August 2001

Opposition to Gay Rights is Bullshit

EVIL ROBOTS EDITORIAL STAFF
OFFICIAL POLICY

In Maryland, 'anti-discrimination' is a dirty compound word. This Spring the General Assembly passed a bill meant to protect gay, lesbian and transgender Marylanders from discrimination. Like many other anti-discrimination bills, it is intended to protect people from being discriminated from housing, a job, or a seat in a restaurant because of their sexual preference.

Some people do not approve of this bill. Recently, a petition to put the Anti-Discrimination bill to referendum was submitted and accepted by the election management division. That means that the entire Maryland population will have an opportunity to vote for the bill.

The referendum is supported largely by people who are opposed, for various reasons, to giving homosexuals what they call "special rights." Of course, what they mean by "special rights" is protection from people who feel it necessary to exclude a person for who they are. The bulk of the support is from people who believe "homosexual behavior is immoral and dangerous, both to the individual and society."

Immoral? Dangerous? Those words sound like religion-talk. After looking at some web sites one can see that their opposition comes largely from the Bible, or rather, what passages they choose to harp upon.

Evil Robots did some of our own research. Here are some of the biblical quotes which people use to support their beliefs and some which are conveniently left out:

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Genesis 38:1-11
This is the story of Onan who was killed my God for spilling his seed on the ground, thus engaging in a non-reproductive sexual act. Having sex for pleasure but not for procreation is a sin, so the story goes, and is akin to abortion. That means that homosexual sex between men is a sin, and male masturbation is a sin.

Of course, Onan could have been killed by God for disobeying Judah who had asked him to make babies with his brother's wife. If that is the case, then we should be looking to the laws God set out for the Jews for our direction.

Leviticus 18:22
This is a very straight forward passage. Do not 'lay' with a man as you would a woman. But lest we forget, God laid down many laws. He also said (Lev. 20:12) that if a man 'lays' with his daughter in law, that they should both be put to death - just like men who sleep with men (Lev. 20:13). The same punishment goes for adultery - both the man and woman are put to death.

This poses an interesting question: Where are the anti-adulterer action teams? Where are the anti-men who sleep with his wife and her mother groups? They sure as hell aren't on Jerry Springer. Nor are they protesting in front of the US Capitol and lashing Senators to a post and beating them to death. So then, we are just forced to assume that these things must be less of a sin than people of the same sex wanting to marry one another. Right? We're not advocating the beating of adulators here, we're just saying that if you're going to be devout (especially if you're going to be violent about it) you have to be consistent. Why is there a disparity in tolerance for "sins" with the same punishments set forth in the Bible?

Deuteronomy 21:18-21 (this cracks us up)
"If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son, who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they chastise him, will not give heed to them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives, and they shall say to the elders of his city, `This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.' Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones; so you shall purge the evil from your midst; and all Israel shall hear, and fear."

This is nitpicking, but someone needs to explain to this editorial staff why more teenagers are NOT being stoned (as opposed to getting stoned.)

Deuteronomy 23:1 (this is also very funny)
"He whose testicles are crushed or whose male member is cut off shall not enter the assembly of the LORD."

So, we can then assume that, given a literal reading of this passage, that John Wayne Bobbit will burn in hell for the act of his wife. We fail to see any repercussions for, say, the Honorable Jim Kolbe, an openly gay Republican US Representative from Arizona. Unless he whacks himself with a hammer, that is.

Romans 1:26-27
This is tough because Paul is speaking about men and women who, since the beginning of time, have failed to see God in all his/her incarnations, and though themselves smart when they were actually fools. God punished them for their action by making them commit unnatural acts, which one could say is homosexuality, although it is not explicitly stated in the translation. Paul seems to imply that those who do not revere and believe in God do not receive his/her grace.

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All in all, the argument appears to be clear to this editorial staff: people pick and choose what they want to believe. In this case, as in countless others, the Bible is used to defend the discrimination of people from what is otherwise free to them. Women, Jews, Ethnic Minorities and Natives of many a country have fallen victim to the selective Christianity which is now imposing its collective will on the homosexual community.

Some of those who are opposed to the law feel that their religious freedom is being infringed upon by "special rights" granted to homosexuals. The point they are missing is that the State of Maryland weighed religious freedom against the restrictions to homosexuals and decided that while religion is sacred to each individual, the right to apply for a job, or be seated at a table is far more important- not to mention rights that are completely outside the scope of religion.

And as far as rights go, aren't these ridiculous arguments against gay rights generally put forth by the same people who demand absolute protection of personal liberty? Is this because of a true love of our precious personal liberty, or are these arguments just a cover for wanting to be able to discriminate as one sees fit?

Whatever the implications of this referendum may be, people should realize that there are many laws which prohibit people from freely practicing their religion or personal beliefs to the fullest extent. Aren't these laws generally designed to protect the rights of others? Come to think of it, this country has never been totally free, nor was it intended to be. Maybe one day we can get over that and understand that each citizen's freedom relies upon the freedom of every other citizen.

Epilogue
A very funny side to this whole story comes in the form of a quote by an opponent to the anti-discrimination bill. This gentleman is quoted as saying that the law is the first step towards regulation that would REQUIRE "kids to be taught how to do homosexual acts in school."

Are we wrong to think that is funny?

Imagine with us how paranoid this man must be to believe such things. He must see the "homosexual cabal" at work every morning in the newspaper, using his x-ray vision of truth to see headlines like:

"GAY cars in rail tunnel resist control."
"Hazardous HOMOSEXUALS pass daily - and no one knows"
"New QUEER to oversee disabled riders"
"FERC gives PSC a big GAY."

Is this kind of paranoia funny in it's sheer absurdity? Or is finding amusement in this wrong like it's wrong to laugh at a man who soils himself in public because he was hit in the head with a hammer as a child?

Still, we would hate to be this man's paper boy.