An open letter to America concerning the hate-filled homophobes of the religious right

“In no instance have...the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people.”

— James Madison

As all the right-wing Christian conservative blow-hard (RWCCBH) homophobes down there in the States continue to blather on about how gay marriage is going to destroy traditional marriage, I just keep scratching my head, struggling with all my might to understand just what the $% they’re talking about.

The fact is, here in Canada, same-sex marriage has been legal nationwide since 2005 and not one traditional marriage that I know of has ever been threatened or damaged in any way whatsoever. That’s four years and millions of marriages without even one—not one—being threatened in the slightest.

And you better believe that if one ever was it’d be all over the news: “Yes, yes, that’s right, Your Honour, we were happily married for 20 long years, but then this gay-marriage bill passed and we saw gays getting hitched and it made our marriage seem so meaningless and empty. Obviously we had no other option but divorce.”

Personally, I know many people who have gotten divorced in this country, both before and after the legalization of same-sex marriage, and not one of them has ever cited the threat of gay marriage as even a mitigating factor in their relationship’s demise.

I know my own marriage is still going strong, despite this seemingly imminent threat.

I’m not really sure how other people getting married—whether they be straight, gay, or bi—is supposed to threaten my marriage, but I’m guessing that, when it comes to the RWCCBH homophobes, it probably has something to do with a secret desire to be free of their present marital situations (í  la Larry Craig and Ted Haggard).

Now I’m not saying that all right-wing Christian conservative blow-hard homophobes are secretly gay. I’m just saying that I find it quite interesting that they are all so totally and utterly obsessed with preventing gay marriage from becoming a legal option and that they so passionately insist that the availability of gay marriage is going to somehow threaten their own marriages.

And, by the way, I’ve got no problem with any, or all, of the RWCCBH homophobes being gay, if that’s what they indeed are. Though I most certainly do have a problem with their hypocrisy.

Perhaps they should stop worrying about other people’s love lives and life commitments, and instead focus on their own for a while. Because, obviously, it doesn’t matter who other people are marrying; the fact is nothing threatens a person’s marriage but the reality of their own relationship with their spouse (though, sometimes, a really hot coworker full of lust and desire can be a bit of a threat too, I guess).

Procreation vs. love

As these RWCCBH homophobes clamour for reasons to deny gays the same rights they themselves enjoy, they ridiculously point to procreation and state that marriage is primarily intended to make babies. Yeah, that’s right; not surprisingly, the main reason for getting married, according to these lovers of all things pre-Enlightenment, is not in fact love, but rather to simply produce offspring.

Not wanting to get into the obvious psychological deficiencies and personality disorders that have so clearly inflicted anyone in the modern world who marries for procreation over love, let me just say that I can’t really imagine these RWCCBH homophobes denying infertile individuals the right to marry. Nor can I imagine them disqualifying postmenopausal women from marriage either. So why the concern with baby-making abilities when it comes to gays? I mean, besides the obvious homophobia, hatred, and small-mindedness, of course.

Fear and loathing—and Bible study

What’s with these people anyway? I mean, they’re scared of everything. If it’s not God condemning them to hell for masturbating, it’s “socialized” medicine turning their beloved homeland into North Korea, and/or it’s “liberal educated elites” pushing evil, dangerous stuff down their children’s throats. Stuff like science. Come on, guys; you can’t be terrified of everything, can you?

Me? The only thing that really scares me is them. That is, the only thing that really terrifies me is the possibility of these right-wing Christian conservative blow-hard homophobes one day actually taking over America. It may seem unlikely now, but seeing that their numbers continue to grow almost as fast as their minds continue to close, it is, sadly, a distinct possibility.

And, if it ever were to happen, forget about same-sex marriage. How about life without science, government services, or masturbation? And in their place nothing but a shitload of Bible study? Yeah, I’m talking about a takeover by the American Taliban.

In which case, I suspect that we here in Canada would feel a lot like the Dutch and Belgians in the late-1930s. That is, not exactly very safe or secure.

Mike Cowie is a freelance writer who writes about politics, music, film, travel, and much more. You can read more of Mike’s views on his Web site.

Comments

15 Comments

OneOfTheWatchers

Aug 11, 2009 at 8:38pm

God bless you my friend for you insightful letter. I have been watching the "Christian Taliban" since the past election. What disturbs me deeply is that these 'wolves in sheeps clothing' teach nothing but myopic ignorance and bigotry. Here I thought they should be teaching the eternal love of our Lord Jesus Christ. "They shall be known by their deeds..."

