I’d be interested in further exploring your comments. Please contact me if you would like to privately discuss your experience.

wbesen@truthwinsout.org

I go there. I was just there recently. I’ve NEVER seen any “Christian” out there harrassing tourists about gambling, provocative shows, drinking, endless lines of immigrants passing out business cards for hookers! Why aren’t they trying to “reach out” to and share the love of Jesus with these far more numerous “errant” straight folks?

These are all ALSO EQUALLY “bad” under the dogma of fundamentalist Christianity! WHY are they singling out and OBSESSING over homosexuality?

They way they pick and choose which people and which “sins” they are going to be publicly obnoxious to seems very disengenuous to me. No?

*The social poison of far-right religious fundamentalist movements should not be understated.

or

*The acknowledgment of the social poison of far-right religious fundamentalist movements should not be underplayed.

The social poison of far-right religious fundamentalist movements should not be underplayed. My concern is that when someone routinely uses some of the heaviest and most invoking terms in every discussion, they come off more as a caricature that plays directly into the hands of far-right propagandists who want a perfect example of the “scary gay guy” to ridicule and be afraid of. (People like Perez Hilton whose comments give the far-right the kinds of propaganda coups that they salivate over.) You can’t expect to change the minds of extremists, but you can build bridges with those closer to the middle, and it really does us in the gay community no favors when we’re seen as practically doing everything we can to *alienate* the middle. There indeed are Christians who act like Taliban, and it’s atrocious. And regardless of whether you’re religious or not, it cannot be denied that there are people in religious center and religious left who would be sympathetic to our grievances if only we didn’t try to cast them all as Taliban of the same shade.

Don’t give the far-right any such excuse for justification. In some regions, our rights are fragile enough as it is. To those who don’t really know gay people, how each gay person treats others has a collective effect on how we as gay people are seen as a whole. And it is precisely people in the middle who have so much influence over our future, and have (and have exercised) the power to make or break our civil rights. It is precisely because our challenges are so great that we must try harder to build lasting bridges with the rest of the world, so that we are not as easily sabotaged when we fight for our lasting rights and survival in the world.

I have degree in theology. I left the church after I realized how people like you operate.

Don’t anyone be fooled: this is about FREE PUBLICITY. These church’s are all about money, power, and +rep. Its like a pyramid scheme, just don’t get duped. My thinking is, if people need imaginary friends and mythical stories to do whats right… its probably just better to let them have it and ignore them. I would like to say that people mature out of it… but they don’t. Greed, whether monetary or spiritual, is a part of the human condition.