Goodwill to Men? Not Yet

As Mike Signorile puts it, some things never change:

One thing you can always depend on each Christmas: 1) The Pope will attack gays and gay marriage (and this year transexuality) for all the violence in the world -- during his message about peace, joy and unity; 2) some crazed heterosexual will perpetrate a Christmas Eve massacre during the supposed season of comfort and joy, usually inspired by the stresses of his heterosexual marriage and the holiday season itself.

I already posted on the first point. Mike's second point is about the beyond-horrible mass murder of at least 10 people at a family Christmas dinner in Covina, California. The perp, a recently divorced in-law and a faithful usher at his Catholic church, arrived at the house dressed as Santa Claus and rang the doorbell. When an 8-year-old girl ran to open the door, he shot her in the face, then proceeded to kill everyone else he could, then set the house ablaze. After escaping the scene, he drove to his brother's house where he shot himself.

The 8-year-old and one other child are hospitalized in intensive care. Several others of the 27 people at the Christmas dinner were injured as well.

Jeezus, what kind of fucking monster can do such a thing? No matter how badly he got hurt, no matter how bad he got burned in the divorce. Especially one who attends Mass every week? What the hell goes on here? I just don't get it, not at all.

But I don't get a lot of things like that. For instance, all the increasing hate crimes against LGBT people, as the San Jose Mercury News reports. My heart goes out to the young gay woman who was brutally gang-raped and left naked on the street by four creeps in Richmond, California, this week. Police are still looking for the perps, two of whom go by the names "Blue" and "Pato," and a reward is offered for information on them.

Likewise, my sympathies to the families of 15-year-old Larry King; Jose Sucuzhanay, Duanna Johnson, and many others who had an empty chair at the Christmas table this week. All of those deaths caused by straight male homophobia and utter contempt for human life.

And ultimately, all of that is promoted and condoned by the arrogant, filthy lies put out by people like this asshat of a Pope and his Protestant counterparts like Rick Warren. Oh if you asked them, they would deplore the beatings and the killings, yes, very sad, such a pity.

But THEY are the ones who tell their flocks, and by extension the larger society, that we queers are sick, evil, perverted, doomed to eternal damnation and not fit to live; less than full and equal humans, way less, deserving nothing.

Oh and we're also destroying the family, society, the nation, the military, the economy, in fact the whole freaking planet. Why not shoot, stab, or beat us to death? Wouldn't that be doing the world a favor? Oh please. The Church/churches love to talk about Love and Peace on Earth, goodwill to men, yada yada, they love to play the sweet, holy act. Especially at Christmas. But what are they really all about? Now I grew up Christian here in the Deep South, and I'm not yet willing to let go of every part of that. My faith sustained me through some terribly dark nights of the soul, and I do believe there is a God/Higher Power/Whatever, bigger than any box we try to put Him/Her/It in.

But in recent years my eyes have been opened wide to all the hypocrisy and dishonesty and self-righteous, self-serving patriarchy that's made my life, and millions of others, a living hell for so long.

I've had it with the whole straight-white-male Christian church as it has been rocking along all these centuries. Many good people have belonged, and done good things; but the Church in its various branches and manifestations has also condoned for ages (until forced to change) scientific ignorance, slavery, the denial of women's rights and birth control, segregation, interracial marriage, and of course, homophobia. (One day soon I'm going to post here a summary of how the church has persecuted gays down through history; it's not anything new.)

But now I think I see a crack beginning in that last one; the Church (or churches) has changed its attitude on all the others, and it's time to get a new attitude on this one too. Real soon.

If there's anything of God in it. Because God is Love.

For more religious asshattery, here's Signorile's interview with Bill Donohue of the Catholic League about the supposed "campaign of violence" we queers are waging across the country now: