Confronting Ignorance

It strikes me that if organizations like Lifesite News want to achieve actual credibility, they might start by not linking to the incredibly stupid work published over at Wingnut Daily.

Entitled "Where are all the homosexuals?", the article postulates that since a number of GLBT-themed movies in recent years only garnered modest fractions of the box office receipts, that somehow the number of people affected by the GLBT rights movement is too small to warrant consideration in law.

The problems with this kind of reasoning are myriad - starting with the attempt to connect two unrelated topics together - civil rights and movie box office receipts and running into the classic problem of minority rights in the face of an overwhelming majority.

The first problem is simple - the claim implied is that because few people go to movies with GLBT themes, there just aren't enough GLBT people out there to matter. First of all, that makes a pretty broad statement about the assumed interests of GLBT people. Not all GLBT people want to watch movies that are portrayals of their community or world. Often, the movies themselves rely on horrible stereotypes or other factors that do not reflect the reality that many GLBT people live. The second point is that nobody's civil rights - especially to live a peaceful existence - are EVER subject to how much they spend at the movie box office.

In fact, along with articles about human rights issues such as Organization of American States Approves Homosexual "Human Rights" Resolution" and Interview with a Persecuted Christian Pastor, it's hard to imagine just how deeply ignorant these people really are about those that they share the world with.

Consider the following from the first article:

"Gender identity" refers to the gender an individual claims to have, rather than his actual gender. Homosexual activists urge that such people be given "rights" allowing them to identify with whatever gender they wish.

Consider the use of the quotation marks around the terms 'rights' and 'Gender Identity' - these are nothing more than a sneering attempt to dismiss as invalid the experiences of real people. The rights in question in such situations are nothing more than explicitly recognizing that firing someone from their job, or denying them service simply because they are cross-gender people, is wrong. Not just a little bit wrong - a lot wrong.

"The Lula administration is showing a solid determination to promote the homosexual agenda in a world scale," said Severo. "Its first attempt to introduce it in the UN was frustrated by a strong Muslim opposition. Yet, it did not give up. It is directing now its efforts through the Organization of the American States without the same strong opposition. Muslims have shown more courage than Christians."

Considering how often I hear how western soldiers in Afghanistan or Iraq are "protecting women's rights" and so on, this statement reeks of hypocrisy and stupidity. The statement that "Muslims have shown more courage" is simply dead wrong. Muslims have shown us that politically they have yet to accept the reality that GLBT people exist, are very much a part of society and basically harmless. You can't on one hand criticize Islam for its treatment of women and children and then turn around and praise it for its hostility towards GLBT people. They are two faces of the same coin.

Discrimination against minority populations like GLBT people is the tactic of the bully. Groups that represent less than 10% of the gross population are simply too small to have any significant clout - which makes them easily demonized. Similarly, in society contexts where the sheer physical strength of men is highly valued, the smaller stature and physical strength of women tends to equate to second class status. It is only when you accept both genders as legal and social equals that the GLBT minority becomes understandable.

Which brings me around to the interview with Alberta's own high profile anti-gay letter writer - Stephen Boissoin.

The problem, says Boissoin, is that he has never felt any hate towards homosexuals. While Boissoin admits that he used impassioned and strong language in his letter to the editor on homosexuality, published in the Red Deer Advocate, language that some may have been offended by, he says his intention in doing so was simply to shake people of good will into recognizing that the radical homosexualist agenda has made significant inroads into Canadian law, and schools in particular.

"I certainly don't feel any anger or bitterness towards anyone who's homosexual," says Boissoin.

No, Stephen, I'm sure you don't have any anger at all. After all, your letter only equated GLBT people with drug dealers, pimps and pedophiles. No anger there at all.

"I did not have what I believe is an equal opportunity to not only speak what my context and the interpretation of my letter was - after all I'm the one who wrote it, I should be able to interpret it. What I felt at the Tribunal hearing, and in the public, there's been a lot of this, where people have had the - like the Darren Lunds - liberty of interpreting the letter for me."

You know - I'm really getting sick of the "I was quoted out of context" line coming from these people. The letter in all its objectionable glory is here - not much to take out of context there. It's short and to the point - and entirely based on an utterly ignorant understanding of GLBT people.

Why does this kind of ignorance deserve to be publicly confronted? Because if it is not, we give leave to others to use those same attitudes to engage in physical violence against others - for no better reason than fear that will inevitably sprout from the fertile grounds that suppression and denial will create.

I am not saying that religion has no place in the public square, far from it, rather that the exercise of religious freedom in the public square must also respect the legitimate rights of others, regardless of how any religion views those "others".