Self Loathing, Being Duped & Believing a Lie

I wrote the following article a couple of years ago and I feel it especially appropriate to post it here at this time when it is hoped that Prop. 8 will be viewed as unconstitutional when it goes before federal court this coming week.

So much antipathy toward same-sex marriage, and Gay people in general, seems to me to stem from the fact that in many people’s minds Gay=Sex, and that the emotional component akin to that held by heterosexuals is lacking. That is, many people and religious institutions falsely see Gay people as disordered heterosexuals and, hence, much of the discriminatory rhetoric and actions taken against Gay people, as well as the assertions of so-called “ex-gay” people and “ministries!”

The following is a very slightly edited version of the article I wrote in November 2007:

My friend, Don Charles sent me an article entitled, “EXCLUSIVE: An Interview with Donnie McClurkin’s Ex-Lover.”

This is a revealing interview, not merely because of the obvious, but because I truly believe that McClurkin, on the basis of this interview, thinks that being Gay by “his definition” is a choice. He seems to solely identify one’s choosing to be Gay as one’s choosing to have sex!

According to this article, McClurkin said, as reported in “…The New York Times in 2002: ‘Love is pulling you one way and lust is pulling you another and your relationship with Jesus is tearing you, tearing you,’ said Mr. McClurkin, who now counsels adolescent boys that homosexuality is a choice they can overcome.”

To him, and to so many other homophobic people, both Straight and Gay, whether or not to have sex is a choice, and so, since they seem to equate being Gay solely with having sex, McClurkin and those who think like him can with a straight (pardon the pun) face say that being Gay is a choice.

So many are unable to see that having sex is usually a manifestation, or a culmination, of a more or less loving relationship, and emotional sensibility, or affectional desire, and McClurkin seems convinced that same-sex loving relationships (the idea of which may well scare the hell out of him, and of which he might very well be incapable at this point in his life) is also antithetical to being a Christian, so his “relationship with Jesus is tearing you, tearing you.”
He sees the choice to be not only between being Gay (as he seems to define the term) and being a Christian, but sees, in his case, that “love is pulling you one way and lust is pulling you another.”

He has, according to his reported statement, divested “sex” from “love,” and so, since he equates being Gay with sex, and he sees “sex” as distinct from “love,” he can believe that being Gay (which he equates with lust and sex) is a choice by his definition of what “Gay” means. And if he’s incapable and/or fearful of same-sex “love,” which I believe may very well be the case, he doesn’t see, and certainly doesn’t want to see, being Gay as embracing one’s whole being, including feelings as well as actions.

It is not only many, if not most, Straight people who can only see one’s being Gay in terms of one’s sexual activities; many Gay people themselves define the term “Gay” in this way, so that rather than one’s seeing their being Gay as encompassing the whole person, body, mind, and soul, they see the term “Gay” the way that they have been taught in or by churches, and other instutions, largely, if not solely, run by homophobes.

Hence, many Gay people themselves don’t realize that they are Gay until they have had one or more satisfying same-sex sexual encounters and retrospectively understand that they were Gay long before they engaged in sexual activity. It’s only when a Gay (or Straight) person is able to integrate love and affection with those encounters, that they then are better able to become emotionally and spiritually intact as human beings. But to be given institutional, interpersonal, and psychological permission to integrate the emotional and sexual parts of one’s nature is made very difficult in a rabidly homophobic society, largely aided and abeted by those who have yet to healthfully integrate these two facets of their humanity.

So, in this context, a Donny McClurkin and other “ex-gay” spokespeople can actually believe that he/she is not, or is no longer, Gay because he/she no longer has sex (at least on a regular basis) with another person of the same sex or is celibate, despite his/her emotional and affectional desires for intimacy with a member of the same sex.

And when that desire for such intimacy, although frequently consciously suppressed by the homophobic Gay person, builds to such a crecendo that it can no longer be suppressed, and then that person is likely to act out that desire in surreptitious, sometimes illegal, ways that can lead to profound embarrassment and the risk of losing one’s very family, reputation, and career.

