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.
Showing posts with label pray away the gay. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pray away the gay. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
When others see a faggot boy, God may see King: Ray Boltz comes out of the closet and admits he's gay
UPDATE AT BOTTOM OF POST:
Ray Boltz, a contemporary christian musician who sold over 4.5 million albums, has come out of the closet.
“I’d denied it ever since I was a kid," Boltz, 55, told the Washington Blade. "I became a Christian, I thought that was the way to deal with this and I prayed hard and tried for 30-some years and then at the end, I was just going, ‘I’m still gay. I know I am.’ And I just got to the place where I couldn’t take it anymore … when I was going through all this darkness, I thought, ‘Just end this.’”
I am honestly crying while writing this. The courage it takes for anyone to come out is remarkable. But the brutality he will face from the Christianists for disclosing this will be close to unbearable. His songs will cease being played, he will be rejected at Churches and, as one commenter on Christianity Today put it:
That's their God for ya, Ray! Reject until you repent!
What can be said? We are known by the fruit we bear. So, being a great musician and exalting the Lord is not enough. Repentance is necessary. We read about a man who committed sexual sin in 1 Corinthians-the church was to reject him until he repented. Likewise, Ray should be ignored but welcomed back whenever he truly repents.
But I grew up listening to his music. "Watch the Lamb" and "Thank You" are songs that nearly every Evangelical Christian can recite.
I pray his courage allows others within his industry to come out as well. Lord knows there are more closeted gays in the conservative church than any where else!
Good on 'ya, Ray! Jesus is smiling even though some of those who claim his name are not.
Thank you, Ray, for living your truth. There are many lives that will be changed!
UPDATE: I should note that I was briefly a part of a children's christian singing group, Power Source, that was made famous for a time by a Ray Boltz song Dear Mr. Jesus
Monday, September 15, 2008
On Slaps and Seething Rage
This morning while I was writing a piece entitled “Facts are Not Privy to Opinion” my mother called. This is not unusual, as my mother and I talk at least five or six times a week. What was unusual was how the conversation ended. Actually it did not end. It digressed into a screaming match that culminated in me slamming the phone down (as much as you can slam down a cell phone with a Bluetooth ® ear piece).
Before I go on I should fully disclose something. The entire maternal side of my family are fundamentalists Christians. Most belong to the Southern Baptist Convention, a denomination of Christianity founded on the principle that slavery was not only tolerated, but also ordained, by God. This legacy of slavery has left an indelible stain on the convention that permeates its theology even today. And, sadly, many in my family still cling to the notion that African-Americans are inferior. The word “n*gger” is a word that still is used by many in my family (including my father who, incidentally, is gay but that is another post[s] for another time).
Many say that marijuana is a “gateway drug”. Well religious based racism is a gateway bigotry. Because while I do not doubt that my mom loves me, she does believe that the seven verses in the Bible that – and this is highly debatable – deal with homosexuality (out of the over 35,000 verses in the Bible which is .02%. Read that again. Point. Zero.Two percent) are clear in their condemnation of gays. As such, homosexuality is therefore not in accord with the will of God.
Growing up in such a toxic environment is dangerous for any child. But growing up while realizing I was gay along the way made it close to deadly. At the age of 21, after years of not being able to reconcile my upbringing with my sexuality, I attempted to take my own life.
I was living in a tony apartment in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington DC. I seemingly had my entire life, and the world, ahead of me. But one morning, facing such despair of which I could not overcome, I went to the medicine cabinet and began taking entire bottles of my roommate’s prescription medications. I chased the pills with 150 year old scotch.
When I came to, at the George Washington University Medical Center, I was surrounded by at least forty of my friends, my father and his partner and…no one else. I asked my dad if my mother knew. He said she did. For two days I sat in that hospital. As friends came and went, there was not one phone call from my mother’s side of the family. No flowers. No cards. Only deafening, undeniable silence.
This was not only odd, it was downright antithetical of my maternal family’s behavior towards the sick. They visit hospitals when someone has a hangnail removed. Granted, I was in Washington DC and they were in Texas. I did not expect them to visit. But I did expect to hear their voice.
