Thought Theater

1 On October 11, 2007 at 1:41 PM, Ben in Oakland wrote —

Maybe it would be a mistake to write this, because it seems that I might be letting a very obvious cat out of the bag. But since self-righteousness knows no self-restraint, and requires no self-knowledge, or any knowledge at all, I will put it out there anyway, mostly because I think it is very ironic and funny-how-that-works, but also so that I can feed the seething cauldron of frustration that is the fundamentalist's basic bathwater.

To my severely conservative Christian friends: you do not seem to be able to help yourselves. You cannot stop obsessing over (to put it a bit crudely) what makes my dick hard. More importantly, you cannot stop talking about it, especially in the absurdist terms that you employ. (Evil agenda, homosexual menace, attacks on family, etc.)

And I don't want you to stop talking about. Keep on jabbering about it. Knock yourself out.

And why? Because you are NOT really the enemy. The enemy is the closet. And you totally misunderstand the nature of the closet. The closet relies on silence for its power. As long as gay people are unknown and unknowable, the closet can work it black magic.

But by your constant jabbering, you make non-gay people aware of gay people. You force gay people to talk about themselves, to come out of the closet. You force non-gay people to talk about, and more importantly, to think about it. Especially, they think about gay people they know. And for those who are not irretrievably poisoned by hatred and fear, or self-hatred or self-fear-- what you are pleased to call your sincere religious belief, or god's word, or whatever the rationalization-du-jour is-- well, talking about it leads them to conclusions, and not usually the ones you would like them to have.

So please do keep talking. Keep protesting. You will help destroy the closet with it.

Unfortunately, you also let your obsession over my genitalia lead you to electing people whose concerns center on what makes my dick hard and what they can do to stop it, instead of concentrating on things like of $9 trillion dollars of federal debt, a debt owed to countries who do not wish us well, a losers' war in Iraq that has brought us disrespect and mistrust from around the world and is draining our treasury, a lack of health insurance for most people, the tragedy of Darfur, the mortgage meltdown, and and on and on. All of this dropped in favor of of the other things you think are are really on God's personal agenda, which coincidentally, happens to be the same as yours.

The funny/sad part is, one of the homophobic beliefs is that homosexuality, through some mysterious agency unknown to historians and scientists, has brought about the fall of mighty empires, and that gay people in our country and time must be stopped to prevent the same thing happening to us. All utter nonsense, unsupported by reason, fact, or intelligence. The sad but delicious irony is that given the quality of people you insist on electing for the reasons you elect them, it is more likely that your fear of homosexuality will ultimately bring about the downfall of the American Empire.

And to my gay brothers and sisters: Today is National Coming Out Day. If it is physically safe for you to do so-- and I aware of the sad irony of having to write that-- PLEASE DO. Barring threats to your safety and health, there is not one reason on the planet for you not to. If your friends and families cannot see, love, and respect you for who you are, then you lose nothing if you lose them.

I know this because, to some extent, I lost my parents when I came out to them. But eventually, I began to see that the problem was never my being gay, it was our whole relationship. The gay thing was just the hook they hung that particular hat on. It allowed them to have something to blame, besides their own responsibility for the relationship they had with three of their four children. I never really lost them because I never really had them.

The last people I told and I waited until I was 27 to do so were the people I called my foster parents. They were very conservative and very religious, and I was afraid I would lose them. But I had promised myself that there would be no more secrets, no lies. Their response (and it is engraved on my heart): "Thank you for telling us. We're glad you told us, and loved and trusted us enough to tell us." They welcomed my partner into their home and treated him like the son they treated me as.