The tension brought by that crescendo brings a demanding, overwhelming, need for release and that will bring a brief respite from their conflict, their inner turmoil, between “who they really are” and “what they desperately desire to do,” yet usually bring a profound guilt upon them that frequently impels them to condemn “homosexuality” both as a denial to themselves and/or to others like whom they really are, and as a way of expiating their guilt and trying to believe that they are no longer or really not like “those people.”

So, according to the person interviewed in this article, McClurkin sees conflict between love and lust, and between same-sex love and being a Christian, and between sex and being a Christian. So, he seems to have at least three manifestations of inner turmoil. And people are seeking out his advice?

Being Gay is as much about solely being about “sex” as is being Straight solely about sex! Sexual activity represents relatively few hours a week or month of our lives, be we Gay or Straight! Moreover, even if one never engages in sexual activity, he/she is still Gay or Straight!

The status of being Gay, just as the status of being Straight, has mainly to do with one’s affectional and emotional sensibilities and feelings, encompassing the whole human being in all of his/her complexity and humanity. Indeed, these sensibilities and feelings and their romantic/sexual manifestations are largely representative of our very souls!

There is no “on” and “off” switch on our souls! When one seeks to deny a good portion of one’s very soul, under any conditions, let alone by the condition of misinformation so as to be duped into believing a lie, he/she is not only committing a grievous offense against him/herself, but is committing a grievous offense against God!

God made our souls and how dare anyone throw that wonderful gift, or any part of that gift, back in God’s face! And to do so because he/she chooses to believe the lie that being Gay is solely about sex, that same-sex sexual expression is unGodly, and that homosexuality is anything lesser in value to oneself, another human being, and to God than is heterosexuality, places the judgments of frequently ignorant and tortured human beings over the will of God!

To sell one’s soul, or any part of one’s soul, on the word of ignorant and tortured people, or on the word of anyone else for that matter, is a grievous sin!

One can only imagine the turmoil infusing the lives of virtually all “ex-gay” gurus and spokespeople, and those whom they have duped into believing that God condemns same-sex love and its expression; that being Gay is a “choice.” If they weren’t so destructive of others’ lives by their often using the defense mechanism of Reaction Formation, and venting their inner turmoil and conflicts through their strident homophobia, I’d have even more pity for them than I, in fact, do.

But, most of all, I have pity for those who are gullible and/or desperate enough, having been duped into believing the lie that being Gay is not moral and Godly, to trust these “counselors” and “therapists” and “spokespeople” who seek to re-define their reality and the very nature of their lives and loves, having the result of further consigning those who take them seriously to the outer darkness of believing and living a lie and, thereby, renouncing a good deal of their souls!

And to give ignorant, confused, and twisted people, be they clergy, entertainers, counselors, therapists, or politicians, a platform and a credibility they do not deserve, through and by which they can spew their frequently ignorant and hateful rhetoric that has the effect of “recruiting” others into their warped views of love and sex, of righteousness and morality, of Christianity, and of God, further aids and abets the self-loathing and the hatred that so many Gay people suffer and confront every day of their lives.

And in the twisted mind set that reflects the “ex-gay” industry and its spokespeople, their advocacy of the suppression of one’s God-given affectional/sexual orientation, much of the essence of one’s very soul, is equated with “morality,” with “Godliness,” and with mental health!

Lewis Carol’s “Alice in Wonderland” has nothing on this surreal farce, save that this surreal farce is tremendously destructive to Gay people, their psyches, their mental health, their families, and to Straight people who, along with many Gay people, have all too often come to believe the lies that one can be best intact by throwing God’s gift of one’s affectional/sexual orientation, part of the very essence of his/her soul, back in God’s face and call that “morality,” “mental health,” and “Christianity.”

And that’s just a damn lie!

