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Reprinted from The Letter, February 1998.
Religious Right Often Withholds The Whole Story
By Nick Slade
In the Christian religion, there are sins of commission, and then there
are sins of omission. In its cultural war against the gay and lesbian community, the
religious right has learned all too well how to sin by the latter method.
Two examples surfaced in a recent issue of the Orange County [California]
Blade. In its battle with the Walt Disney Company, the homophobic American Family
Association recently took credit for a 37% drop in the past four months in the number of
subscribers to the Disney Channel. In June they had eight million. Four months later, it
was down to five million.
But what the extremist group failed to note is that many cable companies
are now offering The Disney Channel as part of their basic service. Because individual
households no longer need to subscribe separately, the number of countable subscribers has
dropped. Far from being hurt by the Baptist boycott, in the last quarter Disney reported
profits rising 27% to $858 million.
Another problem is fundamentalist anti-gay literature. Like most
propaganda, it conveniently sweeps a great deal of truth under the carpet.
One of the most popular quotes they trot out to alarm legislators and
voters is from a piece written by gay writer Michael Swift several years ago in Boston's
Gay Community News. Some fundamentalists are touting it as the "Gay Manifesto."
They wish.
Swift writes: "We shall sodomize your sons, emblems of your
feeble
masculinity, of your shallow dreams and vulgar lies. We shall seduce them in your schools,
in your dormitories, in your gymnasiums, in your locker rooms, in your sports arenas, in
your seminaries, in your youth groups....The family unit--which only dampens imaginations
and curbs free will--must be eliminated....All churches who condemn us will be closed. Our
only gods are handsome young men."
The only problem is that Swift's piece was clearly intended as satire. The
fundamentalists never tell their followers about his introduction: "This essay is
meant as outré, madness, a tragic, cruel fantasy, an eruption of inner rage, on how the
oppressed desperately dream of being the oppressor."
So next time you hear of alarmist rhetoric against gays and lesbians,
better check the source first. A great many fundamentalists are willing to believe just
about anything; a few preachers and psychologists are simply selling them what they want
to buy.
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