The gay lobby loves to use the accusation of “hate” when they are opposed by those who believe homosexuality to be morally wrong. And while some (many?) Christians may have a condescending and despising view of gays (which is sin), the overuse and misuse of the word “hate” will continue to alienate thinking people from the gay cause. Here’s my view of what hate is and is not.
1. Disagreement with someone’s IDEAS is not hate
One of the problems with a child’s view of self is that they can not distinguish between themselves and their ideas. Their identity is too wrapped up in their ideas, so when someone disagrees with them, they experience it as dislike for their person. If I disagree with you, it does not mean I hate you. If you experience it that way, you have some growing to do. Even those who love us sometimes disagree with us.
2. Disapproval of BEHAVIORS is not hate
Actions feel even closer to my person that my ideas – so if you disapprove of my actions, it may feel like you hate me. However, actions, like ideas, may be separately viewed and esteemed (or not) from somone’s person. For example, even if you disapprove of, say, your own child’s action, it does not mean you hate them. In fact, you may love them. A child may experience disapproval as dislike, but that perception may not be reality.
Likewise, if I think a behavior is wrong or a maladaptive response to personal circumstances, this is not hate, even if someone experiences it that way. For example, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) may be partially caused in response to negative circumstances. Asking for treatment for ADD, or viewing it as an abnormality, is not hate, nor is it rejection of the person with ADD.
Again, if I disapprove of homosexuality and think it as a similar maladaptation, or even morally wrong, does that mean I hate gays? Only to someone who can not distinguish between self and their actions or maladaptive behaviors.
3. Opposing legislation validating a specific lifestyle or perspective is not hate
As one example, many people who opposed affirmative action on principle were called racists. This is patently ignorant – they may or may not have been racist, but principled disagreement is not racism or hate.
Again, if I feel that teaching kids that “promiscuity or homosexuality is ok” is bad for them and society, opposing it is not hate. This is especially true if you do not believe that homosexuality is an inborn trait which deserves special civil rights allotments. If seen as a behavioral maldaptation, then I am not hating, but merely opposing falsehood. You may accuse me of error, but not hatred. The adage may apply “never attribute to malice what can be accounted for by ignorance.”
4. Calling for legislative criminalization of behaviors is not hate
Do I hate thieves or adulterers if I make laws against such behaviors? Not if they are damaging to society. Some people who are against gay marriage may be haters, but that doesn’t mean that opposing gay marriage is a hateful act.
As I have argued in Legislating in the Moral Gray Zone, since homosexuality is not directly dangerous (though promiscuity is), it should not be criminalized. However, since it is also considered immoral by many, and appears to be against nature and the civil order of society (arguably), it is in the gray zone, so we should not condone it through legislation either.
5. Using derogatory names, or calling for physical violence against persons IS hate
People like the church who sponsor godhatesfags.com are certainly haters, as are those who call for violence against gays. This type of activity should certainly be frowned upon, and calling for violence is illegal, not just hateful. BTW, this is why we should close down ALL churches, mosques, or any organization which promote violence in our society – but even name calling is protected speech. Otherwise, calling someone a pervert or a bigot may one day be illegal.
I agree that the word "hate" is too loosely applied to people like yourself. I don't think that you hate gays. I do, however, believe that you're viciously homophobic. Even if you don't hate gays, you clearly don't like them. I don't feel like I'm out-of-line in saying that: even taking into account the fact that you believe your religion demands disapproval of gays, you exhibit an abnormal propensity to talk about how "perverted" they are.
Your "gray zone" logic is absurd. You agree that homosexual behavior doesn't hurt anyone, and then you claim that it's in this imaginary zone because most people find it immoral and that it is "arguably against nature and the civil order of society".
You're smart enough to know that it doesn't make a lick of difference if "most" people find it immoral: The relative beliefs of society are a poor judge of what rights are actually deserved by minorities. And as for "natural" order, I challege you to give me a reason why this is so, other than what a dusty old book of myths told you. Nothing that occurs naturally in nature (which, by the way, is everything) has no business being called "against nature". And what the hell is the reference to civil order supposed to mean, anyway? Do you think that allowing gays to marry is going to cause rioting or unlawfulness?
Also, it's outrageous that you spend all this time talking about what gays shouldn't be allowed to do, but when talking about vicious bastards like Fred Phelps, the best you can come up with is that their actions should be "frowned upon". Give me a break, man. Chewing with your mouth open should be frowned upon. Spreading awful hate-speech about a group of people deserves something else entirely. What's the matter with you?
There's something inherent in this conversation – if you said you hated gays, nobody would listen to you, because the line between you and the Fred Phelps people would be so badly blurred.
So you can't say you hate gays – you can simple recommend that their relationships be legally less than those of straights, that homosexuality ITSELF is akin to mental disease, and that gays, through good hard work, can viciously repress their own natural sexual desires so that Christians like yourself can be protected from them.
Because ultimately, that's what you want – freedom from homosexuality, and more in general, freedom from that which disgusts you. Unfortunately, you don't seem to believe that your own opinions and suggestions are similarly disgusting. In other words, while you want freedom from that which disgusts you, we are "Christian Haters" for wanting freedom from your anti-gay political positions.
