphold that. They which commit such things are worthy of death." I had a go at Dixon once and he said, on tape, "Homosexuality is a perversion and should be a felony... From a practical standpoint you're never going to get capital punishing for homosexuality but the Bible would certainly stand by a society that would be willing to do that."

Yes, these people can smile and seem pleasant and even friendly. But deep inside they hold a hate that, if ever unleashed by the removal of social sanctions, would lash out violently.

People often argue that Christian fundamentalists are not as bad as Muslim fundamentalists. What they ignore is the different social contexts. In the Muslim world the fundamentalists dominate and thus their hatred and violence is unleashed. Christian fundamentalists live in Western, predominantly secular society where social sanctions are brought to bear instantly when clear cut hatred is demonstrated. All one has to do is witness what happens every time the nutters from Westboro Baptist Church show up with their hate signs against gays and Jews. Thousands of people instantly respond in a counter-protest.

But the real test of the tolerance of individuals is not how they behave when they are restrained by the culture and law that surrounds them, but how they behave when they have the freedom to act inhumanely. Historically fundamentalist Christians were easily and openly violent and cruel to others, when they dominated the culture. These people murdered other Christians, such as Quakers, simply for not being of their church. These people tortured innocent people into confessing that they were witches. They burned theologians at the stake, whipped people, imprisoned them and tortured them. And they did it without batting an eye.

But that was when they controlled the culture around them. Now they don't. But we should not delude ourselves into thinking that this lack of ability to harm others means that they don't have the desire.

Missionaries of Hate

The above video is well worth watching.

I tire of hearing how Christianity is "different" from Islam and that fundamentalist Christians aren't like fundamentalist Muslims. I disagree. They are very, very much alike, and I say that as someone who knows these people well. The tendency toward violence exists in both camps. The main difference is that fundamentalist Christianity is contrained by the culture that surrounds it. It is not as evil as it wants to be.

The question that must be asked is not about how Christian fundamentalists act today, in modern America, but: How would they act in a culture if they were the dominant force? Certainly the fundamentalists who have spoken about a "Christian America based on God's law" envision a society where millions of people would be susceptible to the death penalty.

This video, about the hate campaigns in Uganda, fueled by American fundamentalists, is an indication of how these radical Christians would act in America, if they had the opportunity. The lack of opportunity should not be construed as a lack of will.

Now that I've thoroughly offended the Right allow me to comment on issues that will offend the Left.

The situation in Uganda is clearly a bad one. It is made worse because so much of African culture is thoroughly dysfunctional. All cultures are not equal, no matter what the cultural relativists say. What saves America from going too far down the theocratic road is that our nation still has one foot firmly rooted in the Enligtenment. Admitted the other is in the Dark Ages and ruled by superstition and faith, but America is sufficiently enlightened to avoid the worst excesses of faith-driven politics.

Africa is another case completely. African culture doesn't have one foot in the Enlightenment, it is more like one toe—and the little one at that. In my years in Africa what I saw was the worst forms of superstitition. Young girls were raped because the sangomas (witch doctors) said that raping a virgin could cure AIDS. I watched a soccer match on television where a small cat ran on the field. The players pursued it and stamped it to death, claiming it must be a witch sent to curse them. Every year hundres, if not thousands, of individuals are burned to death becasue the locals believe they are witches placing curses on their neighbors.

The worst excesses of the witch hunts in Salem, or in Europe before that, are nothing in comparison to the witch hunts that take place every year, year-in and year-out, even now in the 21st century. Consider these cases:

• Kenya, 2008: a mob of 300 men attacks and burns to death 11 people. "The gang moved from home to home through two villages, identifying their victims by using a list of names of suspected witches and wizards and the kind of spells they were believed to have cast..." They sometimes slit the throats of the victims first, or beat them to death with clubs. "Most of the victims were between 70 and 90 years old..."

• Nigeria, 2009: Fundamentalist churches denounce hundreds of children as "witch children" which leads to "exorcism" by forcing acid down the throats of the children. Nwanaokwo Edet, was just 9 when the acid was forced down his throat. It spilled, buring away his face, and he died from the "treatment" inflicted by his church and his father. Over 200 such children were identified by 13 fundamentalist Christian churches as witches. In all of Nigeria it is estimated that 15,000 children have been accussed of being witches and over 1,000 were killed by the Christians sent to exorcise them.

• Burundi, 2009. Watch this report on how albinos throughout East Africa are being hunted down and slaughtered so that their body parts can be used to make "good luck" charms. Where I lived in Africa this was called "muti." Shops existed selling portions and charms made by local sangomas




• South Africa, 2009: Ntombizanele Combo, 45, died when her home was set alight by witch hunters. Her six-year-old granddaughter, Sibulele Combo tried to escape but was forced back into the burning hut by the mob. Not far from the secne a 57-year-old man was hacked to death by the mob. Police say that the mob was hunting witches.

This sort of Dark-Ages thinking was rampant throughout Africa. The closest the West has to this sort of "magical" thinking is fundamentalist Christianity, so it is no wonder that this form of extremists religion is on the rise in Africa. What makes this even worse, is that many Africans see this sort of witch hunting being sanctioned by the West, as Christianity is associated with Western thinking. The Bible clearly says: Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. It also commands the execution of male homosexuals—though not lesbians. The "Western" concept of Christainity is seen as endorsing the worst excesses of the African culture. People who have no problem executing small children in the name of Jesus, certainly won't be appalled at the idea of killing homosexuals.