Great Giddy Gays!
Chris Zasada May 31, 2006

The country has been brooding over the issue of same-sex marriage and homosexuality for the last couple of years. Just when it seemed like men and women could marry within their own gender, a group of politicians immediately stomped out that flame before it caused a fire of gay freedom. Now, scads of people of power are protesting homosexuality in the institution of marriage, making it their life mission to prevent consenting adults from doing something that’s as harmless as cotton candy.

It’s odd that these politicians are fussing over sexual orientation issues when there’s a war going on that has claimed the lives of over 2,300 US soldiers and wounded over 17,000. How about the fact that the economy is actively failing, causing untold numbers of people their jobs? What about the vast array of corporations outsourcing American jobs to other countries, putting people out of work and delivering another stabbing blow to our economy for the sake of saving a couple of bucks? Why are we focusing on homosexuality when all of these more pressing matters are threatening to blow this country apart?

Because God said so.

It has become apparent, despite what Christians and non-Christians alike say otherwise, that good ol’ Christian values are still the order of the day in this country. Despite the sexual liberation of the last forty years, Americans still have a bi-polar reaction to sex: great interest, but not without a little shame. We still attend church in droves, if just for the intention of looking like a good person. We still emphasize the Christian church in many areas of society; when’s the last time you saw a Mecca room or a Buddhist shrine in a hospital? It’s always a Christian prayer room. We have “In God We Trust” built into our money.

And we protest homosexuality, because the Bible says it’s bad. Most Christians probably have no idea where it says this, since they don’t actually read the Bible, but they know it’s in there, because someone told them so. I’m sure many of the anti-gay politicians have probably never read through the Good Book, for doing so would put them in danger of reading that stuff about lying, stealing, and pride being bad. Who cares? Homosexuality is bad, so we must forbid it! Or at least discriminate against it.

Besides the Bible forbidding it, I don’t see a problem with same-sex marriage. These couples aren’t hurting anyone, and by marrying, they’re reducing the potential spread of disease (this isn’t gay bashing by saying all homosexuals have AIDS. If everyone, heteros included, would settle down with someone, or at least take better precautions, STDs wouldn’t be as big of a problem), increase the chances of parentless children to be adopted (yes, same-sex couples should be allowed to adopt. They’re the best ones for it, since they can’t have their own children, and this could solve a lot of problems. More on that later), and the IRS would have fewer forms to worry about. But because the Bible says this is wrong, it must be!

Frankly, I’m convinced that the Bible is nothing more than a collection of archaic laws strung together by early Hebrews to control people (much like how the Catholic Church made up a bunch of stuff to control people, according to Chick). Perhaps God himself did come down and give some guys his orders, and those guys decided “Hey, if God doesn’t want married couples cheating on their spouses, that MUST mean no sex outside of marriage! Or sex with the same gender! Or sex with your mother! Or sex with goats!” Then Jesus came down and supposedly said that even looking at someone with lust was adultery. So it seems to be a perfect Christian, you have to gouge your eyes out and huddle in a corner, rocking back and forward, praying for forgiveness every time an image of a person that you might lust after comes into your head.

Interesting, some moderate Christians believe that all of those laws in the beginning of the Bible only apply to Jews. This makes sense, since the Bible forbids wearing clothes made from ore than one fiber (Leviticus 19:19, check your shirt label, you sinner), eating pigs, ostrich, rabbits, fish without scales (cat fish), and about three dozen other things (Deuteronomy 14:7), and building altars to God that aren’t all natural, uncut materials (Exodus 20:25), but doesn’t discourage slavery (Exodus 20:1) and polygamy (Exodus 21:10). It’s perhaps in the best interests of Christians to abandon any hope of following the Old Testament and just listen to Jesus, or believe they do.

It’s not relevant, however, where the Bible comes from or whether or not its all practical, because people today believe it to be divine word, based on nothing more than ambiguous faith, and that right there is an indication that logic and compromise aren't going to work. Even if you grab a Fundamentalist Christian who has actually read the Bible and try to argue with them, it’ll all go back to the same basic point: because God said so. It would probably sound like this:

Me: Why is gay marriage wrong?

