Prophets of Hate

Two recent headlines caught our attention this morning:

From the Houston Chronicle: Murder Suspect Says He Was Doing God's Work From the Muskegon Chronicle: Parents Choose to Accept Son Over Church, Friends

The first is a story about a Texas man who claims that he was ordered by God to murder a gay flight attendant.

The second article tells the story of a evangelical Christian family (dad was a minister) who chose to love and accept their gay son when he came out to them. When they challenged the church's teachings on homosexuality, Dad was stripped of his ministry and he and his family were shunned by their religious 'community.'

These articles, scrutinized together, speak truth to our belief that religious 'moralists' -- who we call prophets of hate -- incite acts of violence toward LGBTQ people. Add to the mix governmental approval -- by silence or by mean-spirited legislation -- that separates LGBTQ people as different from (and therefore less deserving than) other American citizens, and you have a recipe for emotional AND physical harm heaped upon a despised minority.

It is a known fact that social and legal inequity in and of itself causes emotional harm.

In 1954, the Supreme Court deliberated on whether the 'Separate but Equal' doctrine violated the Constitutional rights of Black school children. As evidence that the education system was unfair, the NAACP offered the results of a social research project called the "doll test" conducted in the 1940's by psychologists Kenneth Clark and his wife, Mamie Phipps Clark. In the study, the Clark's gave Black children identical -- except for color -- dolls, and asked them to say which dolls they preferred. Most of the children "selected the white dolls and attributed positive characteristics to them."

The study laid bare the obvious harm caused to Black children who were treated differently than White children. The Black children BELIEVED in their own inferiority simply because the world they lived in reflected that image back to them.

It is no different for LGBTQ people and our families.

• There MUST be something wrong with us, right? Otherwise, the late night talk show hosts and morning shock jocks wouldn't be getting rich from using the words "fag" and "dyke" and audiences wouldn't keep laughing at homophobic jokes...

• We MUST be worthless, right? Or State and Federal lawmakers would NOT pass laws that discriminate against us and prevent us from obtaining equal rights and benefits for our loved ones.
  

• We MUST be immoral, right? Or religious leaders wouldn't preach to their congregations that our "lifestyles" are a sin and an abomination. They wouldn't try to "cure" us of our disease. They would not be spending (and taking in) big bucks on anti-equality campaigns.
  

The damage caused by these messages have parents and siblings rejecting their LGBTQ family members and leave some LGBTQ people -- young and old -- feeling like they want to die. And many do take their own life...

Sometimes it just seems the more progress we make the harder the homophobes push back against the tide of acceptance....