Dear Gay Activists

June 22, 2012 by Mark Shea

63 Comments

This is why people can’t stand you. You’re welcome.

And thanks for doing your part to make Barack Obama lose.

June 22, 2012

Meditations on the Rosary

June 23, 2012 Attention, Young Lovers!

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Faith

How asinine. What awful people. Westboro Baptist got nothing on them. Two sides of the same coin.
Ted Seeber

Because, after all, Ronald Reagan invented AIDS.

And they say the conspiracy theories about gays inflating their numbers in an effort to stop heterosexuals from breeding are bad.
- bob
  
  For years people screamed that Reagan “did nothing” about AIDS. How could he? The people **giving each other** AIDS were then and are now doing so very much more than anyone could or can do to stop **them** from doing it. Reagan was not in a bathhouse in San Francisco or various bars doing this. The people gesturing at a picture —Oh, vision of impotence — still don’t realize they did it to themselves then, are doing it to themselves now. Taking responsibility for yourself and behavior is an adult trait missing here.
Mark R

Actually, Ronald Reagan was quite cautious in handling gay issues since a number of his and Nancy’s personal friends were gay…not that these activists would know.
Steve S

I suppose Reagan also invented sexual promiscuity and intravenous drug use. The most laughable part of all of this is the complete and utter lack of any sense of decorum and grace. Unfortunately, this sort of thing is more and more common in our national politics nowadays from all parts of the political spectrum.
- Michael
  
  “Unfortunately, this sort of thing is more and more common in our nation nowadays”
  
  FTFY
Will

“And thanks for doing your part to make Barack Obama lose”

There was a Mitt Romney ad at the linked site when I went there. Will Mitt be an improvement?
- Jared
  
  Mark does not support Romney.
  However, since you asked, I doubt he will be an improvement in most areas (they really aren’t that different, after all), but his (popular-opinion driven) stance on abortion would likely lead to him being slightly less awful than our current president.
- Mark Shea
  
  No.
- Ted Seeber
  
  Every President in my lifetime has been worse than the one before, and unlike with the drone war, I don’t think we’re at the bottom of that particular slippery slope yet. At least, not until Zaphod Beeblebrox steals the Heart of Gold. 🙂
  - Will
    
    I think Clinton was good. Too bad his second term ended up with all of the fooling around and impeachment crap.
    
    It is easy to find something wrong with everybody and everything, as this blog illustrates.
    - Mark Shea
      
      He said, as he perpetually found fault with this blog.
      - Will
        
        No, I like parts of your blog. I am just skeptical about all of the skepticism.
      - Will
        
        Sorry, I should not have been so critical.
        
        Mark Shea
        
        Thank you. All’s forgiven.
dpt

Hope…change…peace…love…tolerance…

I’m sure the photo reflects the view of others who work in the White House each day.
ds

I would’ve mooned him.
- Chris M
  
  I’m sure he would have had something witty to say in that situation.. unless it was later after he went senile.. in which case, that makes you a bit of a douchebag for mooning a senile old man.
john

They show all the maturity of teenage brats. Many in our current culture seem stuck in puberty…and from what I have seen this seems more common on the left…perhaps this explains the genital obsession. Nobody seems to want to grow up…living like high school and college were the hight of their existence.
- Lauran
  
  Developmentally arrest “teenage brats,” you mean.
Faith

As the mother of both college aged and high school kids, I have to say my kids have way more class than that. And these are the political movers and shakers in our country now. . . . my poor country!
Del Rayva

Gays don’t have a monopoly on bad behavior. Mark, when I read about Leah Libresco’s change of heart, I was tempted to give her advice. I saw she had 800 comments worth of advice, so I didn’t bother her. What I wanted to say, though, is that she should be aware that if atheists treat her bad, she should not expect Christians to treat her much better. The quality of the people advocating a position doesn’t really reflect on the truth of that position. Christians have shown themselves repeatedly to be just as nasty as PZ Meyers or Dan Savage.

It’s easy to find examples of people behaving badly. We should remember to pray for them when we see it, and simply confess our gratitude to God that He hasn’t decided to make our sins quite so public at the moment, much as we might deserve it.
- Mark Shea
  
  And you’d have a real point if I had said “Gays have a monopoly on bad behavior”.
  - Del Rayva
    
    Wow, Mark! Sensitive much?
    
    I did have a real point. Sorry you missed it. Maybe you should try re-reading my comment imagining there’s a paragraph break after the first period. See if it ticks you off quite so thoroughly then. Note: the first period comes before I mention your name.
    
