No More Lines To Cross

A few "ex-gay" reps have contacted me in the last month or so, using a nice sales pitch, as they like to do - thickly laying on the "Jesus loves you" jam on my perfectly nice slice of "I'm happy as I am" wholewheat toast. I held on to my restraint and presented my responses, presented below as if to one individual - or to the "ex-gay" industry as a whole.

"Change is possible"?

Yes it is - I used to be a Christian - until I saw what being a "Christian" meant - hating and persecuting innocent people in the name of a loving God. Now I'm not a Christian anymore.

Blasphemous Rumors

Whatever would God think if he knew people were saying God loves gay and trans people?

And why not? He made us too, didn't he?

After all, some people say that God hates gay people though nowhere does it actually say so - however it does say in the Christian bible that "For God so loved the world that WHOSOEVER believeth in Him..." I think you get the drift? Even God claims to love everybody (which includes us - and even you) - but it is funny that those who claim to be "true" Christians seem to pick and choose.

As Time Goes By

I had a friend who waited until her wife died before transitioning. Her name was Stephanie Bishop - and when she began transitioning, she was 79 years old.

She lost her friends and family on coming out, even her children and grand children were too conservative and short sighted to accept this - I know she cried many bitter tears over how nasty they were to her. But she was financially independent, moved to another city (where I met her) and got on with her life. 

 

She was delighted by the tendency people had of underestimating her age by 20 years or more and endured many jibes about her "toy-boy" suitors who in many cases were twenty years younger than her. I doubt she was ever lonely again, as most people her age often are.

School Of Thought

It seems in recent times, with gay-hating groups getting trounced on the grounds of attacking homosexuality in terms of "nature versus nurture" and on the subject of Pride events - that they cling to that also disproved mainstay of the anti-gay movement - "homosexuals are pedophiles". Unable to argue the facts to the contrary in these other matters, they then try to show that gay people want to lower the age of consent "because they are after our children" - for the reason that they also push the cliche'd and just as inaccurate belief that gay people become gay through "recruiting".

A Treatise On The Psychic Abilities Of The Common House Fly

No, I am not kidding. I was however kidding that when I wrote this post that my very first line would have to be "No, I am not kidding". Well, maybe. LOL. And yes, I am quite sane. At least that's what the last shrink I saw told me. Hehehe. But then, perhaps I have gone quite wonko and that is just what I wanted him to think?

Now before you dismiss me for a crank or a lunar tick, please hear me out. A few years ago the place where I work was inundated by a plague of flies, coming from the nursery next door which had put a new compost heap close to our side of the boundary. There were literally thousands of flies inside our building for weeks while our managers negotiated with the neighbors to remove the compost heap. In the meantime, sales of bug spray and fly swatters boomed and the silence was punctuated with small regular explosions and occasional swearing.

Death, Even Plausibly Denied, Is Still Death

A while back one of the loudest voices on the right wing so-called Christian Facebook groups in SA made a u-turn and denied calling for the death penalty as punishment for gay people. He said, "I deny personally calling for the death penalty".

And yet he is the one who has on several occasions instituted such "discussions" on several of these forums, and actively promoted and defended them. (The transcripts I have made of these discussions bear me out on this.)

"The death penalty was never my idea" he objects. He even shifts the blame for this atrocious lack of morality by claiming "it is not I who says so, but the bible..." - He is too much a coward to even claim the mantle of responsibility for what he desires to be meted out to innocent people - based simply on his own personal intolerance of gay and transgender people.

What a nice example of a "Christian soldier" you are. Persecution, murder, injustice and genocide - it's all in a days work for you.

Honey, I Shrunk The Bigots

Some bigots have on several occasions on a known anti-gay hate group site claimed that I am persecuting "true" Christians. Note that they clearly distinguish themselves from the vast majority of Christians which include my straight Christian friends and family - who love and accept gay and trans people for who they are - and who support me in my efforts. Why people who claim to love and serve God cannot live like like they claim to is quite beyond reason - and excuse. "...you are just as bias as the rest of us !!" they rant.

Oh, the pot tries to make me look like a kettle so that it can call me black?

Clear Intent

Whenever there are Pride events, there are individuals making claims about the "debauchery" and "immorality" they claim to have seen there. 

 

Some have claimed to have witnessed simulated sex acts, full nudity and some enterprising fibbers have even laid claim that while driving past such events that their small children "were traumatized" by the sight of such a parade or festival. They have used such claims to drum up support for their mounting attempts to ban every gay and trans festival in the country.

The Hardware Store And Other Stories

Okay folks, this article might a little more graphic than my regular posts, but I feel it is a subject that just has to be addressed - and the arguments provided reveal the kind of mindset we face when dealing with fundamentalist bigots.

Some people presented me with an interesting argument a few days ago, using the apparent design and function of human sexual organs as a reason to "justify" heterosexual sex for procreation only and to question "the legitimacy" of homosexuality and same gender relationships. They focused on the "design" of the penis and vagina and the apparent purpose of these organs as reproductive items - and the anus as solely for disposing of bodily waste. 

 

Predictably, they portrayed heterosexual sex as "dignified" while demeaning any other forms of intimacy in (hetero as well as) same gender couples as "deviant", "perverted" and "disgusting".

Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction

There are many Christians who love and support gay and transgender people. What boggles the mind is that a minority group also calling themselves Christians attacks both gay people and the Christians who love and support them. These are usually the kind of people who claim that gay and trans people cannot be "true" Christians - and the same for the Christians who oppose them.

Which brings to mind a simple question: Does hating gay people make one a "true" Christian? It is astonishing to note that many people feel that it does - even though they often lack the courage to put it in those exact words. In fact, they even claim to act out of "love" for us.

Whatever - in the end that's what it comes down to.