IndianaDave

Aug 11, 2009 at 10:29pm

Thanks for your excellent article.

As someone who knew Ted Haggard as a child, I was reminded of the family environment in which he lived. For just one example, his father, Marcus "Doc" Haggard was the local chapter leader for the Christian Anti-Communism Crusade, which basically packaged everything it didn't like as being part of a communist plot (not unusual society-wide in the 50's and 60's). Early on, the CACC viewed homosexuality as a tool for the communists: communists encourage homosexuality because homosexuals have weak minds therefore are easy to brainwash. (It's no surprise, now that communism isn't perceived as such a large threat, that the CACC is now lead by David Noebel, outspoken homophobe, and much of their effort is overtly directed against homosexuals). Not that the anti-communism influence was the only factor, just one. In short, I think that Ted, like many other gay or bi kids coming of age in the 60's and 70's, was strongly influenced by a repressive environment, learned to stifle his attraction to men, and finally he just couldn't do that any more.

Dave

Smartiepants

Aug 12, 2009 at 12:56am

Bottom line is that free speech is abosolute. No restrictions of any kind.
People are free to say whatever they want no matter how stupid and silly it might be. That only changes when people violate other people's property rights and invidivual freedoms and liberties. Once you start limiting free speech all the rest of your liberties will be gone soon thereafter. the same.

sleepswithangels

Aug 12, 2009 at 11:20am

I didn't detect as much tongue in cheek in this essay as is usual Mike. Like me you must be getting exasperated with the massive hypocrisies that define our political and social landscape. One only needs to Google "pedophile republicans" to help scope the big picture regarding Christian political reality in North America. As much as I have come to (unfairly) detest all things American because of their largely insipid "entertainment", genocidal imperial ambitions and the aforementioned hypocrisies, you have to admit that despite all that they still have impressively honest and truthful displays of journalistic integrity...something that is all but extinct in Canada despite the best efforts of the CBC and Georgia Straight. I find Rabble is too politically correct and feminist centered to be truly effective and while the tyee offers a lot of quality writing, I am deeply suspicious of the people who fund and own that site. It doesn't seem like they are too interested in developing a higher profile in order to expose their excellent POVs to a mass market which could change the political landscape in a positive way.

Finally....I'm kind of surprised that you didn't go for the FundaMENTAList jugular with your trademark scathing wit. Sure....writing "That is, the only thing that really terrifies me is the possibility of these right-wing Christian conservative blow-hard homophobes one day actually taking over America. It may seem unlikely now, but seeing that their numbers continue to grow almost as fast as their minds continue to close, it is, sadly, a distinct possibility. ".....provides one with the kind of ironic gallows humour that one imagines could have taken place during one of literary fiction's most famous scenes...such as: The Jewish carpenter is losing lots of blood from spikes driven through his extremities but he looks over at the thief hanging next to him and in his dying last breaths asks if he can get a good deal on a swag Uzi.

SMBs

Andrew

Aug 12, 2009 at 12:59pm

BRAVO! I live in Pennsylvania (so, I'm not too far from you guys). But, it is amazing how just over the border lies an intelligent government. It must be unnerving for you guys to be forced to be our neighbor. What with us bombing every country that doesn't bow down and kiss our feet. If, in 2012, things get worse (IE: President Mitt Romney and VP Rush Limbaugh) then expect a High School Science teacher and his husband to be joining you guys rather quickly. If that does happen, I will cite political refuge at the border office. (Yes, I am planning this far in advance. If history has anything to teach us, we will get a Nazi for president in 2012.)

sleepswithangels

Aug 12, 2009 at 1:46pm

I can understand how appealing Canada might seem when you live in a fundamentalist snake pit, Andrew, but currently we do NOT have what you might term an intelligent government. Fortunately they are in a minority position and the hope is that their xian extremist butts will be turfed out of office this fall.