More from the Rev. Dr. Jerry Maneker at: ChristianLGBTRights.org!

Unmet Needs & Anxieties of Homophobes

Sigmund Freud gave this statement regarding religious people whom he felt were suffering from a mass neurosis. He said: “Devout believers are safeguarded in a high degree against the risk of certain neurotic illnesses; their acceptance of the universal neurosis spares them the task of constructing a personal one.” That is, true believers can become insulated from the realities of their own lives to the degree that they are spared the necessary introspection and grappling with their own anxieties borne of unmet needs as well as the rigors of life.

I’m not a very religious person, but I am a spiritual one to the degree that I trust God over and above seen circumstances; I have the faith in Jesus’ teachings, life, work, ministry, and His very Person to help me navigate through life. Therefore, even as a Christian, I do agree with Freud’s assessment of “religion” as usually practiced in the institutional Church, as I do with Karl Marx’ assertion that religion is the opiate of the masses.

We have certainly seen religion being used as a justification to deprive Gay people of their civil rights, and we have even seen those civil rights rescinded based on the prejudices of true believers and their gullible followers, both of whom, by definition, are neurotic because they seek to impose their own prejudices based on their own unmet needs and anxieties onto the electoral, rather than the Judicial, marketplace that they hope will justify the discrimination, the oppression, and the civil rights of others.

Regarding the origin of neurosis, Arthur Janov writes:

This separation of oneself from one’s needs and feelings is an instinctive maneuver in order to shut off excessive pain. We call it the split. The organism splits in order to protect its continuity. This does not mean that unfulfilled needs disappear, however. On the contrary, they continue throughout life exerting a force, channeling interests, and producing motivation toward the satisfaction of those needs. But because of their pain, the needs have been suppressed in the consciousness, and so the individual must pursue substitute gratifications. He must, in short, pursue the satisfaction of his needs symbolically. Because he was not allowed to express himself, he may be compelled to try to get others to listen and understand later in life….

Neurosis is symbolic behavior in defense against excessive psychobiologic pain. Neurosis is self-perpetuating because symbolic satisfactions cannot fulfill real needs. In order for real needs to be satisfied, they must be felt and experienced. Unfortunately, pain has caused those needs to be buried. When they are buried, the organism goes into a continuous state of emergency alert. That alert state is tension. It propels the infant, and later the adult, toward the satisfaction of need in any way possible…The organism continues to live at any cost, and that cost is usually neurosis — shutting down unmet bodily needs and feelings because the pain is too great to withstand.

[For the full article, see here.]

When clergy and others seek to deprive dignity and civil rights to Gay people, that should be a red flag that these clergy are suffering from the pain and anxiety of unmet needs that occurred in their childhood and/or in their adulthood, that they feel require substitute gratifications for them that, unfortunately, takes the form of homophobia!

This anxiety and pain of their unmet needs are so great that any attempt is used by them to mitigate that suffering, so they resort to deflecting that pain onto others. As Carl Jung once observed: “The healthy man does not torture others – generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers.”

So, strident homophobia must be seen as a red flag to all of us who seek to understand why those who claim to represent the Prince of Peace are so intent on bearing false witness against others (a violation of one of the Ten Commandments); are so intent on invoking some arcane verses of the Bible, the likes of which no rational person would seek to impose on contemporary society (e.g., stoning to death those who work on the Sabbath); resort to irrational attempts at justification for their homophobia, such as “preserving marriage” when no one who is rational can believe that same-sex marriage could or would in any way threaten or damage anyone’s heterosexual marriage.

So the substitute gratifications needed and used by the homophobe because of his/her unmet or unfulfilled needs can be seen to prompt the irrationality of homophobia! The unmet or unfulfilled needs of the homophobe creates tremendous anxiety within him or her and he/she feels he/she must assuage that anxiety by condemning in others (often in the name of “love,” of course) what may well be suppressed in him/herself, be it his/her own sexuality and/or other crucial needs not met at some point in his/her life; perhaps even in infancy.