How absurd.
I don't believe that it's hate, but ignorance and hypocrisy that leads Christians to point out other people's imperfections on a regular basis. The legislation of this ignorance and hypocrisy is nothing short of frightening to those that advocate a separation of church and state in order to protect both sides from anti-democratic behavior.
Listen, I occaisionally use the word perverted because scripture calls it a perverion, *and* because I am a bit peeved at liberals who, with the bravado and disdain that you wield so well, attack me as akin to the Fred Phelps type. But go ahead! Your credibility diminishes with each such accusation.
Your accusation of homophobia is just as preposterous. Afraid? Again, you make erroneous assumptions about motives because you don't like my arguments and stances. Oooh, let's call everyone who thinks homosexuality is immoral "homophobic." Nice labeling tactic, but you only convince yourself. But when you get done slinging mindless, inaccurate insults, perhaps you will be taken more seriously at the table of debate.
Perhaps you are correct, however, in arguing that my choice of "against nature" is too ambiguous, since disease and health, rape and monogamy, etc. occur "in nature." It is somewhat difficult to make a purely natural argument for or against anything if you are looking merely at natural behaviors.
There are at least three other grounds upon which you may judge something as "natural" or "unnatural" – biology, sociology, or Divine Plan.
1. Biological Arguments Against HX
Biologically, the fact that homosexuals can't reproduce (without technology, of course) is one of the main arguments used as "against nature." The body was not designed for homosexual sex.
If you believe in evolution, you might argue that homosexuality would be selected against, from a reproductive standpoint.
Some argue that anal sex is bad for the body, and not designed for it.
2. Sociologic Arguments
The main claim against hx is that legitimizing it contributes to the breakdown of the foundational building block of society, the family. Admittedly, promiscuity, adultery, pornography, drugs, and poverty also hurt families. I have yet to see any studies supporting the contention that hx hurst society, but who knows – I can wait.
3. Divine Plan Arguments Against HX
Divine plan, or course, is the other place to take one's stand. Perhaps I'll find a better phrase to indicate that homosexuality is against the *intended* design.
I'll work on it, but for now, I stand by the claim that homosexuality is against nature, and just as immoral as adultery and fornication (go look it up if you need to). Certainly Romans 1 is not only focused on homosexuality, but includes those other sexual sins as equally eggregious. However, hx does take up much of the text.
Must we have a biological or sociologic reason to call something immoral or against nature?
Perhaps there is not a good naturalistic argument against homosexuality. Of course, the same might hold true for polygamy, open marriages, group marriage, or bestiality. Are those ok too, since we don't have any naturalistic or sociological argument against them?
Outrage
I am also sorry that you are outraged by my focus on homosexuality – sorry that I don't share your hierarchy of values, and that you judge me for such – what ever happened to "do not judge"? Glad to see you don't believe in applying that without balancing it with the need to cry out for justice and righteousness.
I see that you have no problem calling Fred Phelps a vicious bastard. Now, I agree that he is an ignoramus, a hateful fear monger who distorts scripture, but um, again, you are merely namecalling – at least my description of "perversion" is meant literally, rather than as a namecalling tactic.
And as I said, the more you compare my theology and policy suggestions to the Fred Phelps of the world, calling us nearly synonymous, the more it shows how out of touch you are with mainstream Americans, and with truth in general – it's like the people who compare evangelicals to islamic fundamentalists – the difference is so great that you would BEG for total evangelical theocracy (if that was your only choice ;) if you had to live one day under Islamic law.
BTW, I never said that gays must supress their homosexuality – I suggest transformation and healing work that needs to be done. Supression is never a good idea, except when not doing so would harm yourself or others.
Homosexuals don't digust me. As you may or may not believe, I have gay friends and family whom I love, like and like being with. What disgusts me is the liberal nonsense that passes for truth – tolerance to the point of approving of vice. As I said, disagreement, even disapproval is not hate or phobia. It is only to those with a child's view of reality.
Seeking to justify sin as normative is pathetic, wrong, destructive, against reason, imbalanced, immoral, sinful, offensive, and should not be tolerated.
Dan: And by the way, thanks for pointing out *my* imperfections – I guess that makes us both ignorant hypocrites by your definition. You can't have it both ways. Maybe you need to clarify when it is ok and when it is not.
Stewart: By my definition of hate, BTW, you come up as a hater by using abusive language (bastard). Do you hate Fred Phelps? God loves him, just like he loves gays. And he wants both to repent.
Seeker, you're responses are sometimes so shockingingly anti-gay that I can't believe you're writing them. In the other discussion on this site, you actually linked to a website that implicitly condones the harrassment of gay students, and that believes public schools should not be allowed to hire openly gay teachers.
What the heck is wrong with you? I understand that you think homosexual behavior is a sin, and you understand that I strongly disagree, so I think that we can get beyond that point without any trouble. But what I can't get beyond is how anyone could think that the kind of outright discrimination Mission America promotes could be considered acceptable in America.
And no, Seeker, I don't hate Fred Phelps. He makes me very angry though, and I wish he would stop what he's doing. He hurts people. For some reason, Fred Phelps can't help but target gay people with his misdirected anger.
