Over the past few days, several headlines and articles dealing with the "Christian Right," homosexuals, and Virginia's Republican ticket have caught my eye. First, we have this gem from Rev. Bill Banuchi, executive director of the New York Christian Coalition, apparently recommending that gay people be made to wear "warning labels" just like cigarettes:
We put warning labels on cigarette packs because we know that smoking takes one to two years off the average life span, yet we 'celebrate' a lifestyle that we know spreads every kind of sexually transmitted disease and takes at least 20 years off the average life span according to the 2005 issue of the revered scientific journal Psychological Reports.
When challenged, the Good Reverend tried to back away from his comments, but he also called on people to "pray for those who are deceived by the lies of popular culture, who are caught up in a destructive lifestyle, and for the children who are being zealously evangelized by radical homosexuals." Lovely.
As we all know, of course, the idea of placing "warning labels" on people isn't new in human history. Most recently, in June 2001 the Taliban ordered Afghan Hindus to wear such labels. This idea was also all the rage back in the 1930s, when Jews, Gypsies and - you guessed, it, homosexuals - were forced to wear badges of various colors and shapes (a pink triangle in the case of homosexuals; a yellow star in the case of Jews). So, Rev. Banuchi's idea isn't exactly original. But it's still despicable.
Next, I read a long article in Sunday's New York Times Magazine. The title pretty much says it all: "What's Their Real Problem with Gay Marriage? (It's the Gay Part)" Basically, the author argues that right winger culture warriors' fixation on homosexuality is not first and foremost about "defending" marriage, as they claim. Instead, the right-wingers simply believe homosexuality to be heinous, period. They justify their condemnation of the "gay lifestyle," as they tellingly call it, based on their narrow reading of the Bible and their apparent ignorance of scientific evidence (e.g., that homosexuality is innate). Perhaps their fixation on homosexuality stems from psychological "issues" of one sort or the other, who knows. Anyway, here's what the Sunday New York Times magazine article had to say on the subject:
But as I learned spending time among the cultural conservatives who are leading the anti-gay-marriage charge, they have their own reasons for doing so, which are based on their reading of the Bible, their views about both homosexuality and the institution of marriage and the political force behind the issue. In the words of Gary Bauer, president of American Values -- one of what is now a total of 61 organizations under the Arlington Group banner, with a combined membership of 60 million -- gay marriage is ''the new abortion.'' He meant that, as with abortion, conservatives see gay marriage as a culture-altering change being implemented by judicial fiat. But gay marriage is also the new abortion in that it is for groups like Bauer's a base-energizing and fund-raising issue of tremendous power.[...]
But for the anti-gay-marriage activists, homosexuality is something to be fought, not tolerated or respected. I found no one among the people on the ground who are leading the anti-gay-marriage cause who said in essence: ''I have nothing against homosexuality. I just don't believe gays should be allowed to marry.'' Rather, their passion comes from their conviction that homosexuality is a sin, is immoral, harms children and spreads disease. Not only that, but they see homosexuality itself as a kind of disease, one that afflicts not only individuals but also society at large and that shares one of the prominent features of a disease: it seeks to spread itself.
Great stuff, huh? Gotta love those "compassionate conservatives" and "hate-the-sin, love-the-sinner" types. Heh.
Last but not least, while searching for news on the Virginia governor's race, I noticed an article in the Washington Blade, entitled "Va. GOP candidates seen as most anti-gay in years." Openly gay Virginia House of Delegates member, Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria), was quoted as saying "If Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell had got together to pick the [Virginia Republican] ticket themselves it might not have been any different." And Dave Lampo, president of the Virginia Log Cabin Republicans, said ?Statewide, the one moderate hope was Sean Connaughton,? while agreeing with the assessment that "Jerry Kilgore...has fought against gay rights at every turn and taken tens of thousands of dollars from Pat Robertson."
So there you have it. The Republican ticket of Kilgore/Bolling/McDonnell is a bunch of radicals backed by gay bashing religious zealots. In contrast, Tim Kaine is a moderate who wants everyone - including gay people - to have equal rights as citizens, while keeping "marriage," per se, between a man and a woman.
In other words, on gay issues - as on so many others - the Republican ticket-mates in Virginia are the "radical extremists" in this race, while the Democrats are the mainstream moderates. And that's the truth no matter how many times, and in how many different ways, that the so-called "conservatives" try to tell you otherwise.
We just need to keep to a simple slogan, I don't know if people will be up for a complex explanation of this and that.
But let's not go too far: Yeah, Kaine's not the enemy Kilgore is, but that doesn't make him our friend.
You can't say Kaine wants us to have "equal rights as citizens" when he's spouting constantly how he wants us written out of the Constitution, and he wants us to continue to be denied thousands of legal and financial rights and obligations.
Kaine will get my vote because he's not Kilgore, not because I believe him to be on my side.