It must be reiterated that sexually and emotionally healthy people don’t seek to deprive Gay people (or anyone else) of their dignity and civil rights! Rather than externalize their likely lack of sexual and emotional health, it would be far better for them and for civil society for them to examine their own psyches and see what core needs of theirs have gone unmet; what gratifications they desired or currently desire can be met without their resorting to causing the suffering of their fellow Gay human beings and their families.

As I commented elsewhere: “People who hate, and who seek to deny dignity and civil rights to their fellow Gay citizens, show themselves to have psychological/sexual issues that make it necessary to relieve their anxiety that the very existence of Gay people provoke in them. It is the strident homophobes who hurt our society, and not Gay people who want and certainly deserve the same rights and privileges that heterosexuals enjoy under our Constitution.”

More from Rev. Dr. Jerry Maneker at: ChristianLGBTRights.org!

GLBT’s and the Battle for the Bible

There is nothing in Scripture that prohibits full acceptance of GLBT people, and ordaining their unions as sacraments in the Church. Since the Bible is used to justify homophobia, I want to deal with this issue from a biblical perspective, fully recognizing, as with the civil rights issue for Afro-Americans, that the battle, though partly political, is primarily religious
and will eventually prevail on that ground.

It is inappropriate to translate many ancient customs to contemporary times. For example, we don’t discriminate against
women wearing slacks; this practice was quite unusual, and considered as “cross-dressing,” as recently as 50 years ago.

Jesus as human was the consequence of fornication and whoredom, and He had in His lineage a murderer. The prophet Hosea was told by God to marry a prostitute. (Hosea 1:2) The prophet Isaiah was told by God to walk around naked for three years. (Isaiah 20:3) Can you imagine what the Church world, the Vatican, and we ourselves would make of all these events today?

The Vatican decreed that homosexual relations were “intrinsically evil.” Nowhere in Scripture are monogamous
homosexual relations condemned. Jesus specifically condemned divorce and remarriage, calling it adultery. (Matthew 5:31-32) Yet, there are ministries to divorced Catholics in the Church. However, Jesus never spoke about homosexuality; homosexuality isn’t even mentioned in the Ten Commandments, although bearing false witness is, yet the Church has demonized it.

Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people are viewed as easy and safe targets to persecute! What the Catholic Church and much of the church world have done, enmeshing their prejudices on selected parts of the Bible, is help further exacerbate a climate of hate throughout the world against these already persecuted minorities. Scripture must always trump “natural law” and tradition, if Christians are to live up to the commandments Jesus taught: to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves. All people are our neighbors, who must be embraced, not merely tolerated or, worse, demonized.

I am ashamed and angered at what the Vatican and much of the rest of the organized Church have done in oppressing GLBT people, as they seemingly utilize their view of “sin,” born of cultural and personal prejudices to, in effect, tell GLBT people that they have no place in the Church. Rather than take the lead in living the law of love, much of the organized Church world has become culpable in the demonization of GLBT people.

In a society living on the edge, where people were to “be fruitful and multiply,” homosexual relations, regardless of motive, were condemned. However, if we bring back that condemnation then, to be consistent, we would have to stone to death those caught in adultery, stone to death recalcitrant children, and even offer our virgin daughters to a howling mob to protect strange visitors, if need be.

The Church is obligated to come down on the side of love, mercy, compassion, grace, and inclusiveness, rather than on the side of being judgmental and excluding GLBT people and their relationships from full fellowship in the Church. The misuse of the Bible as a hammer to oppress others is diametrically opposed to Jesus’ life, ministry, and commandments to us to love and embrace each other.

The Gay Scapegoat is a convenient and safe target to persecute from both outside and within the Church! His or her very existence is condemned deep within the psyche of many, given the self-righteous legalists and perfectionists in our midst, many of whom have ascended to leadership positions within much of the organized Church, and whose utterances against GLBT people are diametrically opposed to the biblical mandates to love others and seek to remove yokes of bondage put upon others by the modern-day Pharaohs and Pharisees who seem to monopolize the media and pulpits throughout America and the rest of the world.

