Is love a "habit"? Is love not as vital to human beings as the air we breathe?
Some people call the links to articles I provide in arguments against bigotry and against the use of religion as a tool to oppress people and as an agent of hypocrisy, "trying to justify" my views on human sexuality and gender and even religion.
Justify? Science doesn't lie. Religion written in dead languages on the other hand is open to interpretation. How can it not be, without evidence or fact to back it up? Add to the lack of substantiating evidence, the documentary proof that many people, and great leaders, have used religion and religious scripture as a tool to "justify" the evil they have done - and do - in the name of God. Whether or not you are religious yourself, you should be able to see examples of this all around you in daily life.
All around us there are people who warn against gay people, tell lies about transgender people and demonize us as a pink community as though we are a threat to them, and something to be feared.
We are not monsters, we do not "recruit", suck blood or hang upside down from the rafters, and we do not "pray on children". It is truly hurtful to see the lies some people claiming to be good people say about us.
I know in some countries people may view people like me as freaks and outcasts, but here in South Africa it is different. Here I have straight friends and colleagues who treat me with respect and value me for who I am, and for what I can do. I contribute to society, and I make a difference. Take away people like us and you remove our potential from the bigger picture and you make society poorer for it, and set it back. And quite frankly, even if they didn't like me, or want to befriend me, or even to speak to me outside of working hours, I really don't need them to. I will choose my own company. I'm glad they are my friends, but I can live without them if need be. At the end of this I will add: my civil and human rights they WILL respect, especially if they expect me to respect theirs.
Nevertheless, some folks delight in pointing out the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah as "confirmation" of how "right" they are about other people's unworthiness to share the world with them.
WRONG - Sodom and Gomorrah were supposedly destroyed for other reasons - and NOT because of gay people - read here and here to find out why.
They angrily demand to know why gay and trans people should be "allowed" to have equality and rights equal to their own. I find this shocking evidence of religious hypocrisy and arrogance, let alone unacceptable from any moral or even "Christian" view point. It disgusts me.
You have rights, don't you? What is so special about you? People are people - and ALL people should have EQUAL rights. Failure to recognize this lessens some people before others - and again, elevates some above others. This is not democracy - but tyranny and despotism.
I notice these folks all seem obsessed with the bible and religion - and yet they seem to practice none of what it preaches - love, tolerance, forgiveness and peace - not murder, injustice, oppression and hatred.
On the Ugandan Facebook hate group which incites hatred and generates support for the passing of the pending Ugandan Genocide Bill. Lies and propaganda abound, such as the lie that gay people "recruit", are after children, conspiring to destroy "heterosexual society" and religion and numerous other accusations too ridiculous to recount. And easily visible in all of this is religious fundamentalism, fear, paranoia and the ever-present ignorance and hatred which drives homophobia.
Have gay people truly done ANYTHING to any of them, that they should hate them so much that they would wish them dead or other harm to come to them? These are their family members, friends and colleagues they are talking about!
Another pet gripe I have about these bigots is that they like to refer to gay people as "homosexuals" - read the documents put out by religious right wings crazies like Focus on the Family, Exodus, NARTH etc. You can almost taste the disdain and disgust when they use it. They simply cannot bring themselves to call us by any name we prefer, BECAUSE we prefer it - and to them it seems to give us "legitimacy" or a modicum of respect, which is unacceptable to them.
On the Ugandan Facebook hate group demanding the death penalty for GLBTIQ people - STILL active and not yet removed by the lax and apparently indifferent Facebook Admins, these bigots demand to know from human rights activists which sexual orientation is "better" than the other - straight or gay?
What is this, a game of "my dog is better than your dog"?
Why do you think that one sexual orientation is supposed to be "better" than the other? Is it because you feel threatened by other people? Do you think there is somehow a "competition" between sexual orientations? Do heterosexuals have something to "prove" against their non-heterosexual relatives? Is your own identity so fragile that you can be threatened by the mere existence of others?
If I were to ask you to choose which is better, black or white, you would probably label me a racist. But it simply clarifies my point, which is that neither gay nor straight is better or worse - just different to each other, but not a threat to each other simply because of that difference. Can you understand this?
