the recognition that sex and love have their ironic and perverse
dimensions. On the other is the stone-faced demand for continence,
sacrifice, and conformity, and the devising of ever-crueler
punishments for deviance, all invoked as if this very fanaticism did not
give its whole game away. Repression is the problem in the first
place.”
To the religious, I would go beyond simply arguing that their calls for
punishing gays and lesbians through either humiliation or physical torture
are inhumane and monstrous, and beyond pointing out that the fact that
their scripture (be it Christianity, Judaism or Islam) fully endorses this type
of behavior means that their God is a cruel, savage monster. I would inform
them that their opposition to homosexual people is not about “perverted
sex,” but about opposing true love and happiness. That is not something
that needs “curing.” They don't have to tax their imagination by putting
themselves in the metaphorical shoes of gay individuals; they should employ
that faculty in realizing that asking the government to ban or undermine gay
marriage and gay sex is no different than having your high-school
sweetheart's family drag her away, threatening you with physical
repercussions if you do not stay apart. It is to tear away your wife, the
mother of your children, your life partner from your home in the middle of
the night. It is not the “gay lifestyle” you are trying to ban, it is “love” itself.
That is very much beyond a “civil rights” struggle. It is indeed, a “way of
life” struggle, for “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Don't Fight Opportunism With Opportunism
Of course the term “traditional values” or “family values” is code for [insert
choice of rotten scripture – Qur'an, Old and New Testament, etc.] but also
an opening for the audience to pour into a common pool of festering,
irrational, insecurity. Gay rights campaigners do not support teenage
pregnancy and rocketing divorce rates. However, thanks to an opportunistic
media that's fueled by controversy, you have to waste precious airtime
opportunities clarifying the obvious. Rather than allowing the heterosexual
majority to see the commonality of human love as the uniting element, each
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