Psycho Christian: Because God FORBIDS homosexuality!

Me: The Bible says a lot of stuff that you’re ignoring right now. You’ve condemned polygamy (Exodus 21:10) and slavery (Exodus 21:1), yet God says it’s okay. God forbids eating pigs (Deuteronomy 14:8), but a lot of Christians eat pork. Hey! Isn’t that a ham sandwich?

Psycho Christian: (stops chewing and stares blankly) No! (spits out pig particles)

Me: My point exactly. Even “true” Christians violate God’s laws all the time. To them, that’s what salvation is for. So why should homosexuality be treated any differently?

Psycho Christian: Because homosexuals will keep sinning unless they stop being homosexual!

Me: So are you going to stop eating ham? Or are you planning on collapsing on your knees and begging for forgiveness every time you eat a sandwich?

Psycho Christian: (brooding in anger) That is TOTALLY different!

Me: How? You’re violating God’s words, just the same. But what if these laws were made up by early Jews because they wanted to control the people? What if these laws are simply obsolete?

Psycho Christian: So you’re saying ALL of God’s laws are obsolete?! What about stealing and murdering?! That must be fine if homosexuality is!

Me: Please! Those actions bring down society and create chaos, whereas homosexuality would hurt no one as long no one causes problems because they hate it! Should we ban Christianity because it causes problems?

Psycho Christian: AH HA! Homosexual doesn’t bring down society?! What about reproduction? Homosexuals can’t reproduce, so they’re DAMAGING to society! If everyone was gay, the population would die out!

Me: Hello! This isn’t 1342 BC! God wanted us to be fruitful and multiply, and we did a good job! Now we’re choking the Earth of all its resources, and the Christians want MORE people in this world! If a same-sex couple wanted to have a child, they could adopt one, which would help deal with the over-population of parentless children. Whereas you Christians are pushing people to mate like rabbits, causing even more over-population! And what about heterosexual couples that can’t have children or don’t want children? According to your logic, they’re an abomination before God, too!

Psycho Christian: That’s NOT what God said!

Me: But it’s clearly implied if you draw the logical conclusions together, unless you’re saying God has no reason to hate homosexuality outside of it being a preference, much like the pig example.

Psycho Christian: So you’re saying we should abandon ALL of God’s laws?!

Me: No, of course not! Some of them are really good, or at least good intentioned. Not killing and stealing is the best ones, but curbing your jealousy, respecting your elders, and loving your neighbors are all great rules to live by. But really, have you kept God’s laws? When’s the last time you killed a witch (Exodus 20:18) or an adulterer (Leviticus 20:10)? That’s what God instructs, but you aren’t doing any of these things.

Psycho Christian: (horrified) But that’s illegal!

Me: So? Abortion is legal, adultery is legal, and homosexuality is legal, yet you’re bitching about how God hates those things. If you really were following the entire Bible, you would trust God and not the laws of the land, despite the consequences. Guess what? Even Jesus himself violated these laws when he saved an adulterer from being stoned to death! In Christianity, when Jesus appeared, the rules changed, so it makes sense that homosexuality would be regarded as the same way. We can hardly trust what the Old Testament says, and that’s only if everyone follows the Bible, which they don’t

Psycho Christian: But…! (grunting)

Me: Face it, the Bible is a fine book, but we simply don’t live by those rules anymore. And what should it matter? You accepted Jesus, so as far as you’re concerned, you have nothing to worry about. So why bother preaching anything else and pissing everyone off? Better yet, why can’t you respect the fact that other people have beliefs other than your own? If you go to Heaven and they don't, that’s not your problem.

Psycho Christian: (boiling with rage) YOU’RE GOING TO HELL, YOU EVIL HEATHEN SINNER!!!

I could go on, but that’s enough for now.