The legalists, who have always been in the Church, are still trying to vitiate the grace (unmerited favor) of God by substituting in its place their own idols of self-righteousness, laws, and assorted do’s and don’ts that have had the impact of having many GLBT people living lives filled with self-loathing, guilt, and self-condemnation. These legalists have caused untold suffering to people who have been viewed as “safe” targets to persecute. It’s the legalists, not members of the GLBT communities who put their trust in God over and above their trust in others and life-circumstances, who are out of the will of God and misuse the Bible to oppress others to our collective shame! They must be withstood to their faces! (Galatians 2:11)

What many GLBT people don’t realize is that their being excluded from much of the Church and from mainstream society serves a vital psychological and social function. First of all, hate is a great energizer! It enables one to feel superior to another and thereby feel more affirmed in a world that he or she seeks to twist to be in accordance with his or her own perceived self-interests. Moreover, marginalizing and demonizing certain groups of people amplifies in-group cohesion, and the embracing of established ways of doing things that are, again, perceived to be in the in-group’s self-interest.

Emile Durkheim, a famous nineteenth century sociologist, said that when you have a threatening “out-group,” the “in-group” unites to protect itself against it. There are people who have a vested interest in creating out-groups, because by so doing they cement in-group solidarity, even based on such banal slogans as “family values,” “recapturing the soul of America,” and “preserving the sanctity of marriage.” The in-group, safely representing between ninety and ninety-eight percent of the population, can share emotions and fellowship being bonded by this one, and perhaps only, common bond: their stated sexual orientation.

Creating out-groups becomes for many within the in-group their god, and many are unwitting worshippers of this god which they created out of their psychological and social self-interests and perceived needs. Most people who marginalize and demonize gay people are xenophobic in that they reject people with whom they feel they cannot relate, as they don’t see gay (or Black, or Mexican, or immigrant, etc.) people as their brothers and sisters.

Those who refer to the Bible to worship their god of exclusiveness misread Scripture to fit their own prejudices. These
people listen to “lying prophets,” as they did with the issues of slavery, segregation, and the subjugation of women, who
bring themselves and their followers to ruin and perhaps spiritual death. (1Kings 13) Many GLBT people have either
committed suicide, or commit suicide on the installment plan through guilt, self-condemnation, alcohol and drugs, due to
those who do precisely what Jesus told Christians not to do. It should come as no surprise that gay youth suicide is estimated to be significantly higher than non-gay youth suicide!

Once it is recognized that stereotyping, marginalizing, demonizing, and excluding people and groups is non-biblical, but
serves a very useful social function by creating greater solidarity among the in-group, and serves the psychological function of falsely-based self-affirmation, Christians will be likely to finally heed the counsel of God. No person or ideology is to supplant the God of inclusiveness, unconditional love, and salvation to those whom He has, by His unmerited favor, chosen out of the world, before the worlds were formed (Ephesians 1:4), to be His own possession.

One even can’t appeal to tradition to justify exclusion of gays and their marital unions.

In a fascinating book entitled, Same-Sex Unions In Premodern Europe, by the historian John Boswell (Vintage Books,
Random House, 1995), he delineates how some same sex unions were even blessed by clergy in the Church. There are many same sex unions that are delineated in this book, but I’ll just quote one passage to give you a flavor of the topic.

“…the church of Saint John of the Latin Gate, in which some Portuguese some years before had entered into a strange
‘brotherhood’. Two males married each other at Mass, with the same ceremonies we use for our marriages, taking
Communion together, using the same nuptial Scripture, after which they slept and ate together. Roman experts said
that since sex between male and female could be legitimate only within marriage, it had seemed equally fair to them to
authorize these ceremonies and mysteries of the church.” (p. 265)

The context of prohibition against homosexual behavior in the Old Testament was that people were to be fruitful and
multiply; the Messiah would come through the fruit of procreation, though be born of a virgin. In the New Testament, the
context of prohibition is against any behavior that supplants God as an object of worship.

