Confession: I've Been Gay Bashed

If being attacked by Sullivan friend and Gay journalist Chris Crain on his blog for being a Christian-ist (FYI - I don't even attend church) is being Gay bashed, then I guess that's what I've been. But what Crain actually demonstrates is how instep is the Left with Rosie (fear the Christians) O'Donnell and how little the Left and even now Sullivan truly still appreciate the secular conservative view at all. As far as "hate," who hates whom in this debate is what I'm left to ponder. Not a dog in the fight, but the Gay community sure seems to hate organized religion more than it allegedly "hates" them.

Riehl World needs to step in to the real world.  First of all, it's silly to suggest hate crime laws are useless because we were gay bashed.  So I guess that means murder laws are useless, since homicides are a daily occurrence?  What's more, Andrew's comparison works because "Christianists" pose an indirect threat to gay Americans in a way very similar to "Islamists" in Europe. 

The seven Moroccan 20-somethings who spat on us and beat us up for holding hands weren't "radical Islamists."  They weren't hanging out on the streets of Amsterdam at 2 a.m. on Queen's Day because they were headed to the mosque for prayer.  They were the Islamic equivalent of our own rednecks: macho thugs who have absorbed the prejudices of their culture, which persist in large part because their own conservative religious leaders dress up the bigotry and legitimize it.

I'm not surprised to see conservative Christians freak out at the comparison with their hated Islamic foes. But when they regularly advocate the imposition of their own religious views in the law, the connection is more than well deserved.

I'd wager I've probably had as about as much "indoctrination," snark to any formalized religion as Crain himself, very little, I assume; though I have come to a personal comfort level with my own interpretation and relationship with a higher power I choose to call God through my life experience. Hell, there was a time when, in America, it could well have been me and some friends who kicked some guy's ass at 2 AM, not because he was or wasn't Gay, but because we were wasted and it was something to do.

I wasn't saved! I grew up! I came to appreciate that there is decency in having a broad appreciation for morals and values, family or otherwise, which, I'm sorry, America just happens to have plagiarized mostly from Judeo-Christian doctrine. THAT isn't anyone's fault. And it is the unending attempt by the Left to strip away morality, values, and a healthy respect for life as upheld in classic Judeo-Christian belief, that is running this country into the ground.

I didn't require a preacher, priest, or rabbi, or have to go to a church to figure that out - I figured it out from watching the evening news.

Hate Crimes laws are useless, as they are nothing more than proof that your society is not adequately addressing the actual physical assault (crime) which is taking place, whether one hates someone else, or not. They are the adding of purely cosmetic band aides, which do nothing to truly address the wound, with the added benefit, for the Left, of elevating some newly discovered, or now more vocal minority group to the growing list of endangered now sub-species, the conservative prefers to view as one: mankind. Crain has his hate crimes legislation in the Netherlands. It did him no good, as the underlying society is so increasingly morally corrupt. That's what beat you up, Crain - the very thing for which you campaign, you dope.

Crain, and the Left, cite thug-ism and waywardness as one root of evil, blame that on Religion - WITH ABSOLUTELY NO PROOF AT ALL - because they either fear or detest religion, it's as simple as that. Yet, a not formally religious-ized conservative like myself sees the very values religion engenders as the only effective way to combat thug-ish-ness and waywardness in modern man, because I have observed it happen, time after time.

I have seen drunks plucked up from the street and criminals pulled out of prison and lifted up, not by social welfare programs, but with a spiritual growth-spurt encouraging them to come to some sense of themselves through an understanding of their own God. But the Left would prefer to take any sense of that value, that belief out of society, most directly through our schools, and replace it with metal detectors instead.

Apparently Crain, as Sullivan has become, is a one trick pony unable to view the world through anything but their special prism, commonly called being Gay, because they have embraced a fundamental tenet of neo-liberalism ... our group's so special, look at us! In that sense, those individuals really care only about themselves. I care about our society itself.

I could care less if Sullivan and Crain want to bugger about. But from their own fear and loathing they have come to view Christianity (really Judeo-Christian faith) as the single most powerful force in the world telling them they shouldn't be doing what they do. Deal with it, fellows. I, regrettably, still smoke. There are people who tell me I shouldn't. I don't really go on and on trying to paint them as fascists, religious or otherwise, with a broad brush.

The only explanation for their view on this issue is some personal psychological or family issue through which they came to resent religion. Too damned bad. Buck up. It provides a moral foundation we very much need in America. Stop trying to kill it off because you hurt.

Stop thinking you are so damned special and realize you are just one of us!