So most Christians grow up with at least a vague sense that homosexuality is wrong. If we stack the issue up against the Bible, it’s really hard to argue it. Even though self-righteous Christians are disobeying God (I hazard to say that all Christians are currently swimming upstream against God’s rules), that doesn’t justify those who do it deliberately. Basically, no one is perfect, but they should try to be.

Let’s pluck the Bible out of the argument, since what we’re dealing with should be a secular issue, not a religious one (this isn’t true, of course, but I’m making an attempt to address it as it should be). A lot of people find homosexuality to be “unnatural,” since sex, by definition, is a reproductive function. Same-sex couplings do not produce offspring (it can spread disease, but reproducing other organisms doesn’t count), therefore, it MUST be unnatural.

Not so fast. We can pretty much agree that animals and their activities can help us gauge what is natural. Since most animals are incapable of cognitive thought; they run mostly on instinct, so they’d be hard-pressed to learn, in a natural environment, “unnatural” ways like homosexuality. Well guess what? There are many occurrences of gay animals.

You may have heard about this. The observations of homosexual activity among animals (this doesn’t just mean sex, but also courting and parenting, among others) has thrown a wrench into the argument that it’s unnatural. In fact, Wikipedia lists just over 450 different mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and various invertebrates that display such tendencies. Obviously, if these animals are purely homosexual, they can’t spread their genes, but that’s the only price of homosexual behavior. That, and maybe a higher frequency of gas cramps.

This pretty much shoots down the argument that homosexuality is unnatural, and puts a dent in the idea that it’s a learned trait. Christians will point out that it’s the influence of Satan. I would point out that it could simply be a slight mutation in the body (not to imply that’s a bad thing, mind you) causes a desire for the same sex, just like a slight mutation in the body makes us desire pickles over ice cream, or whatever. Or maybe our souls are just like that.

The very same pundits who argue that homosexuality is unnatural, now defeated, are probably now saying that we’re different from animals, and are again reaching for their Bibles to prove this. Need I remind you that the Bible is forbidden for this part of the article? Now they’re pointing at statistics that suggest that homosexuals inflict more domestic violence on each other than heterosexuals. I dug up this PDF from a website run by the Tradition Values Coalition, a conservative Christian organization that has a few liberal-sounding ideas, but don’t let this fool you. They’re definitely anti-gay, and have several volumes of information about how the gays want to take over America. Gee, I don’t suppose they simply want equal rights and fair treatment? Naw.

Anyway, this document proves that homosexuals cause more domestic violence than heterosexual couples. Percentage-wise, this is true; by taking 19 different studies and slapping them together, they concluded that domestic violence breaks down into the following: 28% in heterosexual couples, 48% in lesbian (female) couples, and 38% in male couples. Wait, hold on… that’s a 114% sampling! Holy shit, there ARE a lot of bad homos! They even defy mathematical rules!

Unfortunately for the TVC, besides some impressive-sounding percentages, this blurb doesn’t tell us a whole lot. Where was this study done? In California? Texas? Europe? China? New Guinea? How was the sampling done? Did they choose an X number of heterosexual and homosexual couples, or did they dip into the entire population? Considering that the estimated homosexual population in this country is anywhere from 1% to 10% (according to studies found on Wikipedia), 1,000 homosexual domestic incidences are going to rank up the percentages a lot higher than 1,000 heterosexual incidences. This study, as presented, is meaningless.

This document does give some solid numbers on a sweeping, cross-country comparison of domestic homosexual violence verses official hate crimes, with domestic violence occurring over twice as often as hate crimes. Actually, I don’t see a point to this study. It only proves that homosexuals face hate crimes in addition to the domestic problems heterosexuals face.

Oddly, this report mentions specific cities throughout, except it lumps in Colorado as one entity, and mentions two Ohio cities (Columbus and Cleveland). Interestingly, this report doesn’t investigate more conservative areas of the country, like any of the southern states, which would have probably yielded more hate crimes.

