You never know what will slither out when you turn over a rock. This time, I couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry….
There is a website called “Christwire: Conservative Values for an Unsaved World.” A friend sent it and at first, I thought it was a more realistic version of Betty Bowers: America’s Best Christian; then I decided it was for real. Further checking was needed to convince me that it really was intended to be satirical.
This gem is titled “14 Outrageous Secrets a Homosexual Will Not Tell You,” and it begins with a dark introduction about corrupt legislators and “activist” judges. It then lets its readers into the details of the satanic “homosexual world.” (You can see why I thought it was real; I’ve seen very similar material from self-professed Christian sources.)
For example, did you know that gay men bleach their anuses? That the primary reason gay men join gyms is for mutual masturbation? That homosexual activity in the animal kingdom is not, as reported, a natural occurrence, but has been deliberately introduced into the animal population by gay trainers? That gay bars are just like Muslim terror cells?That Glee is a sinister plot to recruit children into “the homosexual lifestyle”?
These fevered imaginings sound very much like the bizarre fantasies conjured up by terrified–or titallated– good “Christians” we’ve all encountered.
There’s evidently something about the human psyche that needs to attribute horrific practices to people who are in some way different, that demands the utter dehumanizing of those who are in some way “other.” Mere disapproval is presumably insufficient.
It’s the long history of that phenomenon that made this particular takeoff so believable.
Christians used to accuse Jews of killing Christian children and using their blood to make matzohs. Southerners used to swap stories of “endowed” black men “having their way” with the delicate flowers of Southern femininity. More recently, right-wing zealots mutter about the “terrorist cells” disguised as Mosques. These are real accusations–not satirical ones.
Here in Indiana, as the effort to place a ban on same-sex marriage in the Indiana Constitution heats up, I’m afraid we can expect genuine–and outrageous–efforts to paint our GLBT friends and neighbors as alien and forbidding. Because after all, why would they want to get married if they weren’t plotting the destruction of Western Civilization As We’ve Known It?
They couldn’t possibly just want to enter into socially-sanctioned relationships with someone they love, buy a house and file joint tax returns.
Hate must come from a very twisted place; it encourages beliefs that are so outlandish, so uncomfortably close to satire, that it can be extremely difficult to tell which is which.
It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if Eric Miller and Micah Clark started citing Christwire’s “research.”