GAY, GODLESS AND GOOD
by Peter R Taylor
The three religions based on the Old Testament [Judaism, Christianity and
Islam] are all homophobic. Why? There’s no logical reason. It seems to be
based purely on a generalised dislike for the notion. I can understand their
distaste because to me the idea of a man and a woman having sex and indulging
in cunnilingus is quite nauseating. However, what consenting adults do in
private is no business of mine and I wouldn’t consider damning them for it.
The oft quoted sin of Sodom, frequently used as justification for homophobia,
was, in fact, the rape of men by heterosexuals in order to humiliate strangers
by treating them like women. Likewise in Judges 19-21. Deuteronomy 32: 17-18,
refers to a heterosexual stud involved in fertility rites that infiltrated
Jewish worship. As for 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10 , they refer
to prostitution - not love. Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 and Genesis 38 1-11
ban masturbation as well as same sex activity because in those days they
thought the male sperm contained everything necessary to make a child — the
woman was merely an incubator. Underpopulation was a major problem then,
so it made sense to discourage the waste of precious male seed! Today, faced
with annihilation through overpopulation, commonsense would suggest we encourage
homosexuality!
Perhaps the major factor is the dent it makes in their concept
of ‘male dignity’, or as we now say, Macho Image. The Middle East then as
now was a rampantly patriarchal society where women are considered inferior.
For a man to be equated with a woman was worse than death. Therefore, to
‘take the part of a woman’ reflected poorly on the machismo of the whole
tribe. Indeed, it was so demeaning that Leviticus demanded the death penalty.
Christian countries have obeyed this law until quite recently — happily burning
gays to death. The death penalty still applies in Muslim countries. Today
in Australia and the USA, Christian and Muslim youths continue the tradition
by bashing, maiming and murdering gays with the [covert] blessing of their
religious leaders. A couple of years ago in a public meeting in Sydney, Sheik
Shadi, a Muslim cleric, supported by Keyser Trad of the Lebanese Muslim Association,
called for an Islamic court to be set up which would give Muslims the power
to stone gays and lesbians to death.
But why are homosexuals still hounded?
The Old Testament damns hundreds of other things such as nudity [god would
be shocked!! {This is what they believe!}]; sexual intercourse during the
7 days of the menstrual period [punishable by execution]; touching menstrual
blood [renders you unclean]; intercourse [renders one unclean until sundown];
brides who are not virgins [to be stoned to death]; adultery [stoned to death].
All those ‘laws’ are ignored today. In contrast, Polygamy was not condemned
— it was common practice then, but is condemned today! Paul [a misogynist]
recommends not marrying at all! [Gore Vidal reckons he was Timothy’s lover,
rewarding him by making him Bishop of Antioch.]
The Old Testament decrees
that women are mere chattels to be bought and sold in a male dominated society.
It endorses slavery, including female sex-slaves. It reckons the earth is
flat, the centre of the universe, and the sun moves around it. Several writers
encourage the ‘faithful’ to murder unbelievers. All these dreadful things
have been conveniently ‘forgotten’. Why hasn’t homosexuality gone the way
of these other outdated ‘laws’?
As well as the continuing machismo nonsense,
it’s a question of saving ‘face’. Christians have spread the lie that they
invented morality, ethical behaviour, kindness, good deeds etc. and sell
themselves as ‘soldiers of Christ’ fighting ‘sin’. Well, modern society has
decided that the old sins are simply human nature and refuse to be shamed.
Only one group, gays, a substantial percentage of the population have been unable
to throw off this burden of insane Old Testament damnation.
To demonstrate
they are protecting the world from evil, Christians have clung to their last
scapegoat — gays — and denounce, harass, humiliate and instigate hatred and
violence against them to prove they are doing ‘god’s will’. It is sick and
cruel. It is much worse than racism because a racially abused boy can at
least seek the support of his parents. A gay boy has no one. His parents’
minds have been poisoned by religious dogma. He has to face hatred and damnation
for the way he was born completely alone. There’s no one to turn to. That
so many gay youths suicide is understandable. That so many survive to live
relatively normal lives is amazing. Most heterosexuals don’t dare to help
— Christian venom can be very frightening indeed.