And I noticed they picked some pretty liberal cities, which could tip the scales. I can’t imagine anything-goes San Francisco, with its high gay population, being a bed for seeds of hate crimes. I would find it more likely that the gay bashers would leave the city or be arrested before they could commit multiple hate crimes. A lower hate monger population would mean (statistically) fewer hate crimes, while a higher homosexual population would lead to the potential for more domestic disturbances (just like heterosexual couples, mind). Note this report doesn’t use percentages.

That’s where another flaw in this report lies. A hate crime is usually carried out in some kind of public place, where members of the public and law enforcement are known to be. This contrasts with the home setting, where the general public and police don’t usually hang out, unless it’s a particularly friendly home. Ergo, if someone commits a hate crime in public, someone who isn’t personally involved is more likely to notice and report it to police, and the offender will likely be arrested and locked away, unable to commit the crime again (at least in time to be mentioned in the same report).

Domestic violence, however, is much easier to cover up. Now this might seem to weaken my argument, as I’m suggesting that there are a lot more incidences that have gone unreported. This is probably true, but consider that the report never says domestic batterers were arrested or the case was followed up, only that it was reported. This means that the same unbalanced individuals could be beating up their partners on multiple occasions, thus racking up the score. And it’s hard to prove it ever happened if the report was made long after the fact.

And the Traditional Values Coalition document fails to address the nature of hate crime verses domestic violence, which is very much apples to oranges. Let’s look at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s highlights of domestic violence for 2004. According to the report, nationally, an estimated 143,900 African Americans (78,000 women and 65,900 men) were victims of some kind of domestic violence. Since statistics on black homosexual males are likely unreliable, let’s take the conservatives’ route and claim that 10% (the high end of the estimated gay population) of these domestic violence incidences are committed by homosexuals. We’ll remove that number from the total and bring it down to 129,510 estimated domestic assaults among heterosexual African Americans (this is some crude armchair math, I admit, but let’s go with it). I want to remove homosexuals from this figure so we can focus on heterosexuals, who are supposed to be less violent. I’m using blacks as an example because they’re the last group that the country had it out against.

Let’s compare this to the FBI’s 2004 report of hate crime in 2004 (note this is only a sampling of reports submitted from participating agencies. Read the full report for more information) committed against blacks. Hmm, that’s 3,281 hate crimes versus the 129,510 heterosexual domestic disturbances against blacks. Why, that’s 39 times as many domestic violence incidences than hate crimes against blacks, compared with the homosexual domestic violence/hate crime figure of 2 times more domestic and hate violence! Those damn blacks are even more violent to each other than homos! Their pairing MUST be an abomination!

Yeah, yeah, there may be some irrelevant figures, but look at the massive gap in the numbers. Either I’ve proven that blacks are naturally more violent than homosexuals (don’t get any ideas, NSM), or hate crimes simply don’t occur as much as domestic violence. In fact, I find it more disturbing that the NCAVP’s figures are so high, considering the limited research area. This kind of proves that gays really are in more danger of hate crimes, by portion, than African Americans.

TVC also throws out a number of their own that states that in 1998, 16,914 murders were committed, only 4 of which were anti-homosexual. It doesn’t say how big of area they were researching, nor does it mention anything about domestic violence. They sort of tossed that number out to sound menacing.

But for the moment, let’s hop into our inter-dimensional traveling machine and head to the alternate universe where the TVC report is meaningful. Let’s say that there really is a domestic violence crisis among homosexuals. Can you blame them? When you’ve been told that you are an abomination against God himself, you start to believe it and lash out at the gayest element on hand, which is your homosexual lover. Maybe if these religious bigots would cram themselves in their churches and hate homosexuals quietly and leave everyone else alone, these numbers would be dramatically different. If they were a problem at all, that is.

Clearly, I’m not going to delude any of you into thinking these people are going to change their beliefs and play nice. It’s their prerogative, as long as no one has to look at them do it. Kind of like sex.

And in case you’re wondering, there were a total of 1,287,600 white men and women who were victims of domestic violence, compared with the 998 who had hate crimes committed against them. I guess that means us crackers are less capable of living with each other than any other group in the world. Either that or the TVC is full of crap.

