Last night I was told I'm a bigot. The reason had to do with my views regarding radical right wingnut Christians who are presently occupying my country's power seats on many levels up to and including the wingnut residing at 1600 Pennsyvania Avenue.
The white heterosexual Christian male who said this to me has decided that he is a part of the LGBT community because he managed to gain grant approval for the only HIV/AIDS ministry in my experience that is housed within and supported by a Baptist church.
I was quick to ask him if his church was affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention (wingnuts) or the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (slightly less nutty, but still quite flavorful.) He indicated the latter. While I was somewhat relieved, eventually I had to walk away from this fellow before a screaming match ensued.
He seemed to think that my overall negative view of evangelical Christians indicated a wider negative view of all who subscribe to that faith. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have many friends who are Christian. None are Baptist. None are evangelical. He is both.
I went to the Web site for his ministry and was dismayed to find that tolerance for LGBT folks was not spoken there, while PWAs were elevated to near sainthood. I guess you're a better PWA if you are heterosexual. Hmmm....
He said that my "negative attitudes" are analogous to what the X-tian wingnuts do to "homosexuals."
I thought my hearing had failed once again. I fail to see the analogy. To the limits of my best recollection, I do not recall any groups of queers campaigning on the local, state, and national levels to take civil rights away from X-tians. They are *certainly* doing that to us.
The best explanation that I have for why we are the ultimate target for so much hatred is because we represent the most dangerous threat (along with reproductive freedom for women) to the patriarchal social structure we live in.
Lesbians, even more than gay men, threaten them where they live,down to and including our crazy notions that we can have children outside what they feel is a family. Hey...we even do it without the direct assistance of men. That, too, is reproductive freedom, not just the ability to have an elective abortion. That is an important component of reproductive freedom for women, but it is only *a part*.
W has his hands full if he really believes that all these angry womyn and queers are going to take this lying down.
I stopped doing that in 1978. I do not intend to resume that position.
