Now that the House has approved a bill that includes crimes against homosexuals, bisexuals and transgender individuals in federal hate crimes statutes, pro-family groups are attempting to prevent a similar measure from passing the Senate. Representatives from groups like the Southern Baptist Convention, Concerned Women for America, Vision America, and Jews Against Anti-Christian Defamation held a press conference in Washington, DC, to voice their displeasure with what they view as an attack on Christian expression.
"Christian expression" includes assaulting and murdering gay people? What was that verse, again, ah, it's right here somewhere... oh yes. Jesus wept.
The first spectre always trotted out so eagerly is the gay bogeyman who hits on innocent straight guys who are just trying to watch the football game.
Janet Folger of the ministry Faith 2 Action says the hate crimes bill passed by the House is aimed at pastors or anyone else who has the "audacity" to disagree with the homosexual agenda. "Mike is standing at a football bar, or he's standing at a restaurant, watching a game," she posits; "Bruce comes out of the restroom, and he's touching up his makeup. He's a cross-dresser with red-nail polish and a five o'clock shadow. He comes out and hits on Mike. Maybe he puts his arm around him or maybe he brushes or puts his hand through his hair."
The average man would "maybe want to push off such unwelcome advances," Folger observes. However, she warns, "That, if you touch him, is a hate crime."
Again, always, and forever, the fact that this argument continues to be made and eagerly lapped up by the fundie masses speaks volumes more about these people's conceptions of heterosexuality--specifically, about straight male sexuality--than about gay sexuality or hate crimes. If straight men are not allowed to beat gay men to a pulp, the reasoning goes, then gay men will start behaving toward straight men like straight men do toward women. That is, with a sense of entitlement to the straight man as a commodity that exists solely to arouse and fulfill the gay man's pleasure, and the straight man will have no recourse but to stand there and take it just like a woman should.
If any other formulation of male-female dynamics existed in Janet Folger's mind, it might occur to her that uninvited physical contact is inappropriate for anyone to initiate, even if the anyone is male, and that anyone who is the subject of the unwanted bad touch is allowed to rebuff it (although "rebuffing" someone's hand brushing through your hair generally doesn't extend to "bash face in with barstool"). Even when the toucher is male. Her message and mindset are clear. If a woman has the misfortune to be attractive to a man (and especially if she deliberately makes herself attractive), the man can't help but hit on her, and she's gotta take it. If a gay man sees a straight man, he is both automatically attracted to him and powerless to resist the impulse to hit on him. What's worse, the straight man is automatically feminized by being the object of male attraction, and now the government is trying to complete that emasculation by preventing him from killing his would-be suitor--which, of course, is the only possible straight male response to the power-sapping experience of being hit on by a man, regardless of whether it involved physical contact, a verbal proposition, or simply the perception that the gay guy was eyeing him funny.
It's telling that the gay panic defense and the Christians desperate to preserve it invariably focus on the mythical gay male transvestite trying to grab a straight guy's nuts. I have yet to see any handwringing over the drag kings and PE teachers who will come out of the woodwork looking to grope the straight gals or at least rotate their tires should anti-gay hate crimes be officially frowned upon.
Beyond that, of course, the thing that annoys me to no end about this crap is its deliberate dishonesty about the nature of the hate crimes statutes--you'll be fined up if you say homosexuality is wrong, you'll be locked up if you push a guy away who's running his hands through your hair (is that really how gay men say hello to strangers? I hadn't noticed). None of the statutes can be construed as banning people from reasonably defending themselves against unwanted physical intrusions, and none of the proscribed behaviors come anywhere close to First Amendment territory. You're free to spend your days preaching about Leviticus and making straw Bruce after straw Bruce dressed up however you want. However, beating the crap out of a guy, shooting him several times, and dumping his body in a field because he asked if you wanted a blow job is not okay. Understand that distinction? I think Jesus might have.
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