Why Ray Boltz Matters...And James Dobson Does Not

Reading the various responses from so called “Christians” over the admission by Ray Boltz that he is gay is enough to make one sick. I expected the outcry to be swift and brutal and the Christianists do not disappoint. Actually, when it comes to their vile condemnation of gays, the Christianists never disappoint.

You know, it’s the usual dribble from people who are unable to think for themselves. Instead they regurgitate old arguments that can be, and have been, refuted time after time.

But when one chooses to “bury my head in the sand” as my mother proudly proclaims, then when revelations such as Boltz’ come out, instead of responding analytically, with reason and deliberate contemplation, Christianists simply become the dog of Pavlov, conditioned to spit out automated responses.

Actually, they are more like the dogs of Dobson, the seemingly perennial leader of the far right. Dobson, from his perch high atop the Colorado mountains, separates the venial sins from the mortal sins for his followers lest they be burdened with such a difficult task.

Yes, Dobson regularly says that everyone’s a sinner and all have fallen short…blah, blah, blah. But this is just another case where his actions are in conflict with his words. Actually his words are in conflict with his words. And no one, including Dobson’s most devout worshippers (Tom Minnery, say what?), can square Daddy D’s obsession with gay people with the totality of the Bible, no matter how hard they try.

Anyway, when something such as the Ray Boltz story breaks, it is religiously wired in the evangelical’s brain to start their symbolic salivating. Before you even read the comments, you know what they will say. And what they say speaks to their horizontal faith, not their God inspired convictions.

Often times they attempt to avoid the religious underpinnings of their bigotry by instead using the words of homosexuals against homosexuals. The most frequently used, and outrageously hilarious, is the book “After the Ball”. This book, by two homosexual marketers, is often cited by the Devout Dobson Do-Nothings as “evidence” that there is, in fact, a homosexual agenda. If you go to a “Love Won Out” conference (a conference aimed at gays who want to “pray away the gay” and those that love them) you will hear references to the book continuously.

In fact, if you were to only listen to Dobson’s Army of Mental Midgets (yep, I’ve settled on that one. The DAMMs from here on out), you would think “After the Ball” was a gay-manifesto that every homosexual had hidden under their mattress for quick reference in case they forget what the “agenda” is.

The book, written in 1989, is proof positive that the gays are using things such as AIDS to garner sympathy for the cause (because, you know, AIDS is an endearing sort of disease). At least that’s what the DAMMs and others such as Robert Knight would have you believe.

But the truth is I, and most of my fellow homos, would have never even heard of the book if it were not for the repetitious citations by the far-right. In fact, I have never even seen the book except once at Strand Bookstore, a used book bookstore, on sale for .75 cents.

That doesn’t stop Papa D from getting his vestments in a wad, though. He believes that the book is a “play-book” to elicit sympathy from the unsuspecting, pure as the driven snow, American public.

This, of course, is intellectually lazy and Dobson knows it. He just knows the DAMMs do not. Taking his continual citation of “After the Ball” to its logical conclusion would inevitably lead to his opponents citing any of the thousands of outlandish books written through the ages by so-called Christians calling for everything from ethnic cleansing to war.

But Dobson depends on the ignorance of his followers. He not only depends on it, he banks on it, literally. The lemmings that worship at the alter of the Dobson empire have made him not only an extremely powerful and dangerous man, but an extremely wealthy man as well.

Ray Boltz’ music has touched millions of people. He is still the same man he was ten years ago. The difference is now we all know. Nothing has changed about Ray Boltz the man. Nothing, except that he has shared with us a burden he has carried within for too long.

Instead of throwing out his music, or waxing poetic about loving the sinner and hating the sin, perhaps the Christianists could try something else. Perhaps they could try simply loving. Period. No conditions, no attachments, just pure, vertical, God-like love. Perhaps they could quit quantifying so called sins and start getting down to what the Bible really does, and does not, say about homosexuality. Perhaps they could tell Daddy Dobson to shut the hell up, tell him that he no longer gets to claim the banner of Christ because he has sullied that banner in the slop for too long. Perhaps there will be a leader, a shepherd boy if you will, that will rise up out of the dust bin of the religious right and call God’s people to a fuller understanding of all of his children. Perhaps those who got teary eyed every time they heard “Thank You” will whisper a prayer of thanks for Ray Boltz instead of praying for Ray Boltz. Perhaps, on the other side of tomorrow we will look back at this dark time in our nation's history and shake our heads in disbelief that someone as spiritually deficient as James Dobson could have even existed, much less influenced so many to hate.

Perhaps…but not likely.