Instead, I learned later, my mother (in Texas) sent over two men from a Washington “ex-gay” group. When my father discovered this he made sure they were not allowed in my hospital room. But the damage was done. It was clear that my mother’s answer to my shame of being gay was to send over two men who believed that one could “pray away the gay”. It is something that, to this day, is still the source of tremendous pain and heartache.
The suicide attempt was just three months after my mother found out I was gay. I write “found out” because I did not tell her. Instead, shortly after I moved to DC, my mother broke into my voicemail (keep in mind she lives in Texas) and listened to my messages. One of them was from a guy I was dating at the time. The language he used on the voicemail left no room for anyone that heard it to deny who this guy was in relation to me. Within a week my mother told me she knew. I told her I knew she knew.
My mother repeatedly claims that she does not lie. Never. She says it, you can believe it. That’s that. It has almost become a mantra of hers. In fact, she says it with such frequency and such ferocity that it is borderline clinical in its redundancy.
But on the phone with her the night I confirmed I was gay, I pleaded with her not to tell anyone. She promised me she would not.
She did.
I found out a year later that she had almost immediately told not only my aunt but my grandparents as well. My aunt was (and still is) the director of a pregnancy center that tries to talk women out of abortions and my grandparents (my grandfather, really) were, at one time, big time leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention.
She lied.
This was on the heels of her swearing that she would never file for divorce from my father (although, admittedly, she had every reason to). “Jon-Marc, I will never be the one that files. I promise you that”. Not two months later, she filed.
These were the two most agonizing things in my life – my shame of my sexuality and my parents’ divorce. And in the midst of those two things, my mother lied. She lied big. If I were to quantify the lies I have been told in my life those two would be at the top, hands down.
I write the backstory to put into context the conversation I had with my mother this morning.
She called and we basically talked about nothing. The weather. My grandmother. What my mother had for breakfast. My plans for the day. My weekend.
Then we started talking about Hurricane Ike. This is what went down as I remember it (although I do realize that there are two sides and, as Dr. Phil says, no matter how flat you make a pancake, it still has two sides):
Mother: You know, if it were not for Christians, the victims of the hurricane would not be getting any help, except from the government. The Red Cross, the Salvation Army, the Southern Baptist Men…
Me: Wait, do you really believe that there is no other charitable organization other than “Christian” organizations that are going to help the victims?
Mother: Um, well, yes. Pretty much. I believe that. Why does that make you mad?
I should note something. “Christian” has a very strict definition for fundamentalists such as my mother. Although they will all claim that anyone that believes in Jesus Christ, that he was killed and rose again three days later, is a Christian, their actions speak louder. That is why you will see Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America etc. put quotes around the word Christian when referring to a ministry like Soulforce, a gay Christian ministry.
I should also note that my mom is the assistant director at the pregnancy center where my aunt is the director. The center, incidentally, is a direct beneficiary of Focus on the Family. They receive sonogram machines, money and who knows what else from Daddy Dobson. Dobson has also contributed much to the misery of gay people.
Now back to the conversation. This is where it gets a bit fuzzy.
Basically it got to the point where she said something along the lines of “You slap me in the face with things you say you believe”.
Me: I don’t tell you anything I believe!
Mother: You do on your blog. And you know I read it! You slap me in the face with what you write on your blog! You are trying to hurt me with what you write! I'm hanging up now
(Not sure if she hung up or not)
Me: Slap you in the face? Are you kidding me? You want to talk about being slapped in the face? Try the time you sent two ‘ex-gays’ to my hospital room, try the time you blabbed about me being gay to gran and granddaddy and B (my aunt). Don’t give me this sanctimonious bull-shit about being slapped in the face!
At which point I “slammed down the phone” by pressing the button on my Bluetooth ® headset.