The Apostle Paul was most likely addressing male cult prostitution and sexual intercourse as homage to various pagan
deities that existed in the Roman world at that time. There is no evidence to indicate that he was referring to loving,
monogamous relationships between people of the same sex or that he was even referring to, or cognizant of, sexual
orientation. (As is well known, there is no word in any of the biblical manuscripts that can be translated “homosexual” as
the word wasn’t coined until the late nineteenth century.) Moreover, even in the Old Testament, the sin of Sodom was
not homosexuality but idolatry, mistreatment of others, and inhospitality.

In our era, we don’t see the importance of hospitality. However, in the harsh environments that existed in the ancient world, hospitality was essential, as it could be a matter of life and death, and if it was denied, it was a grievous matter.

Moreover, when Sodom is discussed in Scripture, homosexuality is never mentioned as its sin. Here is the evidence of that fact, for which I’m indebted to the web site christianlesbians.com:

Old Testament References The Sins of Sodom Mentioned
Deuteronomy 29:17-26 Idolatry and images to false gods.
Deuteronomy 32:32-38 Idolatry.
Isaiah 1:9-23 Murder, greed, theft, rebellion, covetousness.
Isaiah 3:8-15 Mistreating the poor.
Isaiah 3:11-19 Arrogance.
Jeremiah 23:10-14 Adultery, lying by priests and prophets.
Jeremiah 49:16-18 Pride of the heart.
Jeremiah 50:2-40 Idolatry and pride.
Lamentations 4:3-6 Cruelty and failure to care for the young and poor.
Ezekiel 16:49-50 “Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fullness of bread, and abundance
of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were
haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good.”
Amos 4:1-11 Oppression and mistreating the poor.
Zephaniah 2:8 Pride.

New Testament Reference The Sins of Sodom Mentioned
Luke 17:26-29 No specific sins mentioned.
2 Peter 2:6 Living after ungodliness.
Jude 1:7-8 Fornication after strange (“other”) flesh. (Could be related to Genesis 6:1-2)

“Jesus declared that He hadn’t come to do away with a portion of the Law but to fulfill all the Law (Matthew 5:17-18). Paul in Romans 10:4 says that ‘Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to all who believe’ and in Romans 7:6 tells us that we have been released from the Law and are dead to that which had us bound. If a portion of the Law remains in effect then all the Law must remain in effect.” (christianlesbians.com)

Paul was writing to the believing Jews of Rome and in Chapter One of the book of Romans he is describing the progressive descent into sin of the unbelieving Gentiles. You can’t look at Chapter One without relating it to Chapter Two where Paul admonishes the Jews that if they pass judgment on even these behaviors, they are in fact condemning themselves. Paul’s purpose was to show us all from which Christ redeemed Christians!

As Professor Peter J. Gomes wrote in his excellent book, The Good Book: Reading The Bible With Mind And Heart, in reading Scripture we must take account of what it says, what it means, its subtext, its context, what we bring to the text, and what we take out of the text; biblical principle must always trump biblical practice. Our cultural lenses and personal prejudices frequently blind us to what Scripture is saying, much as they blinded those who used Scripture to justify slavery, segregation, and subjugation of women inside and outside of the Church. It is essential to realize that text without context is error!

Although GLBT inclusiveness is in part a political matter, it is primarily a religious one, in that even homophobes who have never even set foot inside of a church frequently claim to speak for God on this matter. One may be a homophobe, but he or she cannot appeal to the Bible to justify his or her prejudices.