    I wasn’t trying to criticize you; I was trying to participate in the conversation. I ‘m sorry that didn’t come across more clearly.
Mark S (not for Shea)

Their behavior is classless. On the other hand, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least to see Tea Partiers doing the same thing to Clinton, Carter, FDR, etc.

Why does courtesy and good behavior seem to be a thing of the past? Even if you’re 100% convinced you are right about something, it doesn’t give you the right to be an ass.
- Confederate Papist
  
  “it wouldn’t surprise me in the least to see Tea Partiers doing the same thing to Clinton, Carter, FDR, etc”
  
  If it happens it will be 24/7 news.
- SecretAgentMan
  
  I agree 100%. Perhaps courtesy and good behavior are expressions of hope, vision and prudence — winners and losers act with courtesy and restraint because they want to preserve a community that has more to offer than Brand X. (And because winners and losers know they might change places). But we Americans, who are godlike beings on the cusp of the New Millenia, don’t need that kind of nonsense. Our Brand X is the only thing that matters, and our victory will be so complete there’s no chance of going back to the bad old days and having to be treated as we have treated others.
  - Andy
    
    I agree. Neither gay activists, Christian activists, political activists of any stripe have a monopoly on BAD beghavior. Our society puts self first, so when ” I ” do something, it is acceptable because “I” right.
    The power of American narcissism never fails to amaze, and it, narcissism is found on both sides.
Klaus

Mark – on the subject of gays, you might be curious to see that the folk at trad-blog RORATE CAELI seem to take issue with your recent commentary on a dead gay friend.
- Mark Shea
  
  Of course they do. What could possibly be more predictable?
  - Kurt
    
    Well, they did quite a funny send-up of your piece, it must be said.
    - Mark Shea
      
      I have no doubt that they covered themselves in glory laughing at the memory of a dead saint whose sandals neither I nor they are worthy to untie. He was, after all, same-sex attracted. So it’s okay to spit on his grave because they attend the Latin Mass and therefore enjoy the approval of God as they do so.
    - Andy, Bad Person
      
      I just did a look up on said send-up. What small, mean-spirited people. There’s a commenter who says, “This is why people don’t take Trads seriously.” I agree.
Berty Dastard

Jesus was gay:

http://theoriesofconspiracy.com/2011/10/jesus-was-gay.htm
- Mark Shea
  
  Yawn. http://www.mark-shea.com/real.html
Rich Fader

I personally would limit any bad behavior on a White House visit to sneaking a cigar in and drawing it under my nose for a luxuriant sniff, standing in front of the Clinton portrait. (Either you get that reference or you don’t. If you don’t, trust me, you’re far better off not knowing.)
SecretAgentMan

I’m not surprised at what some of these activists did. They’re doing what zealots do — they can’t change the subject and they can’t shut up. Like that line from Cromwell, when Richard Harris insults the King, “Such issues are beyond good manners, sir.” No issue is beyond good manners of some kind; no political or human-rights cause, however righteous, however good, can be allowed to take over the universe and erase every other value. That’s what zealots don’t understand. It’s why they think they can blow things up and kill civilians — the Caliphate, or the War on Terror, is such a grand and just cause that it’s beyond good manners, which is sometimes the only reason you don’t shoot people.

What I find completely telling about this incident is the silence from the White House itself. Someone should remind the President that he is the President. He’s the custodian of a legacy bequeathed to him by all the presidents, including Ronald Reagan. If this stunt had been pulled in front of a poster hung on some wall in San Francisco, or if some artist had displayed Piss Reagan, then it’s only an example of the stupid freedom we have to tolerate as the price of our search for intelligent life in the galaxy.

But this stunt has more to it, it’s a statement that the White House and the presidency are nothing but a venue of power. When the power is in our hands, we give that venue respect and honor as part of a mime show to please and persuade the proles, who are easily fooled into respecting some legacy that consists of Washington, Lincoln, [insert your list of PC presidents after Lincoln]. But when the venue is in *their* hands, it’s garbage and can be insulted because our “higher cause” is “beyond good manners.”

This can’t be passed off as the unanticipated misbehavior of guests, a “manners malfunction.” It’s the President’s house. If the President says nothing about this event, it will speak volumes about how little he understands, or cares, about his office.
- Andy, Bad Person
  
  What I find completely telling about this incident is the silence from the White House itself.
  
