{"id":35528,"date":"2012-05-21T10:48:17","date_gmt":"2012-05-21T17:48:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?p=35528"},"modified":"2014-12-30T17:14:05","modified_gmt":"2014-12-31T00:14:05","slug":"christian-brownshirts-on-the-march","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2012\/05\/christian-brownshirts-on-the-march.html","title":{"rendered":"Christian Brownshirts on the March!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Ron Belgau<\/a>, a chaste gay Catholic whom I respect enormously, writes:<\/p>\n

I saw your update about writing projects, so you\u2019re welcome to put off a response to this for a while. I have to do enough juggling myself to be completely understanding of others\u2019 need to juggle responses.<\/p>\n

Anyhow, the subject line is somewhat tongue-in-cheek. But if I wanted to focus on Christians behaving badly toward gay people on my blog, it would be trivial to do so.<\/p>\n

For example<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Internationally, the problem is much more serious.<\/p>\n

For example. <\/a><\/p>\n

I could easily dig up more examples, both here in the US and overseas. But I\u2019m not going to, because if I constantly dwelt on the most stupid, most extreme examples of Christian bigotry toward gays, I would lose my ability to relate to the majority of normal Christians who do not share those extreme beliefs.<\/p>\n

It would also be trivial for me to create a blog where I regularly posted every example of black-on-white violence I could come up with, or every example of wealthy Jews being accused of financial crimes or whatever other negative thing I could find about wealthy Jews (I expect lots of blogs like this exist, but I stay away from them).<\/p>\n

I really appreciate your recent pieces on Perry Lorenzo, as well as the posts referencing Joshua Gonnermann and my Pepperdine videos.<\/p>\n

Al Qaeda represents, I am fairly sure, a much more serious threat than the \u201cradical gay agenda.\u201d They have historically done far more violent things, they have openly threatened much more violent things, and they have training camps training people to do violent things. But that does not mean that one responds intelligently to Al Qaeda by constantly reporting these threats as statements about Muslims generally. This is the approach of the rubber hose right, and it\u2019s an approach that you rightly recognize as stupid and evil on a number of different levels.<\/p>\n

There are unquestionably some very nasty gay people out there (as there are anti-gay Christians and violent blacks and crafty Jews and violent Muslims). But you don\u2019t effectively understand a group, or how to interact with its more moderate members, by only focusing on the most extreme examples. It appears to me that Terrorism is much more than a matter of just a few bad apples among Muslims. But that belief is entirely consistent with thinking that we need to safeguard the civil liberties of Muslims, and insist that Muslims are innocent until proven guilty (while recognizing that a disproportionate percentage of them may be proven guilty when the investigations are completed).<\/p>\n

I have no desire to defend anyone who issues death threats to Bristol Palin or smash church windows or threaten 14 year old girls with death or attempt to silence Spanish bishops. I don\u2019t suppose you want to defend people who want to subject gays to the death penalty, or Catholic institutions who fire gays who uphold the Church\u2019s teaching, or priests who incite attacks on peaceful gay rights protesters. But I don\u2019t think that when I cite those sorts of examples, I am saying anything meaningful about Christians in general. And so I think it\u2019s a problem to think you can say anything about gays in general by focusing on the worst examples of bad behavior.<\/p>\n

As I say, I appreciate the fact that you are trying to show more balance, and appreciate the fact you have always been willing to highlight examples of faithful and orthodox gay Catholics. But continuing to highlight the bad examples as if they say something about gay people in general comes off in the same way as a blogger who regularly harps on the bad behavior of The Jews.<\/p>\n

In Christ,<\/p>\n

\u2013 Ron<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Fair enough. This was the sort of feedback I was looking for, as was this over at Abbey Roads<\/a>. Also this, from a reader:<\/p>\n

In response to Mark\u2019s: \u201cThat established, what *can* be done to say \u201cThere is a place in Jesus Christ for the SSA person and he is the real happiness and Yes you seek?\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure if I can fully address this, but I\u2019ll try to expand upon it. First, while a celibate gay man, I doubt my mind will ever be chaste so I don\u2019t think I fully qualify for Mark\u2019s call. Second, as for the \u201cthere is a place in the church for you\u201d thing, I\u2019m not sure that I believe that, even though I am part of the church. I want to believe it, and I\u2019m celibate because I don\u2019t want to go to hell, but it defies my experience with my fellow christians. My experience has been that because of my temptations, NOT because of what I do or don\u2019t do, I am pretty much hated by everyone in the church. Yeah, I know that\u2019s harsh but hear me out. I\u2019m not claiming I\u2019m hated because someone disagrees with me, or because they don\u2019t approve of gay marriage. I\u2019m stating as fact that from the personal experience of the speech and actions of christians, it is an inescapable conclusion that as a rule, christians hate gays. This is the part where someone is supposed to quote the catechism on homosexuality. My response is so what? To others, what you do will ALWAYS trump what you only claim to believe.<\/p>\n

A word about identity: I call myself gay. I am NOT defining myself on the basis of the fact that I\u2019m sexually attracted to men instead of women. I\u2019m defining myself by what makes me different from you. From the time I became aware of my fellow believers talking about this, the message has been clear: \u201cGays are not worthy of anything but death. You are contemptible, you are disgusting, you are loathsome. Because of WHAT you are (not what your temptations might lead you to do) you should die. I want to kill you.\u201d Now I\u2019m sure that if they knew I was gay, they wouldn\u2019t have said such things (at least in front of me), but I\u2019m equally certain that it would be because of social embarrassment rather than a change of heart. The point is that everyone else in my experience, when they spoke of gays, defined it as the most important thing about us. The fact that it\u2019s now become fashionable for christians to claim that calling yourself gay is \u201cso narrow and limiting\u201d would be funny if it weren\u2019t so sickening. Who the hell do you think created and imposed that definition, in the first place? It wasn\u2019t me. My part in it was believing it for far too long. My part was taking you at your word. Hmmm, what do you suppose that does to trust? Does thinking that, what people say about gays is what they\u2019re saying about me, make me a narcissist?<\/p>\n

So, while there\u2019s a place in the church, even for someone as disgusting as me, it\u2019s pretty damned lonely. Yes, Jesus is always with me. But he\u2019s also always silent, and he doesn\u2019t ever hold my hand.<\/p>\n

Heard any good jokes lately? \u201cYou know what GAY stands for? Got Aids Yet?\u201d \u201cHey, you know what AIDS stands for? Another Infected Dick Sucker.\u201d I heard these in church, from an alleged grown-up!<\/p>\n

What can you do? How about this: Don\u2019t shit where you pray.<\/p>\n

Andiron<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I would be interested in hearing from more SSA folks who are trying to live out their Catholic faith. I would like to *not* hear from all the heterosexuals who decided to fill up my comboxes with pre-emptive defenses\/condemnations\/ declamation on how evil the Church\/gays are in the effort to establish their orthodoxy\/gay empathy cred. If you are straight and feel an overwhelming need to weigh in here, please just don\u2019t. I want to hear from the people who are most impacted both by the the Church\u2019s teaching *and* by Catholic failure (including my own) to heed the Church\u2019s teaching with respect to treating gay with the sensitivity the Church requires.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ron Belgau, a chaste gay Catholic whom I respect enormously, writes: I saw your update about writing projects, so you\u2019re welcome to put off a response to this for a while. I have to do enough juggling myself to be completely understanding of others\u2019 need to juggle responses. Anyhow, the subject line is somewhat tongue-in-cheek. 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