People ask me why the Sarah Palin thing bothers me so much. It bothers me because I know Sarah. She is my mother, she is my two aunts, she every girl and boy I grew up with who ever wore their faith on their sleeve. She is my youth-minister in junior high who told me to stop singing the words to “Jesus Christ, Superstar” because it was blasphemous. She is my best friend in college who told me, in all seriousness, that he thought Bill Clinton was the anti-Christ.
Truth to these people is something they scream from every pulpit and discuss ad nauseum. Hell, they even capitalize the word. We know the Truth…Some people do not know the Truth…Jesus is the one source of Truth.
But when it comes down to the actual truth for fundamentalists, the “Truth” is as malleable as silly-putty, meant to be discarded when it is inconvenient, used as a weapon when it is advantageous, and hidden when it is dangerous to their cause.
It has been proven that Sarah Palin is an outrageous liar. In fact, it has been proven that she is a complete fraud. But in the mind of my mother, and those of my mother’s mindset, they dismiss these “truths” by blaming the “librul (spelled wrong on purpose) media” or “left-wing bloggers”. They throw the baby out because they believe the bathwater has been dirtied by people who do not “know Jesus” the way they “know Jesus” – the gays, the abortionists, the mockers of God. Radical Muslims have a name for them; Infidels. Radical Christians do too. They call them unsaved.
In the minds of the fundamentalists, the scrutiny of Palin feeds into the absurd notion that “Christians” are somehow “persecuted”. The more “truth” that is disclosed, the more resolute they become in their support. It’s the world against the Christianists. They are most comfortable when they believe that the world is out to get them.
Meanwhile the real victims of persecution get further marginalized. Gay kids hide voicelessly in the closet lest they get disowned by their parents and friends, African-Americans get followed in department stores because they are likely to steal, immigrants are blamed for lack of jobs in this country.
And the poor, poor Christianists? You know, the ones who claim the very president of this country as their own and who controlled congress six of the last eight years. Yeah, them! They have the audacity to claim that it is their faith that is in danger of being outlawed. Is this the fucking twilight zone?
So the perceived persecution of poor pitiful Palin is just more reason for them to love her. When it is all said and done, they have no use for the “truth”. The decriers of relativism use truth as their most relative concept.
And Sarah Palin is not a slap in the face I am willing to take. She angers me for the very same reasons my mother angers me – a lack of integrity and intellectual honesty with regards to the truth.
It is times like these when the rage is so hot and the resentment is so acute that I feel like tearing down the dam I have built with all my family secrets. I feel so furious and want to hurt them as badly as they all, while hiding behind their religion, have hurt me. Let the waters flow, let the secrets out and when the flood recedes, let them take inventory of the skeletons amidst the debris. I want to unleash the secrets that only I know. I want the world to know them too. I want the world to see them for the frauds and liars they are.
Let loose the “truth” that they would be forced to face. Let them confront the closet cases, the adulterers, the black blood in the white heritage, the ones that have had abortions and the ones that have mistresses, all within our big “happy” family. Take no prisoners and let them grapple with the consequences and twist in the wind.
Sometimes, times like this, I want nothing more than that.
But in the end I realize that my need to exact revenge serves no purpose beyond temporary satisfaction. Instead I have this blog to vent and to calm down.
Slap, slap!
Before I go on I should fully disclose something. The entire maternal side of my family are fundamentalists Christians. Most belong to the Southern Baptist Convention, a denomination of Christianity founded on the principle that slavery was not only tolerated, but also ordained, by God. This legacy of slavery has left an indelible stain on the convention that permeates its theology even today. And, sadly, many in my family still cling to the notion that African-Americans are inferior. The word “n*gger” is a word that still is used by many in my family (including my father who, incidentally, is gay but that is another post[s] for another time).
Many say that marijuana is a “gateway drug”. Well religious based racism is a gateway bigotry. Because while I do not doubt that my mom loves me, she does believe that the seven verses in the Bible that – and this is highly debatable – deal with homosexuality (out of the over 35,000 verses in the Bible which is .02%. Read that again. Point. Zero.Two percent) are clear in their condemnation of gays. As such, homosexuality is therefore not in accord with the will of God.
