{"id":35895,"date":"2018-04-05T05:00:30","date_gmt":"2018-04-05T09:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?p=35895"},"modified":"2018-04-03T07:23:29","modified_gmt":"2018-04-03T11:23:29","slug":"50-shades-of-anti-lgbtq-rhetoric","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2018\/04\/50-shades-of-anti-lgbtq-rhetoric.html","title":{"rendered":"50 Shades of Anti-LGBTQ Rhetoric"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I recently came upon an article<\/a> which quoted a Christian activist claiming that he was motivated by \u201clove\u201d to support a Kansas Republican Party resolution condemning all efforts to \u201cvalidate transgender identity.\u201d The activist\u2019s statement was as follows:<\/p>\n

Eric Teetsel, president of the Family Policy Alliance of Kansas who proposed the resolution, told\u00a0The Wichita Eagle<\/em>\u00a0that\u00a0he was \u201cmotivated by love\u201d to put forward the document\u00a0because he believes that the GOP should stand up for what he described as Christian principles.<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, an ideology that says you can determine your own gender identity is broken and it\u2019s going to lead to a lot of pain, and that\u2019s why it\u2019s important to bring us back to what we know to be true and good,\u201d\u00a0Teetsel said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is concern for the well-being of others that drives us to seek out what is true and not just for society, but for them personally,\u201d\u00a0he added.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The claim being made here is that it\u2019s worse to allow transgender individuals to transition than it is to force them to live as their assigned gender, with (Christian) counseling and therapies to help them accept \u201cthe way God created them.\u201d Of course, the science manifestly states that that is not the case. Individuals are worse<\/em> off when they are not allowed to transition. But the science has not always mattered to evangelicals\u2014particularly those whose science starts (and sometimes ends) with the Bible.<\/p>\n

But as I read Teetsel\u2019s statement, I thought about some other comments I had read recently. Namely,\u00a0Everett Piper of Oklahoma Wesleyan University wrote an op-ed<\/a> comparing LGBTQ individuals with ISIS.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re still not feeling a bit unstable on this slippery slope, I recommend this simple exercise: Go to any article in any magazine or website that argues for \u201cconversations\u201d about sexual morality and simply replace the acronym of the day with another set of letters.<\/p>\n

For example, every time you see LGBTQ in an article, simply replace those letters with ISIS. Change nothing else. Do this throughout the entire column in question.<\/p>\n

In doing this, something will quickly become quite obvious. Sentences will emerge such as these: \u201cLove is love and ISIS has the right to love who they want to love.\u201d \u201cThe ISIS community simply wants to be accepted and affirmed.\u201d \u201cWhat right does anyone have to refuse to bake a cake for an ISIS wedding?\u201d<\/p>\n

As such absurdities jump off the page, hopefully it becomes clear how absolutely ridiculous our culture\u2019s game of sexual politics has become.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is not the first time<\/a> Piper has used such language. (Piper has the ear of some powerful individuals. He was an invited speaker<\/a> at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in January, at the announcement of the department\u2019s new Conscience and Religious Freedom Division<\/a>.) Nor is Piper alone in using harsh language<\/a> (or imaging) for LGBTQ individuals.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Within evangelicalism today, there seem to be two disparate ways of talking about LGBT individuals and identities. The first involves disgust and revulsion and (often times) painting LGBT individuals as monsters or perverts. The second involves protestations of love and statements that gay and lesbian individuals can change or find meaning and purpose with God by living celibate lives. Both rhetorical approaches, however, do typically have at least one thing in common\u2014opposition to expanding or protecting LGBT rights.<\/p>\n

Consider where Teetsel\u2019s proclamations of \u201clove\u201d take him:<\/p>\n

Teetsel has\u00a0decried the idea<\/a>\u00a0of bakers and other wedding vendors being forced by nondiscrimination laws to serve same-sex couples because, \u201cThe belief that marriage is solely for one man and woman ought not to be included in that list alongside racism and miscegenation, for it is a belief rooted in love.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The use of the term \u201cmiscegenation\u201d is ironic. Teetsel surely meant \u201cmisogyny,\u201d but the word he used is a reference to interracial births. The irony is that promoters of segregation frequently argued that they were doing a kindness in forbidding certain kinds of contact between the races, because the children of interracial unions belonged not to one race or the other and thus did not have a place where they \u201cfit.\u201d Forbidding interracial intermingling was an act of kindness, they insisted. In other words, anti-LGBTQ sentiment is not the first bigotry to be cloaked in language of love, kindness, and a faux insistence that the oppressors are simply looking out for the needs of the oppressed.<\/p>\n