Stop trying to strip away every moral compunction, or life celebrating value in this world because it just happens to be rooted in Judeo-Christian thought, which, for personal reasons of which I care not, you obviously have come to detest.

Were the Left and its now affiliated minority groups to expend half the energy it does in shouting Look at me, I'm a fag, or a Black, or I'm fat! and direct that energy into constructive dialog around how to foster and retain the morals and values we require as a society to survive, I suspect, given time, the assorted members of your too many to here name special interest groups wouldn't find themselves being beat up on the streets at night.

And I doubt very much that's it's really happening at the hands of genuine church goin' folk now, Crain. It was 2 AM. I suspect for the most part, they were home in bed. Just curious, were you by any chance out catting about in what some might call a decadent slice of Netherlands night life you no doubt rejoiced in helping to bring about? Perhaps not, and I'm not suggesting it excuses the crime, though it might help to explain it.

Be careful what you wish for, Crain. One tremendous irony I have discovered in life, is that, when you get it, it can come back to kick your ass.

And, finally, I am not whatever it is you and Andy call a Christian-ist - just an average guy who sleeps too late for church, but at least possesses a modicum of common sense and concern for all aspects of the world outside, not just some self-identified make me special group. It's called political conservatism and has nothing directly to do with religion - read up on it if you are going to continue to call yourself one. The religionists are a lobby, just like you. How quaint and utterly ironic, don't you think?

Comments

[Zifnab]

Me thinks thou dust protest too much.

[Leatherneck]

Stop MADD. How can I have a good time driving on roads, and drinking if those nasty Mothers against drunk driving are not stopped?

An American who wants laws to protect them agaist morality is wrong. Morality sets limits in the form of laws handed down by a mostly Anglo-Saxon-Celtic society, called America.

I realize a small amount of pervs want society to allow anything, but our children must learn limits.

BTW, You better get to church!

[templar knight]

Well, I think you should consult Hairy Kel/Bob on this subject, Dan, as he is the resident expert here on that subject, although Ziffy might have some of "teh gay" in him as well.

And I think you should beat the hell out of Andrew Sullivan, not because he is gay, but because he is an asshole. And he called you out. Redneck honor and all that.

And STFU all you librul's. Before you even say anything.

[old trooper]

Honestly Dan, you have been called worse by better folks than him.

Let it roll off your back like water off a duck`s ass.

[seekeronos]

"Apparently Crain, as Sullivan has become, is a one trick pony unable to view the world through anything but their special prism, commonly called being Gay, because they have embraced a fundamental tenet of liberalism ... our groups so special, look at us! In that sense, those individuals really care only about themselves."

To be fair, there are a certain number of idiots claiming to be "Christian" (such as the cult of Fred Phelps from Topeka, KS, or the Ruckmanites, or "The First Church of Jesus Christ, White Supremacist"... but these are so far removed from the Bible or from the mainstream of what is truly pleasing faith in God's sight. I couldn't put accurate numbers on it, but I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that those idiots account but for 0.000002% of "confessing" Christians.

The majority of Christians will in fact, properly and correctly refer to these impostors and rabscallions as "false christians", "deceivers", and "cults".

Compare that to the seemingly large "minority of Muslims" who endorse terrorism as a valid expression of their faith (Jihad), as well as the "missing majority" that seems unable to stand up to the Wahabbists, Salafists and other crazed lunatics (moon god worshippers) who preach violent Jihad.

But to get on topic with teh "gay":

The Gays do really get truly bent out of shape when the subject of God's judgment against Sodom & Gomorrah come up.

But the thing is, the "sodomy" and other sex crimes those folks may have had going on is really a sympton of an extremely advanced cultural disease.

That disease is (for lack of a better and equally concise word) SELFISHNESS.

Call it cultural narcissim (sp) if you wish, but America has largely fallen - culturally - into the same morass of immorality and love of self, love of careless ease, and a certain sense of haughtiness which God clearly warns us against:

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48 As I live, saith the Lord GOD, Sodom thy sister hath not done, she nor her daughters, as thou hast done, thou and thy daughters.

49 Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.

50 And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good. (Ezekiel 16:48-50, KJV)
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Here the sin is not so much any one particular symptom (such as homosexuality) but the entire collective pattern and tendency towards careless sin, a complete abandonment of any thought for others, but a picture of a civilisation that had long been lost in the grip of "everyone for himself".

Note that the passage I used here refers not only to the distant past of Sodom's punishment - literally "taken away" by fire from heaven... and contrasts that with the falling Kingdom of Judah.

