Marriage Equality Yes! Gay Rage, No!

Anyone who has read this blog knows that I am defender of gay rights, perhaps even to a fault. However, what I am not a defender of is hypocrisy. As it says in my mission statement, this blog was created in an attempt to express three virtues: open-mindedness, tolerance, and logical coherence. In previous posts I have gone out of my way to argue for more positive imagery for homosexuals on TV and in movies, as well as greater tolerance in our society as a whole when it comes to all types of sexual options. So obviously I am not one to chastise the gay community, that is, unless they fail to live by their own standards.

One of the selling points of the gay civil rights movement has been love and tolerance, and I am with them all the way on that one. A man (or woman) should be able to love and live in peace in whatever way they see fit without experiencing any direct verbal or physical threats to their person. I think we are all in agreement so far. But recently I have seen a kind of behavior shift that seems to be at odds with this much celebrated rallying cry. Indeed, a movement that once boasted a kinship with Martin Luther King Jr., has begun to look more and more like the Black Panthers.

At first when people began to suggest this to me, I dismissed it as sour grapes over the recent victories in favor of the LGBTQ community. However, as I began to investigate these claims further, I found something more than a little bit disturbing. Those who had formerly decried the mindless hate of the anti-gay crowd for bullying, were now "mindlessly" doing the same. And those who claimed that religious people had no rational basis for being against gay marriage, were now rejecting rational argumentation altogether and replacing it with vicious ad hominem attacks.

Where have I experienced this, you might ask? I decided to conduct a little experiment. Other than paying a little closer attention to the lengthy Facebook threads that are out there on the subject, I myself decided to play the devil's advocate in some discussions of my own. I certainly was under no illusion that the arguments would be pleasant, but I did for my own part commit myself to speaking in as respectful a manner as possible. My expectation was that it would difficult, but that for the most part people would be relatively cordial and avoid attacking me. Boy was I wrong! After a few of those conversations, I myself felt like I needed one of those "It Gets Better" commercials if only to avoid my own despair.

It wasn't simply that they disagreed with me or called me a bigot for taking the position I took. It was the level of vitriol that both terrified and wounded me. I was thinking to myself 'here I am speaking to a group of people that should be relatively happy (or gay if you will) at the direction our culture is taking', but instead of feeling elated, they were quite literally hurling verbal bile at me. In fact, the most popular insult seemed to involve (for whatever reason) human feces. My personal favorites were being regarded as a human colonoscopy bag, as well as a steaming pile of shit. Obviously this happens on both sides of the aisle, but before all of this happened to me, I had always assumed that it was primarily anti-gay bigots who did this stuff. But what I found in conducting this experiment was not just that a few people were expressing this so called "gay rage", but that in the midst of all this ugliness, plenty of others felt inclined to join in the ugly affair. Very few, if any, stepped in and asked people to tone it down. If their gay friends said something vile, they either did so themselves, or pretended like nothing ugly had happened, and instead just "liked" everything that was said on behalf of gays.                    

Just to give you an idea, my "debates" generally went something like this; "(me) I disagree with gay marriage because I think the role of the family.... blah blah blah. (them) Shut up you f'ing colonoscopy bag." Rarely did anyone actually address my arguments without the conversation descending into some form of personal attack. My larger point is simply this: I want to support gay rights without reservation. Why? a) I want people to be happy, whoever they are; b) Supporting the LGBTQ community always seemed to me the most loving and tolerant position to take, especially considering their all-embracing credo. However, in light of my experience I now have some doubts. First, if this lifestyle and belief system is so liberating and freeing, then why do its proponents behave like rabid animals in the presence of reasoned argumentation? Secondly, if defending gay rights is really about peace, love, and tolerance, then why weren't these people at least willing to listen to someone else's view on the matter (and no I am not talking about the type of person who threatens them with hell fire)? Look, obviously there are gay men and women who don't fall under the previously mentioned category, but then where were they in the midst of these conversations that I both observed and participated in. If the LGBTQ community won their argument with the public based on an appeal of love, tolerance, and equality, then let them rise and fall on that glorious platform and I will stand right with them. But if they start behaving like those dreadful Westboro Baptist hate-mongers, I can do little else than declare that they are in truth no better than those heterosexist bigots that they themselves are so quick to condemn.