Gay men as the new demons?
Dec. 14th, 2006 09:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quietannI was listening to the radio today (NPR) and there was a guest on who maintains that the Evangelical Right needs *someone* to demonize. For a long time, it was the G-dless Communists (who, after all, did have their finger on the button, just like the Americans did... I think there were good reasons to be terrified of them.) There was a parallel strand of Xtian thinking that held up women as the source of evil (e.g. Jezebel) but in response to the feminist movement, bashing women as whores and temptresses has become impossible in the modern-day Evangelical church. Even conservative, non-feminist women won't put up with it these days.
So that leaves us with the "predatory homosexual male" as the source of evil. Quite literally, there are Evangelicals who believe that an ordinary man walking down the street can have "demons" put into him by homosexual men, and these demons will cause him to have homosexual desire. (Apparently one of the pastors who's resigned over gay affairs recently is blaming demons for his failing...) The Evangelical movement knew what happened when expanding womens' civil rights meant that they could no longer demonize women, and so they are loathe to allow homosexuals civil rights, because then they'd have to find someone else to bash. (Illegal immigrants would be a good target, but they are almost all Xtian...)
Note that Evangelicals hardly ever talk about lesbians as cruelly as they talk about gay men. It's all about anal sex and being scared that some "straight" men might find they like it more than they like "mainstream" sex.
So that leaves us with the "predatory homosexual male" as the source of evil. Quite literally, there are Evangelicals who believe that an ordinary man walking down the street can have "demons" put into him by homosexual men, and these demons will cause him to have homosexual desire. (Apparently one of the pastors who's resigned over gay affairs recently is blaming demons for his failing...) The Evangelical movement knew what happened when expanding womens' civil rights meant that they could no longer demonize women, and so they are loathe to allow homosexuals civil rights, because then they'd have to find someone else to bash. (Illegal immigrants would be a good target, but they are almost all Xtian...)
Note that Evangelicals hardly ever talk about lesbians as cruelly as they talk about gay men. It's all about anal sex and being scared that some "straight" men might find they like it more than they like "mainstream" sex.