Apparently not, because they cry: "If they dont wanna be killed, they should avoid sin. simple."
This one person, called Monicah, simply took the cake and gorged herself on it. Oddly enough she has just spent some time elaborating on her "Christian faith" and how "sinful" gay people are!
So if the bible equates all sins equally, what gives YOU the right as a fellow sinner to demand the deaths of other people who are no more guilty of sin than yourself? Are YOU sinless? Are YOU perfect?
The use of religion as a weapon, whether in Uganda or South Africa or the USA, indicates to me a case of "convenient Christianity" - no more than a convenient excuse to try to justify the unjustifiable... A power play run by the intelligentsia - and once sparked by their words, supported on a wave of blind, blisteringly ignorant plebs eager to find a solution to their problems so clearly pointed out by their leaders. A Final Solution.
On the same group on Facebook, the group Admin posted Ugandan news of a 58 year old man caught for molesting a 3 year old boy, implying that it was evidence of homosexual malice and the "threat to the family" posed by the existence of GLBTIQ people in Uganda. Of course, he denied that is why he posted this, but why make such a post if it has no perceived relevance? In any case, even if he didn't vocalize the implied accusations, his cronies on the group soon did, whipping the online mob into a fury of anti-gay slurs and incitement to commit state-sanctioned genocide just as soon as the Bill passes. Of course, these comments were not deleted, last time I looked.
So what has pedophilia got to do with homosexuality? Would you still have posted the news if it was a man molesting a 3 yr old girl? Why not? Because it is pedophilia? But miraculously because it is a man who molested a boy, it somehow becomes homosexuality?
Pedophilia is NOT homosexuality - here are some obviously urgently needed facts about homosexuality and child molestation. Isn't it interesting that pedophilia occurs most frequently in heterosexual males, followed secondly by heterosexual females? Where are all the gay pedophiles then? Why, right at the bottom of the list... now how about that? Up in smoke... "poof", so to speak (Sorry about the pun).
And then of course we saw signs of frustration on the part of the group Admin and creator, who realized his forces were getting creamed - whipped into a frothy frenzy, but creamed, none the less. The typical last resort of the losing side of a despotic argument - deleting posts.
Deleting posts simply because you do not approve of the points being made, indicates an inability to participate in a rational debate. When you delete one side of a debate it stops being a debate and becomes a monologue, a dictation of one viewpoint, disjointed and meaningless - save for the fact that dialog, as praised by the very same Administrator a day before, is pointless.
Deleting the truth won't make it a lie - or make it go away - or make the lies told in that forum - or any other, true.
Another dude on the same forum made the classic bigoted statement that they don't hate gay people, they just hate homosexuality.
Oh great, that clears things up, definitely. You don't hate gay people, but you just hate everything gay about them? Interesting. Ever heard of a paradox? It's something like "Peace Force" or "Military Intelligence" - and basically what you have just said, in a nut shell.
Another went on about the facts presented to show homosexuality is natural because it is known to exist in animals, in such a way that he accused gay people of "behaving like animals" and equating us with them. Indeed, if love is an animal characteristic, then I am happy to agree - however, how many animals can such as he point out that actually hate? All human beings are animals. Well, we're not plants are we? That is, except maybe for those of us who are "vegetables".
To close, one among them - Monicah again, said they have "seen the light" - referring to the sinful nature of gay people versus the "salvation" offered them by prayer and "Christianity" which would "change" them and "make them heterosexual" - the standard load of "ex-gay", "reparitive therapy" crap that flies in the face of common sense, logic and hundreds of official and authoritative dismissals and condemnations.
So Monicah, what you are saying is that you have "seen the light"? I find that an interesting statement considering the hateful things I have seen you add to this forum against gay people. Are you saying that hating is "Christian"? Is hatred "seeing the light"? Hate is acid in the blood. It eats you alive from the inside out, like a cancer.
Sooner or later, it will consume these people, and they will be a spent force left with nothing.
You have seen the light?
Close the fridge, Monicah - it's cold enough.
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All material copyright © Christina Engela, 2019.
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