  The president is stuck between a rock and a hard place on this one. On one hand, it’s the right thing to do for him to comment on this stupidity. On the other hand, these are the exact people he’s courting to give his campaign big $$$. It’s tough for him to reprimand people when he’s got his hand out asking for money.
Peggy R

But they’re “important” gay people.
The Left in all its factions is pretty vulgar and crass.
- SecretAgentMan
  
  I wouldn’t consider the Westboro Baptist Church part of the “Left,” but they’re vulgar and crass enough to satisfy any standard drawn from the gay community. The issue here isn’t “gay,” but the mental/moral derangement that occurs when people think being right is enough.
  - Del Rayva
    
    And that was my point, and perhaps more clearly stated.
Dave G.

I’ve often said, that is the difference between the Conservatives and the Liberals, if there is a difference. The Conservative side has its radicals, its loons, its extremists – but usually you will find those in power doing everything they can to distance themselves from those extremes. If they don’t, it becomes the next two weeks worth of stories on the news cycles about how radical the right is. But on the Left, this will happen frequently. And even if people complain, the media manages to make the discussion about why people are complaining, rather than how atrocious the behavior of those on the Left happened to be. So while you won’t find Romney, or any GOP candidate inviting a Westboro family to their functions, you will see the equivalent on the Left, then you will see almost nothing about it in the news. Big, important difference.
- Peggy R
  
  Bingo. I didn’t say there were no crass or vulgar people on the right, but that it indeed defines the Left. As evil and hateful as Westboro is, I am not aware they use vulgar language or crass gestures as the Left does.
  - Dave G.
    
    Well, they get pretty bad. The difference is, you wouldn’t find their ilk within a hundred miles of a conservative politician. If you did, the MSM would be running a three week series on ‘radicals in the Republican party.’ As it is, there is strange silence.
- ds
  
  The Conservative side has its radicals, its loons, its extremists – but usually you will find those in power doing everything they can to distance themselves from those extremes.
  
  Like Ron Paul giving anniversary speeches for John Birch society, or doing interviews on the Alex Jones show. Oh wait that’s not distancing? Then I guess you consider Paul a loon? (I know I do.)
Ben

Perfect, defines everything about them……This has nothing to do with tolerance of gays; you WILL comply…
Alan

These particular homosexuals seem very intolerant, the very criticism they have leveled at normal people for years.
Faith

My comparison of these gay politicos to Westboro was to point out how nasty both groups are in their blind and hateful zealotry. All in the name of what they have decided (in their twisted narrow views) is right. Two sides of the same coin of ugliness.
EBS

What do you expect.
I once had a gay colleague of mine blatantly come out and say he wished all sorts of vile sickness on our then Prime minister John Howard, (I’m Australian) because he was staunchly opposed to gay “marriage”. What do you expect from people who are miserably destroying their lives and “campaigning” to destroy other people’s lives as well by normalizing homosexuality?
I don’t think the standard of maturity, dignity or respect in their conduct is higher than, an adolescent “I hate you all” school kid. I never expected it to be.
Good on you Obama, wasting your US tax payers money on such scum. No wander your country has been so prosperous and well-oiled under your “leadership” (if you want to call it that). Americans, your President is incompetent, and cant even do 2+2. He is distracting you from his incompetence by standing up for so-called “rights”. Wake up on your election day.
Ronald King

The picture is one symptom of what occurs when the history of vulnerability to the pain of being different and identified as being disordered is repressed through the response of rage. It is an equal and opposite reaction to that history of pain. A certain percentage of people have a strong predisposition to react with the primitive response we label as rage from early infancy when some basic developmental need is not fulfilled for whatever reason. It is easy to criticize them because they lack the insight to understand the motivation for their disrespectful behavior. It is easy to lack insight when motivated by rage. If we have a revulsion to their rage with a response of anger without the influence of insight then we are just as dismissive and hardened as they.
- SecretAgentMan
  
  Good points. I’d note, though, that gays make far too much of the Catholic Church’s use of the word “disordered” to describe their desires. From the Church’s standpoint we’re all “disordered,” somehow. Certainly these gay activists would describe Church teaching as “disordered.” Part of growing up is realizing that people can believe stupid, even hurtful things and still be somehow, or even largely, decent neighbors. The activists’ antics is a large setback for that grown-up idea.
  - Ronald King
    
    We understand that. When rage is not given the chance to mature, then it gets expressed in many immature ways like acting-out for those who have average intelligence and for those with above average intelligence it can be refined into sarcasm as a source of power when feeling powerless to change the way things are. The antics are childish acting out behaviors because they are too afraid to be vulnerable. It is very easy to be angry. It is more difficult to admit being hurt. Easy to blame hard to forgive. Sorry, just went to confession.
Elaine S.

