The Gaytheist Agenda

Carnival of the Liberals #63 is now up at Vagabond Scholar. There you’ll find many excellent articles from Liberal blogs like Greta Christina’s Blog, Divided We Stand United We Fall, The Greenbelt and many more! Stop by, you won’t be disappointed.

I found this excellent poem at The Digital Cuttlefish. There are two versions, the second being in response to the recent exchange between Rep. Monique Davis and Rob Sherman. If you enjoy them as much as I did please stop by the site and leave a comment to let the author know. Here’s the original:

 
I thought I saw an atheist, once, walking down the street.
I checked for horns, I checked for tail, I checked for cloven feet;
Began to tremble frightfully—my heart was in my throat—
Then sighed in happy recognition, for ‘twas but a goat.

I thought I saw an atheist; in fact, I saw a few!
My neighbor, and the grocer, and the cop, and maybe you!
I even found some in the church, right there beneath the steeple;
It turns out, to my great surprise… that atheists are people.

 

Now here is the second version, “I Thought I Saw an Atheist” Revisited :

 

…I thought I saw an atheist, upon the witness stand
It couldn’t be! Not where I live! This is a Christian Land!
The Constitution guarantees my right to scream and shout;
As the Good Lord is my witness, I demanded “You! Get out!”

I thought I saw an atheist nod quietly, and sigh.
The odds were stacked against him, which no person can deny;
What happens when a person is denied his civil right?
I may have seen an atheist who’s now convinced to fight.

 

This Letter to the Editor by Sharon Underwood was originally printed in the Valley News (White River Junction, VT/Hanover, NH) in 2000. While the letter is nearly eight years old it’s impact has not lessened over time. It is so powerful on it’s own merits that I cannot add anything to it by way of commentary, so I will simply present it to you now.

Vermont debate brings out the haters
Sunday, April 30, 2000
By SHARON UNDERWOOD
For the Valley News

As the mother of a gay son, I’ve seen firsthand how cruel and misguided people can be.

Many letters have been sent to the Valley News concerning the homosexual menace in Vermont. I am the mother of a gay son and I’ve taken enough from you good people.

I’m tired of your foolish rhetoric about the “homosexual agenda” and your allegations that accepting homosexuality is the same thing as advocating sex with children. You are cruel and ignorant. You have been robbing me of the joys of motherhood ever since my children were tiny.

My firstborn son started suffering at the hands of the moral little thugs from your moral, upright families from the time he was in the first grade. He was physically and verbally abused from first grade straight through high school because he was perceived to be gay.

He never professed to be gay or had any association with anything gay, but he had the misfortune not to walk or have gestures like the other boys. He was called “fag” incessantly, starting when he was 6.

In high school, while your children were doing what kids that age should be doing, mine labored over a suicide note, drafting and redrafting it to be sure his family knew how much he loved them. My sobbing 17-year-old tore the heart out of me as he choked out that he just couldn’t bear to continue living any longer, that he didn’t want to be gay and that he couldn’t face a life with no dignity.

You have the audacity to talk about protecting families and children from the homosexual menace, while you yourselves tear apart families and drive children to despair. I don’t know why my son is gay, but I do know that God didn’t put him, and millions like him, on this Earth to give you someone to abuse. God gave you brains so that you could think, and it’s about time you started doing that.

No choice
At the core of all your misguided beliefs is the belief that this could never happen to you, that there is some kind of subculture out there that people have chosen to join. The fact is that if it can happen to my family, it can happen to yours, and you won’t get to choose. Whether it is genetic or whether something occurs during a critical time of fetal development, I don’t know. I can only tell you with an absolute certainty that it is inborn.

If you want to tout your own morality, you’d best come up with something more substantive than your heterosexuality. You did nothing to earn it; it was given to you. If you disagree, I would be interested in hearing your story, because my own heterosexuality was a blessing I received with no effort whatsoever on my part. It is so woven into the very soul of me that nothing could ever change it.

For those of you who reduce sexual orientation to a simple choice, a character issue, a bad habit or something that can be changed by a 10-step program, I’m puzzled. Are you saying that your own sexual orientation is nothing more than something you have chosen, that you could change it at will?

If that’s not the case, then why would you suggest that someone else can?

A popular theme in your letters is that Vermont has been infiltrated by outsiders. Both sides of my family have lived in Vermont for generations. I am heart and soul a Vermonter, so I’ll thank you to stop saying that you are speaking for “true Vermonters.”

Principles?
You invoke the memory of the brave people who have fought on the battlefield for this great country, saying that they didn’t give their lives so that the “homosexual agenda” could tear down the principles they died defending.

My 83-year-old father fought in some of the most horrific battles of World War II, was wounded and awarded the Purple Heart. He shakes his head in sadness at the life his grandson has had to live. He says he fought alongside homosexuals in those battles, that they did their part and bothered no one. One of his best friends in the service was gay, and he never knew it until the end, and when he did find out, it mattered not at all. That wasn’t the measure of the man.

