The Real Sexual Deviants

My wife and I went to see "The Secret Life of Bees," an uneven, but interesting little movie, last night and I came away with one strong reminder: those stupid redneck creeps I grew up with are still out there. Their cause is a little different--anti-gay these days instead of hating every black person they see--but the method is the same: intimidation, stereotyping, grotesque distortion of Biblical intent and stigmatizing those who defend the rights of those targeted by the bigots.

These are tactics that have worked well for this faction, but I'm hoping, in light of the country's substantial and impressive vote for an African-American to lead it and what that implies about our growing understanding and acceptance of people in general, these deviants' message will be rejected.

Truth be told, though, that message was a winner in several states in the recent elections--including California where you wouldn't have thought it possible (the Mormon church threw $8 million into disenfranchising gay people there). The most dangerous precedent was established in Arkansas. There the crafty bigots put together a law that would prohibit unmarried people--of either gender or sexual pursuasion--from adopting children, or even serving as foster parents.

At its most extreme, this law would prevent parents and grandparents who are either gay or "living in sin" from giving homes to their own children and grandchildren, all in the interest of subverting the gay community's "threat to the sanctity of marriage." That's bullshit! It's bigotry of the most destructive type at a time when abused and abandoned children are quietly crying for somebody to love them and this faction of our society--most often opposed to birth control, but who rarely adopt--is eliminating potential parents and surrogate parents.

It's madness coming from a crowd of which we've learned to expect little more than this. These "pro-life" perverts demonstrate by their actions that they are anti-life (pro-gun, pro-death penalty, pro-war, pro-cigarettes). They scream about gay pedophiles preying upon children, trying to convert them to their sexual orientation when absolutely no evidence of any kind supports that contention. As a matter of fact, the studies that have been conducted in this area have shown gay people to be--in general--better parents than their straight counterparts and their children grow up no more apt to be gay than those growing up in a more traditional setting.

We must--must--counter this revolution with good sense, with sensitivity to the needs of abandoned and abused children and with the proper Biblical underpinning--the entreaty to "love one another." That, it seems to me, is what's lost in all this deviant behavior.