The recent
passage of an LGBT nondiscrimination ordinance in San
Antonio highlights yet again why the LGBT community urgently needs
to call out the propaganda that serves to demonize our community.
Before San Antonio
City Council voted for the ordinance, members of the LGBT community had to sit
through demeaning testimony that cast them as “promiscuous abominations.” One
supposedly well-meaning gentleman even took it upon himself to school everyone
in graphic detail about sodomy, thereby invoking the stereotype of gay men
wallowing in bodily wastes.
I personally
felt nauseated when I read the tweets about the testimony. I felt as if I’d
been strapped down in some time machine and transported back to when Anita
Bryant was trumpeting the false claim that gays “recruit” children to
supposedly “replenish” our ranks.
It was such a
long time ago that Bryant smeared the gay community, but here we are, decades
later, hearing the same lies in spite of the fact that we are supposed to be a
bit more enlightened. After all, isn’t this the post-Will & Grace era in
which the LGBT community are no longer consigned to the closets of fear,
stereotypes, and self-hatred?
So why did so
many people in San Antonio freely embrace some of the worst and most nauseating
stereotypes about the LGBT community?
To paraphrase
Shakespeare, the fault lies not in our stars but in ourselves. The LGBT community
has deceived itself into thinking that if we just sidestep the lies and
distortions and solely focus on “telling our stories” as ordinary people
seeking fairness under the American system, our problems with those who oppose
our right to equality will dissipate.
It’s high
time that the LGBT community realize that this belief is a false bill of goods
that serves as a pitiful Band-Aid to a problem that requires more than stories
designed to yank at the heart strings; indeed, such efforts make it look as if we
are begging for “tolerance.”
For every one
LGBT individual who successfully educates his or her neighbor, organizations
such as the National
Organization for Marriage, the Family
Research Council, and the American Family Association send out press
releases to thousands of people, spinning tales of gays persecuting Christians,
diseased gays who live shorter life spans than heterosexuals, or gays who enjoy
abusive relationships when they are not seeking to harm children.
We are dealing with a veritable juggernaut of lies not unlike those
spread about African Americans by segregationists, or those spread about Jewish
people by anti-Semites. The problem is that we don’t take this juggernaut
seriously. We laugh at the outrageous lies uttered about us by Bryan
Fischer of the American Family Association, Peter
LaBarbera of Americans for Truth, or Matt
Barber of the Liberty
Counsel, but we fail to see that by not publicly and forcefully
refuting these lies, we give them a clear field to influence Americans.
When we
underestimate the comments and claims that deliberately cast us as the
dangerous “other,” we forget that they do in fact move a significant part of
the population, either because of those people’s religious beliefs or because
Fischer and company are so adept at infusing fear of a gay takeover in their
minds.
We are
consistently under the illusion that addressing this propaganda gives it power,
but we have the entire idea backwards. Our refusal to confront this propaganda
is the very thing that gives it power.
Until the
LGBT community and our leaders declare war against the lies and liars and make
a serious effort to confront this propaganda head-on, America will have serious
problems seeing the real LGBT community. They will have problems seeing us as
tax-paying citizens who are concerned about our families, our children, and our
loved ones just like every other American citizen.
Instead, they
see a false image of LGBT persons as hedonistic, intolerant hypocrites who are
out to “force” people to “accept” our supposed “lifestyle” while we “recruit”
children or “persecute” Christians. These misconceptions will continue to nip at
our heels, undermining any progress we make at attaining equality.
Are we ever
going to turn around and confront these false images and the parties who push
them?
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