It’s high time that Christians actively stand up to the legalists, the haters, and hate-mongers both in and out of the Church, as perverters of the Gospel message of love, grace, faith, mercy, compassion, peace, reconciliation, and inclusiveness. There is not to be, nor can there be, “unity” at the expense of social justice! There cannot be a meeting of the minds when those who have a tenacious and vested interest in misusing the Bible, God’s love letter to His children, stridently condemn others, thereby helping to create and foment a climate of hate that results in the suicides and killings of GLBT people, many of whom, due to this hateful rhetoric, lead lives consumed with shame and self-loathing.

Christians must reclaim the Gospel of grace and the Bible of forgiveness, to show forth the God of love. And we must use every venue possible to show others that Christianity is antithetical to ignorant, erroneous, oppressive, and hateful biblical exegeses.

In reclaiming the Bible from those who would seek to hijack it, and who have distorted it, for their own religious, materialistic, and political agendas, we must all battle for full civil and sacramental rights for GLBT people, as by so doing we are battling for the very soul of the Church. And, therefore, we are ultimately engaging in this battle for God’s sake!

More from Rev. Dr. Jerry Maneker at: ChristianLGBTRights.org!

Homophobia Stems from the Unconscious

It might seem strange that my major intellectual influence has been Sigmund Freud. Although I don’t place much faith in his therapeutic modality, psychoanalysis, as being any more or less effective than any other therapeutic modality, particularly since it resists empirical study and possible verification or lack of verification, what makes Freud so important, in my opinion, are the insights he drew from his analyses of the human condition and the human psyche.

One of his many insights is stated quite succinctly by him: The ego is not master in its own house. (“A Difficulty in the Path of Psycho-Analysis,” 1917.)

That is, our conscious desires and motivations, our rational processes, are trumped by our unconscious drives and longings of which we are unaware! That is, our unconscious drives and needs are the major determinants of our thoughts, prejudices, rhetoric, and actions. In other words, we do not have the control of our beliefs and actions that we think we do!

When confronting another’s prejudices, that person may, when asked, seem to come to a rational explanation for those prejudices, with appeal to assorted “scientific” and “biblical” claims yet, when push comes to shove, those reasons are mere rationalizations used by the person in order to justify in his/her mind and in the minds of the questioner(s) why those prejudices are “rational” when, in fact, they are anything but rational but emanate from the unconscious longings and repressions, the resistances and the untamed and untamable forces that reside within the unconscious of the person with whose prejudices we are dealing.

In the case of homophobia, it is eminently clear that ignorance and/or hate are the root causes of those prejudices, and that hateful animus that propels and compels one to consistently seek to demean the other, and deny equal rights to Gay people, is coming from the unconscious of that person, those tempestuous forces of which he/she is largely, if not solely, unaware.

However, the homophobe’s conscious mind must make him/her and his/her homophobia seem “reasonable” to those who ask the question as to why that person is homophobic, so there is an attempt by the homophobe to invoke “credible evidence” in his/her conscious mind, particularly the homophobe’s interpretation of certain selected biblical verses, so that credibility can be sought and often, unfortunately, irrationally obtained by gullible people to the hateful utterances made by clergy and by other professing Christians in the name of God and the Prince of Peace.

Therefore, “sitting down and reasoning together” with strident homophobes, particularly religious homophobes, is a waste of time and energy, and is bound to degenerate into profound resistance and hostility on the part of the homophobe because his/her unconscious structure and drives make it virtually impossible for rational discourse to penetrate that structure and change those drives.

So, what is the answer in dealing with homophobia? Social Psychology has provided that answer in regard to many types of xenophobia!

Attitudes can only be changed by there first being a change (even a forced change, if necessary) in one’s behavior and then, over time, one’s xenophobic attitudes will change. For example, regarding the African-American civil rights struggle, it wasn’t until certain key court decisions and mandated integration in the military, public accommodations, and in schools occurred, and when Whites and Blacks were forced to work together as equals, that White attitudes toward Blacks became much more accepting and benign.

I’m not suggesting that Black-White relations are a bowl of cherries now, and that racism still doesn’t exist! What I am suggesting is that institutional racism is far less acute than before that forced behavior change; Black-White relations are much more convivial than existed prior to that forced behavior change.

