SPLC

The Southern Poverty Law Center has a series of articles exploring a lot of the hate movements in the United States today. That includes most Christians by the way - which is not surprising. Link:

I just finished reading an interview with:

The Rev. Mel White used to be a trusted ally of evangelicals like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. That was before White revealed a long-kept secret — he is gay.

The interview is brilliant, and I'd wish everyone would read it. Link directly to the interview here:

Because I know many people don't have time to read at length, I'll pull out the parts I find particularly interesting, and comment a bit... This will be lengthy.

MEL WHITE: I'm convinced that if you walk through the Holocaust Museum here in D.C. and substitute the word "gay" for the word "Jew" during those early years of the Nazi regime, you will be convinced that what [Hitler's chief propagandist] Goebbels did is exactly what Jerry Falwell and [Focus on the Family's] James Dobson and Pat Robertson and Pope John Paul II are doing now.

They are demonizing us. They are creating a case for why we're the problem, and why the nation has gone foul. They are describing us as disease-carriers, child-snatchers, money-grubbers.

All that demonizing creates a deadly environment. The killing here has been isolated and scattered so far, but it certainly has begun.

I was struck by the comment because of the web site I came across that directly compared the Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda to the current Christian propaganda anti-gay speech.

And yes, I am of the opinion that it is fair to compare Pope John Paul II (as well as the current Pope) to the Nazi death machine that killed over 6 million people. Most people, even gay people, I suspect, would disagree with me on that. Most ascribe a benevolent character to religious leaders as a matter of course. However, when you really break down what the religious leaders are saying, it is nearly identical, word for word, to what Hitler said to justify gassing millions of people. The difference is, Hitler didn't say "Jews are filthy disease ridden money grubbers, but I love them". He didn't bother with "hate the sin, not the sinner".

It is just so bizare for the Catholic leaders and priests to be so hateful. The fact is, most of them are gay. I think it's reasonable to assume that a large percentage of them became priests because they are gay. If you hate yourself and your own sexuality, what better way to hide it than to choose a profession devoid of any possibility of any sexuality for your entire life?

It's like the rest of the world doesn't even understand that. It's just bizzare.

WHITE: It is the Christian Right movement that has become the number one enemy of God's gay children. Their churches are the primary sources of misinformation about gay and lesbian people that leads to suffering and death.

No longer am I afraid of Skinheads and neo-Nazis and white supremacists, by comparison to a church that's committed to the destruction of the civil rights and human rights and families of my sisters and brothers.

Skinheads and Klansmen I can recognize for the enemies that they are. But anti-gay Christians come in the disguise of love, and that disguise is a powerful weapon in itself. They demonize, but they don't see themselves as responsible for the violence their demonizing causes.

I try to bring up examples like that terrible killing of a gay couple in California by the Williams brothers [Matthew and Tyler, in 1999]. When one of them was asked by his mother, "Why'd you do it?" he said, basically, "The Bible says the world would be better off without them."

There are so many of these stories. What kind of smoking gun is more smoking than that?

That's why the religious right and the Republican party have been so vocal in attacking judges rather recently. They see rational judges as a threat to their plan, thus they become the enemy as well. The speech becomes similar. Violence ensues.

IR: In Stranger at the Gate, you note that even conservative churches almost never talked about homosexuality when you were growing up. What happened to end that silence and bring anti-gay preaching to the fore?

WHITE: It has to be seen as part of the historic resurgence of political fundamentalism we're seeing around the world. Whether it's Muslim or Hindu or Jewish or Christian, fundamentalism is back, and it is bloodthirsty, and it is seeking to destroy everything that threatens it — and gay people apparently are threatening to it.

Fundamentalism is a cleansing movement. The urge to purge is at the heart of it. They want to bring back the glory of what was — even though it never really was — and they want to make it safe for God to rule the nation.

For Christian fundamentalists, the goal is to purify the United States so that it reflects God, in ways that nations have never reflected Him. And that thinking leads them to say, "OK, what's wrong with America? How can we purify it?" Then they start hunting for impurities.

That's so true, isn't it? For so many years, religion was a non-issue, but now it's the headlines every day.

I'll tell you this - I am not an impurity, and if anybody ever tries to "purify" me or my friends, it will get ugly.

So, why gays as the target? It's a great question. Do a search in the old testament for the word "abomination" and see how many references to homosexuality there are compared to every other possible "sin". You'll find many more food abominations than sex abominations. Eat a shrimp, get stoned to death - at least according to the Bible.