You religious folk just can’t bear the thought that as my son emerges from the hell that was his childhood he might like to find a lifelong companion and have a measure of happiness. It offends your sensibilities that he should request the right to visit that companion in the hospital, to make medical decisions for him or to benefit from tax laws governing inheritance.

How dare he? you say. These outrageous requests would threaten the very existence of your family, would undermine the sanctity of marriage.

You use religion to abdicate your responsibility to be thinking human beings. There are vast numbers of religious people who find your attitudes repugnant. God is not for the privileged majority, and God knows my son has committed no sin.

The deep-thinking author of a letter to the April 12 Valley News who lectures about homosexual sin and tells us about “those of us who have been blessed with the benefits of a religious upbringing” asks: “What ever happened to the idea of striving . . . to be better human beings than we are?”

Indeed, sir, what ever happened to that?

(Sharon Underwood lives in White River Junction, Vt.)

The annual Blog Against Theocracy is now up. Blog Against Theocracy is a blogswarm dedicated to the separation of church and state. This is a very important topic and many fine bloggers have contributed so stop by and show them some love.

Addendum: Comments are already coming in for my contribution to the Blog Against Theocracy, Move over DADT, Make Room for COE. First up, FranIam said:

As someone who is a Christian, this makes me ill. So many who identify as followers of Christ act like anything but.

I could go off on how there are so many inconsistencies between Jesus Christ and the military, that the two could ever be joined in anyone’s mind but this is not the place.

All I will say is this- every time a so-called Christian forces his or her will upon another, their behavior and choices fly in the face of the Jesus that I know.

Can we all just live peaceably? I know that probably sounds like a stupid question. However, as someone very committed to my faith, married to an agnostic, close friends and related to all manner of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Wiccans, and atheists, I would hope that we could all find our way.

Call me a dreamer I guess.

Your post is brilliant and so well written. It is just another reason I loathe so much about the military.

Peace.

Thank you very much, Fran. I too wish we could all coexist peacefully. It’s a shame some feel the need to force their chosen beliefs on others rather than simply using them as a guide for their own lives. While I am an atheist I do find certain religious ideals noble. In particular I am fond of the Wiccan Rede: An it harm none do what ye will. Then there is always The Golden Rule, which is not exclusive to Christianity.

The next comment is from Barbara:

Even as a Christian, I am appalled and disgusted by this sort of behavior. Discrimination and intolerance are not Christian values, no matter how many fire-and-brimstone preachers try to claim otherwise.

And it’s no wonder the Muslim world is so offended and upset by our continued military presence in their homelands, if our soldiers are being told that it’s part of their mission to serve as evangelists for the radical right.

But I thought they hated us for our freedom… Huh.

I agree. I was a Christian for about 20 years and was always deeply respectful of the rights of others to practice religion (or not) as they wished. I don’t understand the drive some have to force their chosen religion on others by evangelism, legal action and other means. What is even more astounding is the mental disconnect that allows them to see any resistance to these actions as “persecution”, but their actions as righteous and proper.

Kudos to skepticscott for providing this very intriguing illustration of how so-called Fundamentalist Atheists simply don’t pose the same threat that Fundamentalist Christians do to people’s freedoms.

Every time I hear this kind of nonsense claiming that so-called “fundamentalist” atheists are every bit as bad as Christian fundies, I throw this at them…

I mention that if Christian fundamentalists had their way in this country…I mean REALLY had their way, with no Constitution, no secular courts, no organizations championing freedom of religion and separation of church and state to get in their way, these are just a few examples of the way things would be:

-Daily religious instruction, prayer and Bible study would be required in all schools.
-Church attendance would be mandatory.
-Only Christians would be allowed to serve in elected office or as judges.
-All laws and all science education would have to conform with the Bible and meet the approval of religious leaders.
-Artificial contraception would be illegal.
-Divorce would be illegal.
-Blasphemy would be illegal.
-Working on the Sabbath would be illegal (except for football players and NASCAR drivers).
-Abortion would be illegal and punishable by death.
-Known homosexuals and atheists would be imprisoned or killed. Homosexual activity would be illegal and punishable by death.
-Extramarital sex would be illegal and punishable by death.

Then I ask them to tell me what the worst-case scenario would be if “fundamentalist” atheists had their way about everything, and then to tell me which world they’d rather live in… haven’t had a worthy response yet.

I’m now asking any religious readers who happen by to offer their reasonable worst-case scenarios of life under “Fundamentalist Atheists”. I will add these scenarios and my responses, if any, to this post. Please note that any comments that are laced with vulgarity or obviously over the top won’t be posted. For example, comments claiming that life under Fundamentalist Atheists would result in daily sacrifices of kittens and forced porn viewings in all kindergartens won’t make the cut.

Now you know what to do. Click “Comment on this entry” below and have at it!

Carnival of the Godless #87 is hosted at Ironwolf. Robert was kind enough to organize the entries into categories and summarize them for your reading pleasure. So stop by and take a look!

This edition is featured at Tangled Up in Blue Guy and while the theme is rather gloomy the reading is still amazing. Be sure to check it out!