Teetsel should be well aware that misogyny, too, has often been (and often still is) cloaked in language of love and kindness. Women\u2019s rightful place is in the home, the argument goes\u2014that is where God has designed woman to be, and that is where woman is happiest. Indeed, those who make these arguments frequently point to sexual harassment in the workplace as evidence that women would be better off if they stayed out of the workplace and concentrated on raising children in their homes, where they would be \u201csafe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even efforts to limit women\u2019s access to divorce are framed in this rhetoric\u2014divorced women suffer financial and other problems, the argument goes. Women\u2014even those in troubled relationships\u2014would be better off if they stayed married.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve seen bigoted rhetoric of \u201clove\u201d play out in toxic ways my own community of origin\u2014among evangelical and fundamentalist Christian homeschooling families. The idea is that it may be more \u201cloving\u201d to cut a wayward grown child off, or to deny them access to their siblings, than it would be to include them in the family and accept (or overlook) their questioning and sin. Cutting them out of the family until they repent may hurt, but it may also hasten repentance and bring them back to Jesus more quickly, thus sparing them an eternity in hell.<\/p>\n

People are capable of doing terrible things in the name of \u201clove.\u201d<\/p>\n

When it comes to areas like this, it may be best to focus less on intent and rhetoric<\/em> and more on actions<\/em>. Arguably, the extent that the actions of those like Teeter, who couch their bigotry in a rhetoric of \u201clove,\u201d differ from the actions of those like Piper, whose bigotry is stated less than nicely, is the extent of the actual distinction between the two. Do Teetsel\u2019s actions<\/em> differ from Piper\u2019s?<\/p>\n

It is possible that Teetsel would treat LGBTQ individuals he might personally come in contact with with more respect than Piper would. However, whatever his rhetoric, Teetsel\u2019s organization<\/a>\u00a0supports banning transgender individuals from the military and supports the use of anti-transgender and ant-gay \u201cconversion\u201d therapy on minors\u2014and that\u2019s just the start. Regardless of how he has couched his rhetoric\u2014regardless of how many times he professes to \u201clove\u201d LGBTQ people\u2014Teetsel\u2019s actions do very real harm to LGBTQ individuals.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Within evangelicalism today, there seem to be two disparate ways of talking about LGBT individuals and identities. The first involves disgust and revulsion and (often times) painting LGBT individuals as monsters or perverts. The second involves protestations of love and statements that gay and lesbian individuals can change or find meaning and purpose with God by living celibate lives. Both rhetorical approaches, however, do typically have at least one thing in common—opposition to expanding or protecting LGBT rights.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Click through to read more! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":36103,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[110],"class_list":["post-35895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-evangelicalism-fundamentalism","tag-lgbtq"],"yoast_head":"\n50 Shades of Anti-LGBTQ Rhetoric<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Regardless of how he has couched his rhetoric---regardless of how many times he professes to 'love' LGBTQ people---Teetsel's actions do very real harm to LGBTQ individuals.\u00a0\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2018\/04\/50-shades-of-anti-lgbtq-rhetoric.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"50 Shades of Anti-LGBTQ Rhetoric\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Regardless of how he has couched his rhetoric---regardless of how many times he professes to 'love' LGBTQ people---Teetsel's actions do very real harm to LGBTQ individuals.\u00a0\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2018\/04\/50-shades-of-anti-lgbtq-rhetoric.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Love, Joy, Feminism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-04-05T09:00:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-04-03T11:23:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/166\/2018\/04\/microphone-2316268_1920.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"561\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Libby Anne\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Libby Anne\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2018\/04\/50-shades-of-anti-lgbtq-rhetoric.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2018\/04\/50-shades-of-anti-lgbtq-rhetoric.html\",\"name\":\"50 Shades of Anti-LGBTQ Rhetoric\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2018-04-05T09:00:30+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-04-03T11:23:29+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#\/schema\/person\/fae465c1bbb5cbdf26c9e73bfd1b73d2\"},\"description\":\"Regardless of how he has couched his rhetoric---regardless of how many times he professes to 'love' LGBTQ people---Teetsel's actions do very real harm to LGBTQ individuals.\u00a0\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2018\/04\/50-shades-of-anti-lgbtq-rhetoric.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2018\/04\/50-shades-of-anti-lgbtq-rhetoric.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2018\/04\/50-shades-of-anti-lgbtq-rhetoric.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"50 Shades of Anti-LGBTQ Rhetoric\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/\",\"name\":\"Love, Joy, Feminism\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#\/schema\/person\/fae465c1bbb5cbdf26c9e73bfd1b73d2\",\"name\":\"Libby Anne\",\"description\":\"Libby Anne grew up in a large evangelical homeschool family highly involved in the Christian Right. 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