The book of Ezekiel has largely to do with the Southern Israelite Kingdom of Judah and its apostasy or rejection of God. Judah itself had, in the figure of the passage above, whored herself out on a national level to every form of pleasure and self-serving folly, to the neglect of the poor and needy of the land.

Ezekiel is sent by God to warn Judah and her people of God's rising, righteous anger at what His people were doing, and to warn them to repent. If you ever have a chance to read through the end of the book, you'll find that Judah too, refuses to repent, and is taken away into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar.

Given that God is fairly consistent in His dealings with nations, I'd say that it is safe to say that a similar downward progression and an eventual judgment will fall upon our nation as well.

And I'm not talking "help the poor and needy" by way of socialistic, statist welfare programs.

No, I mean something much closer to home: giving up one's time to help others on a face-to-face level. Being neighborly. Using good manners, being slow to anger, all those nice things one would hope mom & dad might have taught, or perhaps their parents should have taught them.

And, call it basic maturity or not, I'd say "getting saved" (i.e. becoming a truly born-again, Bible-believing Christian) definitely will change one's outlook on things.

To paraphrase what Dan said. you won't see to see a pack of young Christian seminary students walking about at 2AM in the morning looking to bludgeon people to death for the fun of it.

But you might find a few of us out late sharing the word of God with some folks in a shelter, or retirement home, or prison.

Tread carefully there, because the Word of God is much more powerful than the weak and broken vessels that carry and use it.

[Leatherneck]

Soon, some Demorat will write seekeronos is full of hate speech.

[Purple Avenger]

Heh, Ace rates being accused of being a Caesarist, what are you going wrong?

[Phoenix]

Wow. Extremely well done, Dan.

And I don't mean in 'telling off' Crybaby Crain. Forget him. You just did one hell of a job of catharsis for all this victim sickness that metatisized into our 'civil' culture.

Ace is a 'Ceasarist'? Bummer. Was he from his mother's womb untimely ripped?

I'm a Personist. No religion. No label. I just know right from wrong, mind my own business, and do good whenever I can.

[K]

That is pretty much what passes for logic these days.

Two gays get beat up in Amsterdam by young thugs - at least nominally Muslim - and thus we are to critize conservative Christians in the US for their beliefs.

In Amsterdam there are tough laws against what happened. In the US there are tough laws against what didn't happen but we need tougher ones because ........

The real problem might be that police weren't around in Amsterdam.

[Citizen Crain]

In between high-fiving Dandy Dan for standing up to the sissy, those of you interested in what I actually wrote can find my response here:
http://citizenchris.typepad.com/citizenchris/2007/05/dandy_dans_diat.html

[Dan Riehl]

They don't need the link, Crain, it's linked at top now. And I have no idea where this "sissy" crap you are pushing comes from.

[dan]

i ended up over here after reading chris's blog, and wanted to read the actual post from riehl. damn, this is such a hot area, and in the interest of full disclosure, i will say that i am both gay, and in opposition of hate crime laws. the words "hate crime" are so terrifyingly orwellian i get a chill even reading them, and frankly i don't want to live in a world where any laws are based on thoughts. murder is a crime. assault is a crime. have some people been given light sentences even though their sentences should have been harsher, because either juries or judges or both sympathized with their leanings? yes. it sucks. its horrible. and its one of the risks of living in a free society. everyone is guaranteed access to justice, but not justice itself, which is an unpleasant reality but worth it in the long run of not having our thoughts policed and punished.
i would also like to speak to the christians who are posting here, that yes, i believe in god, and i believe in a god that knows his own mind and doesn't feel the need to explain himself to us down here. you don't know the mind of god. you don't know the word of god. you know the mind of man and the word of man, who has taken it upon himself to say he knows the mind of god. that is the bible. that is the koran. that is the torah. man's attempt to speak for god. i'm not saying there aren't great truths in these books, but they are not the word of god. to the best of my knowledge god has never written a book, and i don't think thats a mistake. for my own purposes i think the ten commandments represent a pretty good handbook for living, and i try my best to abide by them. christians have spent a lot of time and effort fighting to have these important words displayed on public buildings. try reading them, too.
chris's assault was horrific. it had nothing to do with hate crime laws, or god. it had to do with stupidity, and violence. i don't care who does it, muslim, christian, jew, hindu...and they've all done it, lots of it. lots of killing in the name of god. no particular sect has a corner on stupidity. but to say that all people of faith (whatever faith) are responsible is the same stupidity as saying that anyone knows the mind of god. man's manipulation of faith to justify horror is astounding and ongoing. but thats what it is.