Growing up in such a toxic environment is dangerous for any child. But growing up while realizing I was gay along the way made it close to deadly. At the age of 21, after years of not being able to reconcile my upbringing with my sexuality, I attempted to take my own life.
I was living in a tony apartment in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington DC. I seemingly had my entire life, and the world, ahead of me. But one morning, facing such despair of which I could not overcome, I went to the medicine cabinet and began taking entire bottles of my roommate’s prescription medications. I chased the pills with 150 year old scotch.
When I came to, at the George Washington University Medical Center, I was surrounded by at least forty of my friends, my father and his partner and…no one else. I asked my dad if my mother knew. He said she did. For two days I sat in that hospital. As friends came and went, there was not one phone call from my mother’s side of the family. No flowers. No cards. Only deafening, undeniable silence.
This was not only odd, it was downright antithetical of my maternal family’s behavior towards the sick. They visit hospitals when someone has a hangnail removed. Granted, I was in Washington DC and they were in Texas. I did not expect them to visit. But I did expect to hear their voice.
Instead, I learned later, my mother (in Texas) sent over two men from a Washington “ex-gay” group. When my father discovered this he made sure they were not allowed in my hospital room. But the damage was done. It was clear that my mother’s answer to my shame of being gay was to send over two men who believed that one could “pray away the gay”. It is something that, to this day, is still the source of tremendous pain and heartache.
The suicide attempt was just three months after my mother found out I was gay. I write “found out” because I did not tell her. Instead, shortly after I moved to DC, my mother broke into my voicemail (keep in mind she lives in Texas) and listened to my messages. One of them was from a guy I was dating at the time. The language he used on the voicemail left no room for anyone that heard it to deny who this guy was in relation to me. Within a week my mother told me she knew. I told her I knew she knew.
My mother repeatedly claims that she does not lie. Never. She says it, you can believe it. That’s that. It has almost become a mantra of hers. In fact, she says it with such frequency and such ferocity that it is borderline clinical in its redundancy.
But on the phone with her the night I confirmed I was gay, I pleaded with her not to tell anyone. She promised me she would not.
She did.
I found out a year later that she had almost immediately told not only my aunt but my grandparents as well. My aunt was (and still is) the director of a pregnancy center that tries to talk women out of abortions and my grandparents (my grandfather, really) were, at one time, big time leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention.
She lied.
This was on the heels of her swearing that she would never file for divorce from my father (although, admittedly, she had every reason to). “Jon-Marc, I will never be the one that files. I promise you that”. Not two months later, she filed.
These were the two most agonizing things in my life – my shame of my sexuality and my parents’ divorce. And in the midst of those two things, my mother lied. She lied big. If I were to quantify the lies I have been told in my life those two would be at the top, hands down.
I write the backstory to put into context the conversation I had with my mother this morning.
She called and we basically talked about nothing. The weather. My grandmother. What my mother had for breakfast. My plans for the day. My weekend.
Then we started talking about Hurricane Ike. This is what went down as I remember it (although I do realize that there are two sides and, as Dr. Phil says, no matter how flat you make a pancake, it still has two sides):
Mother: You know, if it were not for Christians, the victims of the hurricane would not be getting any help, except from the government. The Red Cross, the Salvation Army, the Southern Baptist Men…
Me: Wait, do you really believe that there is no other charitable organization other than “Christian” organizations that are going to help the victims?
Mother: Um, well, yes. Pretty much. I believe that. Why does that make you mad?
I should note something. “Christian” has a very strict definition for fundamentalists such as my mother. Although they will all claim that anyone that believes in Jesus Christ, that he was killed and rose again three days later, is a Christian, their actions speak louder. That is why you will see Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America etc. put quotes around the word Christian when referring to a ministry like Soulforce, a gay Christian ministry.
I should also note that my mom is the assistant director at the pregnancy center where my aunt is the director. The center, incidentally, is a direct beneficiary of Focus on the Family. They receive sonogram machines, money and who knows what else from Daddy Dobson. Dobson has also contributed much to the misery of gay people.
