"I'm a Christian. Unless You're Gay"

The headline is also the title of the post excerpted below. What it means is, often times Christians* don't act very Christian around or about gay people. I've experienced this for years, having been a very early internet warrior myself. I'm somewhere on the continuum between agnostic and atheist (and sliding further toward atheist as I age), and also gay. So, since the days of Prodigy (and even a few bulletin boards before that), I've been having online discussions--usually arguments, really--with Christians. I'd argue with Jewish, Muslim or Hindu people, but they don't tend to "start" it, in my experience.

We know that this is not how all Christians behave. But
many--particularly on the internet--do.

No, virtually all of the condemnation, nastiness and outright hatred poured onto me in these conversations is from purported Christians. With rare exceptions, when things have gotten heated, they applied the heat first. I try to be mature, reasoned and calm. But I tell ya, they know how to elevate the rhetoric. They have a difficult time with the mental exercise of putting oneself into another's shoes. "Imagine there's no heaven," John Lennon said, "it's easy if you try." Not for these folks. They will not go there. And while the story below is all about "the gay," it could easily be about non-believers, or people of other faiths than Christianity.

I would like to interject that this behavior is chiefly in the online realm. In my experience, people aren't usually confrontational in real life, with rare exceptions. It takes a picket line (like above) or other protest before it bleeds over into the "real world." But in today's world, where Facebook, Twitter and other social mediums are as common as actual personal interaction, the distinction has gotten quite blurry.

Like the author, I've very often tried to express myself on the subject, and had difficulty. He needn't have worried. It's excellent. [Thank you to Stupid Monkey Planet for the link. And the reminder at Joe.My.God.]

[Excerpt]


I’m Christian, unless you’re gay.

. . .“God hates fags.” We’ve all seen the signs being waved high in the air by members of the Westboro Baptist church. On TV. In real life. It’s hard not to take notice.
Over the years, I’ve watched seemingly never-ending disgustingness and hatred spill across the media airwaves from those who belong to the organization. For those who don’t know much about that “church,” they have made a seedy name for themselves by doing drastic things like picketing beneath atrocious signs and hosting flagrant anti-gay protests at military funerals.
Almost every person of nearly every religion has no problem loathing and condemning the Westboro Baptist Church and its members, and perhaps with reason. They take freedom of speech far beyond what our founding fathers intended when they fought to give us that right, and they laugh at the rest of the world while they do. . .

Read more at: SDL


*I by no means claim that all or even most Christians are hateful and homophobic. But the most vocal ones are, and they've got nearly the entirety of the 2012 Presidential candidates on board with them.