White seems to know why attacking gays works.

The first co-belligerency issue, of course, was the "godless Soviet empire." Falwell raised the Moral Majority mailing list of 6 million mostly by going to all the state capitols with the choir from Liberty [Falwell's school in Lynchburg, Va.] and talking about the Soviet Union and waving flags.

When that issue petered out, and eventually the [Berlin] wall fell, the political fundamentalists had already tried out the demographics of two other issues, homosexuality and abortion. As strategically as anybody in American marketing, they switched to the "godless abortion threat" and the "godless homosexual threat."

Of course, fewer people see abortion as murder than see what gay people do in bed as icky. So spreading fear and misinformation about gay people has been their best means to mobilize volunteers, to create a mass, and to raise money.

There is a subtle difference in Mr. White's understanding of right wing motivation and mine. He believes the Christians are sincere. I believe the motive is power and money.

WHITE: I know Jerry Falwell as well as he knows himself; I wrote his autobiography. He is sincere. Most of them are sincere, but they are sincerely wrong on the gay issue. It's something they believe, but it's their marketing gurus — people like [President Bush's political adviser] Karl Rove and [Moral Majority co-founder] Paul Weyrich — who've told them, "This is the one to push."

Homosexuality itself is not important to most of these guys. But it's an important means to an end they believe in, and that is straightening out America to make sure Jesus can come back. Even if they're using anti-gay politics insincerely, they are sincerely interested in taking over the democratic process.

So that's why it became such a major issue. It came from the top down. This new, loud voice against homosexuality came through the parent-church leaders, like Falwell, who began to tell the world that homosexuality was a threat.

Then it trickled down to local churches, and now it has become one of the great hate movements, I think, in history. It's dangerous stuff, because it knows no questions. It hears no response. It is a juggernaut. It is a bulldozer. It is a blitzkrieg that doesn't stop to reason.

In the long run, I think the rise of fundamentalist religion is a bump in the road. I think we'll see an anti-fundi backlash in the '06 elections, and the beginning of a long secular movement after the '08 elections. A least I'm hoping so.

Lets also not forget that for the most part, the fundamentalist movement is headed by old white guys. Time has a way of catching up with hatred and swallowing it into the oblivion of history.

You also need to be gay to understand why we hate the fundis so much. Why can I compare the Pope to Hitler? Destruction of a body is horrible. Destruction of a persons humanity is something you cannot begin to imagine - unless it's you.

But one of my biggest heroes, James Lofton, once told me, "Quite frankly, Mel, it would be harder to be gay than it is to be black." I said, "What?" This distinguished civil rights activist said, "We have our churches and our families on our side. You don't."

He had a point. We may not be kept from voting, we may not be kept from water fountains by signs, but people believe we're destroying everything good in America.

And our mommies don't like us. Our preachers don't like us. That's pretty significant.

My mom said, when I told her I was gay, "I'd rather see you at the bottom of that swimming pool, drowned, than to hear this." Would hearing that from a Ku Klux Klan member have as much impact? I'm 65 and I still hurt.

Blacks suffer, we suffer — it's suffering, whoever it is. When you generate self-hatred in somebody, which the anti-gay people do, what's worse than that? When you teach me to hate myself — and teach others to hate me — is that not a hate movement?

WHITE: I say this: Picture yourself in a world where your heterosexuality is called a choice. Where your heterosexuality, what you do in bed, is considered dirty and sinful. Where your relationships are dishonored and demeaned and caricatured by everyone. Picture a world where you are the scum of the earth in the eyes of civic, civil and religious authority.

And ask yourself: How would I feel about myself if I was seen as the enemy of God, and the enemy of the nation? How would I feel if I could lose my job in most states by simply putting my partner's picture on my desk, or if I couldn't adopt, couldn't serve in the military, couldn't lead most churches?

You would feel pretty rotten. You would feel like the scourge of the earth.

I really don't feel like the scourge of the earth. I'd have to believe what the crazy freaks are saying for that to be the case. I don't give them that much credit.

What I feel is a very slow burning, but very hot hatred for them. That bothers me, as it's not a natural condition for me to hate. I don't like the feeling.

There is much more in the article. Please read it as well as other articles on hate groups in the United States.

In time, we all end up just as dead as the next person, and there is no taking anything back at that point. There's no un-doing anything. What matters is the effect we made when we had a chance.