Even though you don't call for violence against gays, you're still helping his cause. For all your claims of not hating homosexuals, you're still actively campaigning for them to be a kind of second class citizen. You want the world to see gays as a group of people who have a disease. You want our country to treat gays like they're done something wrong, or that they should be ashamed of who they are. You're trying to turn back decades of progress, to a time when people thought it was okay to harrass homosexuals. But it's not okay, and it isn't going to work. We are not second-class citizens. We have not done anything wrong. We aren't hurting anyone by being ourselves. We will not be made to feel ashamed or diseased by misguided people like yourself.
I don't hate you, Seeker, but you make me very angry. You hurt people. You hurt me. And I don't know why you do it, but I wish you would stop.
The question here should be why seeker is so obsessed with homosexuality, not whether he's a bigot or a hater (that's obvious). In my experience, people who are confident and comfortable in their sexuality don't go around persecuting gays.
He's also a very, very bad spokesman for christianity. But, then, he's just an extreme case of what a corrupt and false belief-system does to a person. I don't think I can come up with a more pernicious concept that "sin" and what we have to go through to escape it.
I think I'll learn Japanese.
Stewart:
Actually, I am not totally familiar with all of what Mission American stands for, I just found that one article. Perhaps you could quote from their site their support of "gay harassment." Now, if they say that public schools should not hire openly gay teachers, I may have to disagree with them.
Regarding gays as second class citizens and progress, I certainly do think that homosexuality should be viewed by science, public policy, and faith as aberant, and not to be "normed."
While you may think it is progress that the APA recently removed hx from it's list of maladies, I consider that a step backwards – homosexuality will always be a sin and a maladaptation, no matter what a culture thinks – a culture that accepts sexual perversion as normative is on it's way to the scrap pile of history. If you see this stance as hate, you will always see it that way. Your mistake, and your choice.
You may find me a "bad representative" of Xianity, and I may be less gentle than I ought, but I suspect you would make the same accusations against Paul the Apostle as well – not that I am in any way comparable to him, but his words in Romans 1 and other places in scripture are even more clear than my own that homosexuality.
As for my reasons for writing on the subject, the accusations about my own sexuality are merely conjecture, and inaccurate as far as my own introspection can tell me.
I previously gave a long list of reasons why I am interested in this subject, and those should be enough. Those who think I am merely a conflicted, secretly-gay religionist wrestling with his sexuality are merely hoping to undermine my arguments by questioning my motives – or maybe they are projecting. At the very least, they are trying to explain to themselves why I harp on the subject.
No, I didn't say you're a "bad representative," I said you're a "bad spokesman." In order to sell themselves, organizations routinely employ spokesmen to project a certain positive image to the world. They are expected to project what is good about that organization, not what is bad. People who try to sell me on christianity always talk about how "loving" and "accepting" their god is, how he cares about me and wants what is good for me, about how he is the source of all goodness and beauty in the world. Of course, it's all a crock, but they at least try to put a positive spin on things. You, on the other hand, don't bother; you try to make it look as bad as you possibly can. In that, you are a bad spokesman even though you're telling the truth about it (ie, a good representative). The more people like you drool on about things of which you haven't the slightest idea, the more you will disabuse intelligent people of the legitimacy of your belief-system. Good.
And, yes, Saul/Paul, the founder of your religion, was a bigoted homophobe, and thus a brilliant representative for the jewish/christian belief system. He was also a patriarchalist and apologist for established power-structures, and set forth to use his new religion to enslave humanity to the patriarchal hegemony. So what? He is as irrelevant as any other bronze-age moralist.
The xian god is one of love and truth, mercy and justice, to be both feared and loved. Unfortunately, religious hyporcrites like to only recite truth, while irreligious hypocrites like to recite only love. As I like to say
Love without truth is powerless sentimentality
Truth without love is vicious brutality.
I'm sure you would convict me (and Paul!) of the latter, while I you of the former. I'm sure that I have lots of room to grow in love, but I'm still going to hold out the truths and apply them to both myself and how I view society.
I hold to neither, so it's ridiculous to accuse me of exalting "love" over "truth." Love is a seduces the unfortunate pilgrim into a desert of thirst and death; truth, the deceitful mirage which shimmers above its barren sands.
Superior to both is Beauty.
I'm quite comfortable with the label of both ignorant and hypocrite, cause I'm a sinner. Also, I hate Fred Phelps for making Christians look bad, which of course makes me look bad, which is the whole point of the faith in the first place…no one can live up to God's standards, hence the necessity for grace that we struggle to impart toward others. My failure to impart grace to Phelps, for example, does not mean that I don't want to impart grace in the process of supporting or opposing certain public policies. Thus, my policy decisions on issues of gender and/or sexuality tend toward equality over sectarian conceptualizations.
The biggest weakness in my arguments, in my observation, is that I fail at times to separate the person from the argument; and argument can be broken down and attacked, while having nothing to do with the person. I know that I often intentionally argue things that I have no interest in, or argue on behalf of a side of an issue that I disagree with in order for that view to be presented.