NJM 14 – hatespeak

It’s quite a feeling to confront the belief that someone else wants you dead. That your death is not only blessed by, but mandated by their view of god. That they believe that not only are you doomed in the afterlife, but that you should be put to death because of who you are. I’ve done a lot of thinking on this for the past months, filling my mind with various documentaries. I started historically, streaming the secret files of the inquisition – a four part miniseries that was put on a few years back, I believe on the History Chanel. It was appaling to see the lengths of depravity so-called men of god would go to, in order to prove they had the power, and that their faith was greater than any other. That they were right. in 1996, Pope John Paul II gathered a council of internal vatican scholars as well as various historians in order to determine whether or not the Catholic church owed an apology for the deeds it did in some of its darker hours during the various inquisitions – The Cathars, the templars, the Spanish and Roman inquisitions, which also encompassed the witch hunt hysteria. No apology came. Then, I started moving forward in history, watching documentaries on modern day Kenyan witch hunts, primarily against children, Uganda’s death penalty for homosexuals, watching person after person in Uganda’s capital city be interviewed by an undercover gay Brittish documentarian, stating over and over “i believe those people should be put to death, or at the very least have life in prison for their sexuality. It’s not good. They deserve to die”. It was like a literal punch in the gut. These people, if I was in Uganda, believe that I should be put to death for who I am, and who I love. Then today, I watched a documentary on the Westboro Baptist church, and their culture of hatred towards this country, towards homosexuals, towards our leadership and our soldiers. It’s horrific that in this day and age, people still cling to their backward, radically angry thinking. And that they are teaching such hatred to their children. To see 4-6 year old children holding their infamous posters, shouting that gay people (with a much more hateful word that I can’t even bring myself to say) should die, that god will kill this country because it supports our right to live. To watch children laugh at the idea of gay people like myself burning in hell for eternity because it’s what I deserve. It’s morbid and dangerous. Granted, the Westboro baptist church doesn’t pose a big threat, I dont’ think – it has maybe 70 members, and of those members, 95% are blood-relatives of it’s founder, Fred Phelps. But it doesn’t stop there. One of the canditates for the republican nominee for president is affiliated with an ex-gay ministry. Things like that scare me. I’m immensely grateful that I don’t live in a time period where the church, either catholic or protestant has absolute power along with the state to round people up and put them to torture or death on very little, if any, evidence. But I see the intolerance growing. I think the gay rights movement has taken leaps and bounds from the time I was growing up in my sheltered little baptist home. But I do see it taking a step backwards from some of the steps that it made as well. It is legal in more states to marry your first cousin than it is to have a legal, recognizable same sex relationship. I don’t believe that politics in this country should have anything to do with your personal beliefs. Ethics and Morality are two different things. And, contrary to what some may believe, this was not founded as a “christian” nation. It was founded as a melting pot of all different cultures, beliefs. It was freedom from religious persecution, and, I believe should ensure freedom from religious persecution for ALL people. Denying the basic human rights of gay people because you believe that’s what your religious beliefs dictate, whether or not I agree with your religious beliefs, and forcing them on me with legal force is religious persecution. There’s a reason for the principle of seperation of church and state, and we as a country and a people, and as individuals are failing it. Miserably. If you don’t like gay marriage, don’t have one. Why must the religious right focus on what I do in the privacy of my own home – they’re obsessed with gay sex and how wrong it is. I don’t tell you what you can and can’t do in your bedroom. What right do you have to come into mine? There is more to a loving, committed homosexual relationship than our sexual practices. 95% more, I’d wager.

It was on my mind, and I felt the need to get it all out. I’ll get off of my soapbox now.