Now back to the conversation. This is where it gets a bit fuzzy.
Basically it got to the point where she said something along the lines of “You slap me in the face with things you say you believe”.
Me: I don’t tell you anything I believe!
Mother: You do on your blog. And you know I read it! You slap me in the face with what you write on your blog! You are trying to hurt me with what you write! I'm hanging up now
(Not sure if she hung up or not)
Me: Slap you in the face? Are you kidding me? You want to talk about being slapped in the face? Try the time you sent two ‘ex-gays’ to my hospital room, try the time you blabbed about me being gay to gran and granddaddy and B (my aunt). Don’t give me this sanctimonious bull-shit about being slapped in the face!
At which point I “slammed down the phone” by pressing the button on my Bluetooth ® headset.
People ask me why the Sarah Palin thing bothers me so much. It bothers me because I know Sarah. She is my mother, she is my two aunts, she every girl and boy I grew up with who ever wore their faith on their sleeve. She is my youth-minister in junior high who told me to stop singing the words to “Jesus Christ, Superstar” because it was blasphemous. She is my best friend in college who told me, in all seriousness, that he thought Bill Clinton was the anti-Christ.
Truth to these people is something they scream from every pulpit and discuss ad nauseum. Hell, they even capitalize the word. We know the Truth…Some people do not know the Truth…Jesus is the one source of Truth.
But when it comes down to the actual truth for fundamentalists, the “Truth” is as malleable as silly-putty, meant to be discarded when it is inconvenient, used as a weapon when it is advantageous, and hidden when it is dangerous to their cause.
It has been proven that Sarah Palin is an outrageous liar. In fact, it has been proven that she is a complete fraud. But in the mind of my mother, and those of my mother’s mindset, they dismiss these “truths” by blaming the “librul (spelled wrong on purpose) media” or “left-wing bloggers”. They throw the baby out because they believe the bathwater has been dirtied by people who do not “know Jesus” the way they “know Jesus” – the gays, the abortionists, the mockers of God. Radical Muslims have a name for them; Infidels. Radical Christians do too. They call them unsaved.
In the minds of the fundamentalists, the scrutiny of Palin feeds into the absurd notion that “Christians” are somehow “persecuted”. The more “truth” that is disclosed, the more resolute they become in their support. It’s the world against the Christianists. They are most comfortable when they believe that the world is out to get them.
Meanwhile the real victims of persecution get further marginalized. Gay kids hide voicelessly in the closet lest they get disowned by their parents and friends, African-Americans get followed in department stores because they are likely to steal, immigrants are blamed for lack of jobs in this country.
And the poor, poor Christianists? You know, the ones who claim the very president of this country as their own and who controlled congress six of the last eight years. Yeah, them! They have the audacity to claim that it is their faith that is in danger of being outlawed. Is this the fucking twilight zone?
So the perceived persecution of poor pitiful Palin is just more reason for them to love her. When it is all said and done, they have no use for the “truth”. The decriers of relativism use truth as their most relative concept.
And Sarah Palin is not a slap in the face I am willing to take. She angers me for the very same reasons my mother angers me – a lack of integrity and intellectual honesty with regards to the truth.
It is times like these when the rage is so hot and the resentment is so acute that I feel like tearing down the dam I have built with all my family secrets. I feel so furious and want to hurt them as badly as they all, while hiding behind their religion, have hurt me. Let the waters flow, let the secrets out and when the flood recedes, let them take inventory of the skeletons amidst the debris. I want to unleash the secrets that only I know. I want the world to know them too. I want the world to see them for the frauds and liars they are.
Let loose the “truth” that they would be forced to face. Let them confront the closet cases, the adulterers, the black blood in the white heritage, the ones that have had abortions and the ones that have mistresses, all within our big “happy” family. Take no prisoners and let them grapple with the consequences and twist in the wind.
Sometimes, times like this, I want nothing more than that.
But in the end I realize that my need to exact revenge serves no purpose beyond temporary satisfaction. Instead I have this blog to vent and to calm down.
Slap, slap!
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