I'll Probably Make A Complete Mess Of This

     I'm going to try it anyway.

     Recently, I stopped hostessing BlogMeets and I scrubbed a couple of blogs from my blogroll.

     I hated to do it.  While my hearing and people-coping skills are barely up to the non-job of doing a BlogMeet, they were fun and I hoped Tam might set one or two up,  And I didn't want to drop the links, either; they went to guys who were (mostly) fun to read and had interesting things to say.

     But they've bought into and promote something I regard as a "Glittering Lie," a cross between a Glittering Generality and a Big Lie and their minds are quite firmly set.  And it's the kind of thing that can get people killed; it's the kind of thing that can get very bad laws made, and lead to very bad decisions.  And every time I look into one of their "irrefutable examples," the example turns out to be easily refutable.

     What is it?  Why, that gay people pressing for the right to marry one another is an attempt to destroy religion -- specifically Christianity and (per some) the Catholic Church.

     A couple of the most recent examples cited were:

    -Denmark's recognition of gay marriage; this traces back (as nearly as I could tell) to a guy speculating on a message board that clergy will be required by law to perform marriages for gay couples.  However, the law specifically allows individual clergy to refuse to perform such ceremonies.  (The Danish State Church is under a requirement to find a pastor who will if a couple's choice says nope -- but it's arguable if any other church in Denmark can be so required and has not been tested.)
     Denmark is not the United States, especially so on the notion of relations between church(es) and the State and yet even there, Just Saying No remains an acceptable response.

     -A baker in Colorado is being sued over twice turning away gay couples who wanted wedding cakes or wedding-reception cupcakes, and telling them it was on account of the owner's religion not condoning their relationships.  This is only about religion to the degree the owner chose to introduce it and in fact, they probably could've gotten away with a Bartleby-esque, "I would prefer not to," or a claim of being overbooked already.  But their particular location has chosen to apply Public Accommodation laws to homosexuals the same way they apply to race and religion: if you hang out a shingle to serve the public, you're obliged to serve all of the public (or at least the ones wearing shoes and shirts), and if you don't like that, it's time to either move or get out of business.*  Also, please note nobody was asking them to perform the ceremony nor is their church in any way harmed by them baking a cake.  True, it's all squicky for them; life's tough.

     But here's the problem: instead of pointing to this as examples of an activity they find undesirable, my dropped links claim it's part of a conspiracy.  An attempt led by "the gays" to destroy their church or Christianity in general.   This is highly unlikely, and would come as a surprise to those L/G people I work with who happen to be good, church-going folks (and no, not Metropolitan Community Church, either).  But it's more than unlikely: it's pernicious.  It's a Glittering Lie on the order of the one that, back in the Dark Ages, claimed Jews caused the Black Death by poisoning wells.  It's the kind of lie that violent fools use to justify harming others -- and I don't mean by making them bake a cake.

     Here's where it gets twisted: the same guys spreading the "gay marriage is really a plot to destroy the Church" bumfodder tell me -- straight-faced -- that they bear gay folk no enmity.  None whatsoever; why, as long as the LBG set keeps the shades drawn, it's no problem at all.  And I am sure they mean it, too. 

     Nevertheless, those who claim "Jewish businessmen stabbed Germany in the back" "The Irish are subhuman, lazy louts "African-American men have uncontrollable lusts" "gay people don't really care about wedlock, they just want to ruin the church," are gonna get 'em killed.  In ugly ways.  By idiots.  Oh, the brickbat won't be in their hands, nor any blood on 'em; they'll read about it in the paper over breakfast and remark, "Tut-tut.  How dreadful."  (And the victim's partner will get turned away at the morgue, having no recognized connection to the deceased.)

     I don't condone that.  If you want to believe such things and spend thousands of words on it, go for it; but you can't do it here, nor in any forum I control.  If you simply don't approve of gay marriage, fine; we can disagree.  We can write our Congresthings, or wave signs at one another; that's how it works. I don't care if you like gay people or loathe them, as long as you give them the same respect you give any other fellow citizen. If you don't understand how the First Amendment works anent religion here in the United States, perhaps you'll learn.  But I won't help spread what I can only regard as dreamed-up paranoid fantasies, no matter how finely-chopped the prose espousing them.  It makes me sick to my stomach -- actually physically bilious -- to be placed in a position of even appearing to do so. 

     You know what else curdles my guts?  Having to write this.  But I kind of had to.

     Comments will be deleted if they cross the line. If too many people whine about that, comments will be closed.
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* While I would personally prefer businesses were free to openly discriminate  just as much as they liked against whatever people or groups they didn't like and get boycotted and/or picketed over it big as life, that's not the world we live in.  Instead, the discrimination's subtle and sneaky, unless somebody's looking to pick a fight.  Remind me again why that's an improvement?