So, we don’t change attitudes to evoke a certain desired behavior, but changes in behavior eventually create a change in attitudes! Therefore, we don’t work to change the attitudes of people, such as we see with the onerous attempt to appeal to “the milk of human kindness” by many Gay activists when Gay civil rights are despicably put up for a vote of the electorate, but we force the dominant group to deal with full and equal civil rights that come from the Judiciary and then, over time, Gay people will be far more integrated into the society than now exists; full and equal civil and sacramental rights will become a reality.

I understand that there are many Gay people who do not want to be integrated into dominant society, and they should be free to ghettoize themselves if they so choose. However, I have to believe that most Gay people do want equal rights and do want to embrace all of the rights of citizenship that heterosexuals enjoy, and if that is the goal, time, activism, monies, and energy must be spent and directed at the political-judicial arenas to force behavior change on the part of the dominant group so that their homophobic attitudes will eventually change.

And, over time, the unconscious drives and fears that prompt and propel homophobia will change to become more accepting of Gay people, and then, unfortunately, another minority group will be sought after for discrimination by those whose unconscious drives force them to discriminate.

But that fact is the subject of another civil rights struggle at some future time!

Read more from the Rev. Dr. Jerry Maneker at: Christian LGBT Rights!

Do You Still Think It’s About Gay Marriage?

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it now…again, the anti-gay movement in this country is NOT about marriage.  It’s NOT about the sanctity of a religious institution.  It’s not about protecting anyone or anything, it’s about hate, intolerance and bigotry.

Chris Buttars, Sally Kern, Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Julaine Appling and other anti-gay religious and evangelical zealots have stated that gay Americans are the biggest threat to this country, even a bigger threat than terrorist.  They say that LGBT Americans have an agenda and we will destroy the nation.

Time after time we’ve seen throughout history that those who accuse others are typically the ones who are to blame, and this is no different.  I’m going to go out on a pretty sturdy limb here and say the anti-gay, evangelical, religious righters in this country are actually the threat, and not only to LGBT Americans, but to LGBT people in other countries…as in Uganda.

The Rev. Dr. Jerry Maneker talks about “The Family” and this is something we need to really pay attention to.  Maneker is not the only one talking.  This is U.S. involvement and support of genocide.  This is serious and this has to be publicized.  People need to go to prison, people need to be charged and tried for terrorism, murder, and inciting violence.  Religious leaders in the U.S., including Pastor Rick Warren are guilty.  Have you ever heard the term aid and abet? Just in case, it’s the act of commissioning a crime by performing an overt act or by giving advice or encouragement. According to U.S. law, the person guilty must share the criminal intent of the person who actually commits the crime.

Pastor Rick Warren, and other religious leaders have spoken out against LGBT equality.  They’ve used the Bible to defend their homophobic stances.  They’ve also been the biggest opponents of hate-crimes legislation.  Have you wondered why?  Not because they’re worried they wont be able to stand up in church and say I hate fags, but because of their involvement in genocide.  Their involvement in the murders of LGBT people.  Their political involvement in Uganda.  Their tax exempt dollars funding murderous criminals.

The time has come.  We have to fight.  I wrote a piece yesterday about my “365 Plan for Equality“, asking you to pledge to email a church, a congressman, or another every day of the year.  Do what you can!  Do it NOW!  Speak out!  Let our voices rise and be heard.  This has to stop!  This is a crime!  What’s going on in Uganda is no different than what happened in Germany during WWII, you know, what Hitler did to the Jews!  This time, there are tax-exempt U.S. dollars supporting the genocide, and all in the name of God and the Bible!

So, who’s the bigger threat here?  LGBT Americans who want their rights or evangelicals who want to create death squads?  Who has the agenda here, LGBT Americans who want equality or evangelicals who want to kill LGBT humans?  What are you going to do to help stop this abomination?

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