The issue of same-sex couples adopting children is also a hot button issue. Religious zealots and conservatives will be quick to point out that children raised in these conditions will have their minds forever scarred and they will not grow up properly. If these groups were the least bit honest, they would put in brackets after that which would read [by “properly,” we mean “believing in everything we believe, even if it’s sometimes completely insane”]. Actually, there hasn’t been a single respectable study that shows children growing up in a gay household are deprived of anything, much less the choice to be heterosexual.

In fact, many adoption agencies, including A Child is Waiting, support same-sex couples adopting. I trust they would be the ones who know what’s going on with the welfare of children. Unless they’re liberal scum, of course.

And who cares if they are conditioned to be homosexual? Isn’t absolving the negative connotations of homosexually the point of this article, nah, the point of the liberal movement? I would think they would be better adoptive parents, since they would likely be more appreciative of the children, since they can’t have their own. Plus, society (not a bigoted one, anyway) would be more accepting of this arrangement than with a comparable heterosexual one. Adoption, it seems, carries a certain negative implication for heterosexual couples, especially if they can have their own children, but choose instead to adopt someone else’s (despite how much nobler this sounds). Couples who can’t have children are considered failures, and couples who don’t want any at all are considered selfish. These are the effects of Christian values, and I hope we can reconcile them soon, since it all seems so petty and foolish.

Hmm, so homosexuality isn’t unnatural, and homosexuals aren’t statistically more violent to each other than anyone else. And they can take care of parentless children just as well, too. Whatever could be wrong with the idea of letting homosexuals be?

I’m going to draw a comparison to African Americans, since it only stopped being fashionable to hate them forty years ago. About three hundred years ago, “Christians" were kidnapping Africans (a sin punishable by death, check Exodus 21:16) from their homeland and dragging them over to a foreign country (that they took from the people living here already) and made slaves out of them, mostly because they felt that since they were Christians, they were better than everyone else. The nation applied similar stereotypes and repulsion to blacks for over a two centuries, and it’s only been since the civil rights movements that it gradually became unacceptable to hate black people.

Today, only a few groups hate blacks, including the National Socialist Movement (not officially, mind you, but they are separatists), the Ku Klux Klan (duh), and Pat Robertson (yes, he is racist). Otherwise, it’s unacceptable to hold prejudice against blacks, or any ethnic group or race (those of Middle Eastern descent aside, courtesy of September Eleventh, but we’re working on fixing that again). That leaves the choices of groups to hate a little barren, so the bigots decided to grab their Bibles and hate homosexuals because it’s still fashionable to do so.

Yes, I am comparing conservative, anti-homosexual religious followers to racists. What else could they be? They openly discriminate against a group of people based on the rules of their doctrine. I don’t want to make the Republican mistake of baselessly and offhandedly comparing them to Adolph Hitler; that would be taking the low and desperate road. I can’t help it if, however, if you, the reader, forever associate HITLER with CHRISTIANS.

I’m kidding. Sort of.

Yes, being a right-winged, anti-gay conservative is still considered a positive trait. I remember a commercial for a local politician (a BLACK politician) proclaiming that he would fight to keep the institution of marriage between a man and a woman. And I'm sure he’s not the only one. This is discrimination, you know. Homosexuals aren’t forcing you, or even asking you to be gay with them. They just want a fair shot at a happy life together and an opportunity to have all the rights of a married couple, so what business is it of the government that’s supposed to keep religious stakes out of policy? Why do politicians want an amendment to the Constitution that stamps out any possibility of same-sex marriage?

Fear, that’s what. Once again, we’ve fallen under an “us verses them” mentality. It’s not enough that we have a war going on, a war we can exercise this mentality on foreigners until it dies of overexertion, we have to exhaust ourselves on hating our own citizens, too. How can you interpret this any differently? Banning same-sex marriage is just one way to show spite towards the other side, the homosexuals that dare violate the Bible, or at least the parts that the politicians still follow.