Unfortunately for everyone on the planet, your government, even under Obama, are still hell bent on world domination and since your debt load is way past being unsustainable I fear that your government/military will unleash the kind of atrocities upon the planet that will make their genocidal deployment of depleted uranium in Iraq and Afghanistan seem like a day at the spa. These zombie xians believe the end times are here and they have the bio weapons and billion dollar tax funded bunkers to ensure their survival as the "chosen ones" while the rest of us perish in unimaginably tortuous ways. Meanwhile, back at the hacienda, your average American is more consumed with Idols and other idiot preoccupations than in dealing with the rising tides of mass xian fundamentalist induced insanity.
SMBs

Buffy

Aug 12, 2009 at 11:45pm

Ignorance and fear form the two major bases of fundamentalism. Keep the people stupid so they don't know anything but what you spoon feed them, and make them fear everything but The One True Faith so they will never stray from it. Everything but The Faith is dangerous including independent thought--God said so right there in the Bible. Don't question, don't seek, just follow orders. And by the way you're being constantly assaulted and persecuted by "the others" who want to make you stray so you have to wage Holy War against them or lose everything.

Read Chris Hedges' "American Fascists". It's very enlightening.

BlueMed

Aug 16, 2009 at 7:17pm

I am Italian and I've lived in 2 other European countries plus the US and Canada. I came to Vancouver for graduate studies and at the time was glad to escape Bush's America. I've lived here for the past 4 years and found this city to be populated by the most repressed, hypocritical, self-righteous, shallow, pseudo-alternative, unfriendly and appearance-obsessed people I've ever met in 50 years of life.
I will be leaving Canada this year still hoping that the horrors of Vancouver may not be indicative of the entire country, but I will also have failed to find anything here that was really so much better (or different) than the US.
Rampant capitalism with a growing outsourcing of services and manufacturing to foreign, cheaper locales; hyper-consumerism accompanied by an increasingly blind reliance on technology; shallow and superficial human interactions due to a prevailing preference for "social networking sites" over face-to-face contact; increasingly awful television programming with a preponderance of "reality", "talent" and "style" shows... All of this is true of Canada just as much as the US.
The only thing I can think of that's better here than in the States is health care, but that doesn't mean much since anywhere in the world healthcare is better than in the US. Actually, there's better, and cheaper, health care in most European countries than here. Oh, and gay marriage, of course, which is thankfully also spreading fast throughout Europe.
But both things will eventually happen in the US too, whatever the current (and heavily manipulated) polls may or may not tell us, because history teaches us that things like laws and regulations, and the social mores that produce them, will and must change.
So if the writer of this article thinks that the "numbers [of US right wingers] continue to grow", one must blame the media, which invariably give more space to negative, sensationalist, loud-and-foul-mouthed behaviour because apparently it sells more copy. It's always easier to produce a report on the handful of crazy Americans who clamour against healthcare reform instead of talking about the millions who want it, and the many organizations that are mobilizing to effect this change.
Both Europeans and Canadians should stop using trite stereotypes about America and try and understand the historical reasons for the country being the way it is - they should also look at how many times, and how much, the country has actually changed throughout its history. But I guess that would too much work for Europeans and Canadians because they would also have to address their own imperialist and genocidal pasts (and presents).
Instead they, and especially Canada, have this convenient scapegoat, America, always at hand when the need to launch accusations of imperialism, colonialism, racism, war crimes, etc. arises. Even many intelligent Americans have been duped into believing that Canada is a paradise on earth (even as it now deports the war diserters it once welcomed). It is not. It's just another Western capitalist, colonialist, racist country.

sleepswithangels

Aug 16, 2009 at 11:01pm

I was tempted to press the agree button for Blue Med's anti Vancouver/Canada/Europe diatribe because I am all too aware of the despicable enabling that Canada does for Imperial America along with our racist, genocidal past but then I reread it and realised what his base motivation was. He writes: " I've lived here for the past 4 years and found this city to be populated by the most repressed, hypocritical, self-righteous, shallow, pseudo-alternative, unfriendly and appearance-obsessed people I've ever met in 50 years of life."

My best guess is that he has been driven mad by the fact there are so many gorgeous women (and men) here and not one would f*ck his ugly Italian ass.

Of course he is bang on about our sell out governments and rampant capitalism but Canada is the most multicultural country on the planet and despite the existence of a shrinking band of shit for brains, racist, Harper loving red necks we are certainly NOT a racist country.

Bye Bye Blue Med....time to take your handjob pimpled ass back to the Bronx or where ever you might find an equally bitter displaced Italian to share your misery with.

SMBs

Teaux Blair

Aug 17, 2009 at 4:23pm

Re: BlueMed

Genocide in Canada? I'd be interested to see you try to pull a credible reference in support of that. It is a little reckless to press such sweeping judgements upon nearly thirty million Canadians, based on nothing more that a few bad encounters with a hand-full of Vancouverites. Sounds personal to me...