“As evil and hateful as Westboro is, I am not aware they use vulgar language or crass gestures as the Left does.”
Well, maybe they don’t say the “f word” or give anyone the finger but I would still consider holding “Thank God for IED’s” signs outside of a fallen soldier’s funeral to be pretty crass.
I agree 100 percent that what these gay activists did is vulgar and crass, but to be truly on a par with Westboro they would have to have shown up at Reagan’s funeral and given the finger to the mourners, instead of just doing it to his White House portrait.
All that said, I agree with Secret Agent Man who says that NO issue should ever be “beyond good manners” to the point that offenses to human dignity and the dignity of the Presidential office are tolerated or even encouraged as in this case.
Elaine

Since it came up, I tend to wonder if Westboro is a fake church. Christian who hate homosexuals seems like an excellent cover for leftists who really just want to protest military funerals. It’s kind of a double whammy for them, getting to make Christians look horrible while protesting at a soldiers funerals. Just something I wonder about.
- Mark Shea
  
  Fred Phelps rejects the term “Christian” and describes himself as a “Tachmonite” (whatever that is). He is also a Registered Democrat. 🙂
- Nate Winchester
  
  I have said it before and I’ll say it again: Westboro has GOT to be the single greatest atheist trolling attempt ever, and almost nothing will convince me otherwise. (after all, they’ve probably done more to deconvert or prevent conversion than all the writings of Dawkins combined – if I was a militant atheist, it’s what I would do)
Clare Krishan

ok I’ll play devil’s advocate – I hope Zoe Strauss (a adept self-promoting local oddball from here in Philly) takes note of the supreme irony of what she was *supposed* to be using her hands for — hand-delivering this letter from the youth she offered to help:
[PHOTO CAPTION] Edgar Pagan, 18: “President Obama, I ask you to please, nationwide, at the very least, start putting an emphasis on the urban public school system in America … ” (er, and that may require a de-emphasis on LGBT? -ck)

Here’s a poignant excerpt of his hand-delivered letter we Catholics ought ponder awhile before we scoff at the doozy narcissists…
“I was moved to Ascension of Our Lord School, where I received the education the youth of this city needs, although it was still a very poor school.”
Where is the conservative press did you read that …? […Crickets…] Ascension of Our Lord was one of the Archdiocesan parochial schools closed effective June 2011…
This week we heard our Archdiocesan newspaper and monthly magazine will also be shuttered because of a corrupt Finance Director who embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars from the General Fund and the millions incurred in defending the recently-decided sex abuse case…
Its so easy to scoff — but we’ve been too complacent for way too long… we’re now being called to account for those lapses, I fear… (one of my former CCD students, now a teen, has thank God recovered from the gunshot wounds to his neck and abdomen received when the car he was travelling in happened to be in the line of fire of some strung-out gang hoodlum, Lord have mercy) This is the awful quotidian reality for our urban youth in America today, pray for them please – they will be in charge in a few years time on the side of the angels (or not that depends on who are the adults in their lives and what they rely on to influence that outcome) — that’s why I teach CCD to help them learn to put God first, always.
Clare Krishan

oops missing citation
http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/news-and-opinion/news/159617395.html
(FYI – no endorsement implied of the editorial stance of this news outlet)
Clare Krishan

And this is what our local deep-pocketed art-loving philanthropists help pay Zoe Strauss to do:
http://zoestraussbillboardproject.com/billboards/billboard-22/
(that’s the one called “crossroads” and was installed closest to the parish I volunteer at – what do our kids make of those who would create such vacuousness? I don’t know. But I do know the eight-block May procession and the same again on Corpus Christi left a more lasting impression in those blessed to be spectators in the streets at the time and we did if all gratis – thanks to His grace of course (snark off, nuff said)
Evangelize people, the world needs us!
Martin

Mark,
There could be a different backstory to this one than is generally imagined
In ‘The Making Of The President 1980’, Theodore White recorded that during his first terms as Governor of California Reagan was beset by a scandal involving homosexuality. One of his staffers was gay, although obviously not out, and was discovered to have been hiring other gay men into the administration. It caused Reagan some political trouble at the time, but not enough to prevent his re-election.
Could have been a near half-century delayed reaction to that.
- Dan
  
  Dude, most people have trouble remembering that there’s been more than one Iraq war, much less something that happened 50 years ago.
Lauran

Ah, yes. That’s just the type of behavior we’ve all come to expect from friends of Obama. And what a coincidence that the “scolded” guest photo made the news.

Poor lads, held prisoner in a man’s body…Yawn.
Blaine Livernoche

Not bad, but Solomon is not free.

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