Interestingly, Jesus is
quoted in Luke 12:57 as saying ‘Why do you not judge for yourselves what
is right?’ If this excellent advice were followed, everyone would be free
to take into account new knowledge that shows that homosexuality is a normal
variation of sexuality.
Today, with all the rational, scientific knowledge
at our disposal regarding the nature of this planet and its inhabitants,
the belief in gods, saints and angels is a form of insanity similar to agoraphobia,
kleptomania, claustrophobia and other dementias that only affect part of
the brain, leaving the sufferer able to act normally most of the time. I
call this illness ‘Theomania” and it results from the teaching of irrational
ideas from the earliest possible age.
For the first 6 years or so of life,
human brains learn by ‘imprinting’. This is an almost instantaneous process
of learning and, unlike later learning, is never forgotten. It may recede
to the ‘back of the brain’ but can be ‘triggered’ by certain stimuli. Recent
French studies have confirmed that the first face a baby sees on opening
its eyes is imprinted on its memory. If that face belongs to the mother then
that child will have few problems respecting and obeying its parents. If
it isn’t the mother, then behavioural problems often develop. Languages,
like everything else of importance to survival are imprinted at an early
age. A child exposed to several languages spoken fluently during his formative
years will be multilingual. After the age of about six, things are learned
differently and are forgotten unless used frequently. The Jesuits are notorious
for saying: “Give us a child till he is four and you can do what you like
thereafter — he will always be ours,” Frightening, but true!
Children quickly
learn to relate actions to consequences. Crying brings food. Falling hurts.
Fire burns. Squashing a bug kills it. When the sun goes down it gets dark.
If you do this, then that will happen… this is how we all learn to Reason,
to use Logic and behave Rationally.
Fairy tales about good and bad, giants
and gnomes, magic and enchantment teach children moral values. Later, reason
tells them these stories are fantasy. However, in religious homes the myth
of a god in the sky who made the universe, who sees all, hears all, and directs
all is not dismissed as fantasy! Religious parents and priests insist that
there are such things as angels in a place called heaven where, instead of
dying, good people go to eat cream cakes forever. They swear the truth of
hell where bad people go to burn forever. This nonsense interrupts the natural
process of the development of logic. The child’s mental development is warped
and the only way to cope is by closing that part of their brain to reason.
That is what we call insanity. From then on they are unable to discuss, debate
or countenance any facts that will prove their fantasy of gods, angels, heavens
and hells is nothing but a figment of their imagination.
There’s no point,
therefore, in arguing with a religious person. Their insanity is reinforced
every time they go to church. Rational thinking about religion is impossible
for them, and their response to questioning is frequently anger. Such people
must be treated as irrational children — which is what they are when it comes
to religion.
Gays with parents in that category are asking for trouble if
they tell their parents/friends/ teachers that they are gay. Only pain will
come of it because no rational argument can affect that infantile indoctrination
— that certitude that god hates gays and they’ll be damned forever to the
fires of hell. The rational argument that if god makes us all in his image,
he is therefore male as well as female, heterosexual as well as homosexual,
has no chance of denting the insanity of godspeak. Nor does the evil notion
of a god deliberately making someone gay and then persecuting him, affect
their sense of decency. All morality, all decency goes out the door when
religion rears its ugly head.
Amazingly, it’s only when it comes to religion
that these people malfunction. If you tell them you can fly, they won’t be
stupid enough to believe you without a demonstration. If you tell them the
cat that died last week has clawed its way out of its grave and is waiting
for food, they won’t believe you unless they see it. Yet when a priest tells
them a virgin gave birth and her son rose from the dead — they nod their
heads wisely. Tell them that when you close your eyes you can ‘see’ what
the neighbour’s doing, and they’ll tell you not to be silly. But tell them
there’s a supernatural creature that’s everywhere at once, who knows what
goes on in the hearts and minds of six billion people all the time, and they’ll
believe you. When told that god hates gays they shudder in fear that their
son might be gay. If told their son is just being naughty and only pretending
to be gay, and he can be ‘cured’ — they’ll send their son to have his mind
destroyed, despite dire warnings from reputable behavioural psychologists
about the dangers of such mind-bending. Tragically, if their religious ‘adviser’
tells them something they never check the facts. So, what to do if you’re
young and gay?
