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The whole basis of their bigotry is their belief in the Bible, Christianity.
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I think there's more to their bigotry than their belief in the Bible. They're afraid of us. They fear us because they don't see us as
we see ourselves. They see AIDS, pedophile priests, sexual fetishes displayed in public, drugs, STDs, and sex changes. They don't want their kids involved in this bizarre, "sinful", self-destructive behavior.
Their fear of these things overwhelms them and they don't see the well-adjusted, stable gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender people and their famlies who simply want to have the freedom to live their lives without fear of violence or discrimination.
Our opponents see that some gay men have promiscuous, unsafe sex and believe that homosexuality is a dangerous and unhealthy lifestyle. They call homosexuality a "deathstyle". But it's not our sexual orientation that's unhealthy and dangerous; it's the behavior of unsafe sex with multiple partners.
If our opponents were to say, "We believe that
unsafe sex with multiple partners is unhealthy and dangerous," then they'd be right. Gay Health organizations have been saying this for years.
There are lots of things in our society that are unsafe. Among them are cigarette smoking, drugs, unhealthy diets, drinking and driving, guns around children, family violence, unsafe working conditions, toxic chemicals, and so on.
But our opponents don't seem to notice those. Instead, they attack us as a people. They say that gay, lesbian, bisexual, and trangender people live an unhealthy lifestyle and therefore are not worthy of equality.
They also believe that since some pedophile priests molested boys that this proves that homosexuals are not to be trusted around children. But again it's not homosexuality that's the problem. Nor is it priests. It's pedophilia. It's adult men who take sexual advantage of children. Of course there's a reason to be concerned. Parents rightfully want to protect their children. But, if they were to say, "We believe pedophile sexual predators are dangerous and our children need protection," they'd be right and they'd have the LGBT commnuity behind them. Afterall, many gay families have these same concerns.
But that's not what many of our opponents are saying. They're saying that homosexuality and pedophilia are the same thing which is false. They believe that all gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people are potential pedophiles and see this as another reason to deny us equality.
Their beliefs are not based on reality because they can't see reality. They are afraid of us because they don't see us as we really are. That's because most of us are still in the closet. We hide from them. They don't see that we're responsible, well-adjusted, productive members of society with many of the same morals and values that many Americans have.
What they do see is a small percentage of the population ( they say 1% ) who are homosexuals and that among this 1% is what they believe is a large group of very strange and dangerous people. They fear us so they pick and choose Bible scripture to justify their homophobia.
It's all about fear. This is why coming out of the closet is so important to our equality and our survival as a community. They need to see us. All of us. They need to see us as we see ourselves.
If twenty million LGBT people came out to one straight person a year for ten years imagine the impact that would have.
As Harvey Milk once put it, ".....every myth, every lie, every innuendo would be destroyed once and for all. And once you come out you will feel so much better."
Rick