The religious dogmatists are worried that if they don’t take a stand, everyone will suddenly become gay, and their way of life will be threatened. This isn’t about the Bible, really, though the seeds of ire were planted because of the Good Book. This is a cause they can rally against, one last shred of hope in the battle to restore “tradition, family values,” which are based on the parts of the Bible these conservatives care to agree with.

Many fundamentalist Abrahamic religions (Christians mostly. Surprise) worry that legalizing same-sex marriage would force them to perform these satanic weddings or face discrimination lawsuits up to wazoo. I’m not sure if any homosexuals would want to get married in a certain church in Topeka, but I don’t see how this is much different from not letting someone go to a church because of sexual orientation. Though it would be hilarious to watch a couple of hairy gay bikers demand that Fred Phelps marry them, or they’ll sue the church doors shut. I’d pay for their reception to see this.

Let’s disregard these religious and political fools for now to look at what the American people want. Interestingly, according to a variety of polls found at CNN, ABC, CBS, and Fox News, most Americans disapprove of same-sex marriages, but, oddly, not as many support an actual ban. In fact, more people support a “civil union,” which is basically marriage, but without associating it with heterosexual unions. So it seems a few of us can put aside our differences in the name of freedom and not force our beliefs down everyone’s throat. Too bad our politicians can’t do the same.

I don’t want to undermine God anymore than I might have already (it’s not my intention, since the poor guy has been undermined for millennia by his “followers”), but I think returning to these pseudo-Bible values is a step in the wrong direction. Many will sight that true peace is only through God. Believe it or not, I’m one of the first people who will admit that things were more secure and less complicated when everyone believed the same thing (or thought they did) and everyone was afraid of God. But just like anyone judging the “utopian” society of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World as being a terrible way to live despite the lack of tangible reasons, we have to wonder if a controlled, conservative society is the real way to go.

So how do we fix everything? Good question. We can’t make everyone happy (no kidding), but I have some suggestions to improve what we have. First, come election day 2008, we elect a Democrat for president. This will solve most of our problems right off the bat (if for no other reason than to distance ourselves from the Bush administration). Next, avoid electing fearful conservatives who want to force their wishy-washy religious beliefs on national policy. Finally, we remind everyone that if they don’t like the community they’re in, they’re free to move somewhere else, like Antarctica, where they can make an attempt to leave well enough alone (they won’t. Christians would spend their days condemning penguins to Hell, because if you actually looked up the list, you’d know that there are gay penguins).

In summation, we’ve established that outside of what the Bible has to say about the matter, homosexuality is both natural and not any more dangerous than heterosexuality, at least if you don’t factor in threats from bigots. Compare these non-existent downsides with the advantages of allowing same-sex marriage: curbing the spread of STDs, higher adoption rates, and less irritable IRS employees (the last one is a joke, so strike it from any arguments you have with others using this article as a source). Looks like it is okay to be gay!

Am I endorsing homosexuality? No, not really. Personally, those feelings of homophobia still linger around me, more because of my inexperience with homosexuals than anything else. Frankly, I don’t want to see two guys make out, just like I don’t want to see a guy and a pig (regardless of gender) doing the same. Obviously I have no qualms with two women making out, but that’s just because I’m a guy. A heterosexual guy. Wumenz iz purdy.

But seriously, I want my subconscious feeling for homosexuals to match my conscious feelings. I could use some improvement, as we all do.

But I refuse to condone the government telling people that they’re not allowed to share a scared union just because they happen to have the same set of genitals. This is a choice up to the individual, just like it’s their choice to work a certain job, eat a certain food, or follow a certain religion. Everyone is free to do what they want as long as they don’t intend to hurt others. Yeah, that’s Wicca in a nutshell, but since it’s just as valid as homosexuality, I expect that my readers will take this at face value.

So as far as I’m concerned, let there be gay. And let there be Christians who think it’s wrong, so long as they do so where they can’t bother anyone. Better yet, they should just shut up and be happy that Jesus has got their back. And homosexuals should let a spouse get their back too… okay, that came out wrong.

Love and peace.