Some religious inanities
and responses:
So,
chin up and remember: -
Scientific studies have
shown that homosexual activity occurs in about ten percent of all ‘higher’
animals. Biological Exuberance: Animal homosexuality and Natural Diversity
by Bruce Bagemihl is an excellent and challenging work of great scientific
merit that prove homosexuality is a natural variation of sexuality.
No one chooses their sexual orientation. We’re born with
it in the same way as we’re born right or left handed, and there’s nothing
we can do about it. When I was five my teacher tried to make me right handed.
I began to stutter, got depressed, started having tantrums, couldn’t sleep
- my mother thought I was going mad and told the teacher to lay off. I immediately
reverted to being a normal happy kid. My memory of the experience is still
strong, so I can imagine the utter horror of being forced to ‘disown’ my
natural inclinations. For adolescents who are sent to ‘reform’ camps to have
their natural sexual orientation beaten out of them, the situation is like
murder. So traumatic that permanent personality damage frequently occurs.
And it doesn’t work!
Gays love their families
- especially if they are loved. It is religion that breaks up families by
telling parents that their gay son is evil, so he is rejected, sent away,
disinherited. [A small study in Britain set out to discover who were the
best parents and the conclusion was that gays were.]
Only a tiny percentage of men like to
cross dress, and a large number [possibly the majority] of transvestites
are heterosexual. Because the only gays most people see are drag queens,
they imagine we’re all like that. In fact, most gays are embarrassed by or
actively dislike guys who dress as women.
Totally false.
Statistically, heterosexuals are more likely to be child molesters than gays.
In other words, a child is safer with a gay man than with a heterosexual
man.
Anal sex is very popular amongst heterosexuals,
in fact it was the preferred [if not the only] means of contraception in
most countries for centuries before condoms. And it still is, I guess, as
condoms are still banned by the catholic church, leading to thousands of
unwanted pregnancies and deaths through infection. Although no official surveys
have been conducted, it’s my impression that anal sex is not universally
popular amongst gays. About as many dislike it as like it.
Definitely not true. Sexual orientation is
only one aspect of human behaviour and has nothing whatever to do with intellect,
strength, skill, character… in all respects other than our choice of sexual
partner, we are exactly the same as every other human. As capable of love,
friendship, reliability, hard work, compassion, enjoyment, happiness…. All
the things that go to make a person’s life worthwhile. I met my partner
when we were both twenty-four. Neither of us were virgins. Both were seeking
a friend. If the friend was a lover as well, so much the better. The initial
attraction was both intellectual and sexual. Over the years we’ve become
so bound together by common experiences, endless discussion, shared habits,
mutual respect, surviving horrendous arguments, and pleasure in each other’s
company that life apart would cease to have meaning. Nearly forty years later
the relationship’s as strong as ever. Loving companionship — that’s what
it’s all about in the end. If you can discover that [and it takes a lot of
work!] then you’ve found peace and contentment - a rare commodity in the
human world. [A recent USA study indicated that gay relationships are as
stable and long lasting as heterosexual relationships.]
The idea that gays are insatiable sexual monsters is another
lie. All young animals are sexually promiscuous. Gays are no different to
heterosexuals in this regard. Given the chance, heterosexuals are at least
as sexually active as gays. Unfortunately, it’s also a fact that too many
casual sexual partners and carelessness with sexual hygiene can result in
appalling infections and diseases.
Most of the millions
of AIDS sufferers are heterosexual.
Again, there’s
no discernible difference between the drug-taking behaviour of heterosexual
youth and gay youth. But warnings must be taken seriously. Drugs can be very,
very dangerous - especially crystal-meth.
Ridiculous. Gays are citizens. They pay their taxes like everyone else, so
they should reap the benefits that heterosexuals get. That’s all any gay
wants — to be treated equally with all other citizens before the law.
* Homophobia is a form of insanity.
* Parents who
do not respect their children do not deserve respect themselves.
* You are
what you are and that’s all there is to it, so you might as well be proud
of yourself.
Please feel free to contact us if you have questions or comments
about anything in this article.
Best wishes,
Peter R Taylor.
