Monday, November 24, 2014

Gay men have over 20,000 sexual partners? Really?

One of the saddest things about fighting stereotypes is no matter how much you achieve, said stereotypes don't go away. In fact, they get repeated with force and volume.

As an African-American, I've dealt with being called lazy, criminal-minded and stupid more times than I can count.

As a gay man, I've had to deal with the following, courtesy of Right Wing Watch:

Lord Christopher Monckton, a columnist for the far-right WorldNetDaily, today came to the defense of an Australian politician, Rosalie Crestani, who is trying to pass a law to prevent her local government from mentioning LGBT issues and holding diversity trainings. Monckton, who derisively refers to the LGBT community as “QWERTY,” like the keyboard layout, said that Crestani discovered during a consultation with “an expert in non-heterosexual lifestyles” that “homosexuals had an average of 500-1,000 partners in their sexually active lifetime, and that some had as many as 20,000.” “One wonders how they found time for anything else,” Monckton quips, adding that gay people lead “short, miserable lives” as part of their “deathstyle.

Regardless of what Monckton implies, if gay men did actually have up to 20,000 sex partners, no matter how long or short our lifespans would be, we would NOT be unhappy. I can assure you that. Seriously though, the idea that gay men are oversexed and have an enormous amount of sex is repeated by members of the anti-gay right, even if this idea contradicts a lot of the other things they say about gay men, as Monckton demonstrates as he continues to ruminate about alleged gay sexual habits:
 
As the experts she has consulted have pointed out, the QWERTYs – who represent about 0.5 percent of the population – have brilliantly promoted themselves by carefully shifting the debate away from what homosexuals actually do to each other (just ask any proctologist: all of them are heartily sick of trying to repair the gross damage caused by deviant sexual practices) and on to “celebrating” what is misleadingly presented as a “valid alternative lifestyle.” 

How in the world can gays be 0.5 percent of the population and be having all of this sex? And just what proctologists did Monckton consult? The man is lying through his teeth. And he proves something awful about anti-gay stereotypes. No matter how many times they are refuted, they are constantly repeated. The following is from an anti-gay comic published in the 1980s, which I have featured several times.  It pretty much says the same thing Monckton does:


It's easy to laugh at this stuff now. But don't. Though, with the exception of folks like Matt Barber, Linda Harvey, Peter LaBarbera,  Brian Camenker, and Bryan Fischer, the vast majority of the anti-gay right wouldn't dare to overtly repeat this mess, we should remember how successful such stereotypes were decades ago when they were repeated openly and we should also remember how successful they are now when repeated in places like Uganda and Russia when enterprising homophobes exploited religious beliefs to attach such awful images to the idea that homosexuality is a sin.

That's why when we read things like what Monckton wrote, we can't be quick to laugh or be nonchalant about it. Stereotypes are generally used to hurt people and they aren't hurting you, you can bet they are hurting someone else.

Related posts:

 All of the 'evil and dirty' things that the gays do

How They See Us: Unmasking the Religious Right  War on America - Scribd or Wordpress


' Anti-gay #DefendtheDuggars twitter campaign backfires' & other Monday midday news briefs

Religious Conservatives' Attempt To #DefendTheDuggars Backfires Hysterically - And the moral is if you are known for conducting boycotts, your defending something against a boycott by labeling your opposition as opponents of free speech will bite you in the ass. 

In prep for Pope's 2015 visit, World Meeting of Families readies gay stigma, exclusion - Mercy! Give us all strength!  

For Most Gays, The Golden Years Are Looking Something Less Than Golden: VIDEO - Which is an issue we need to address.  

Evangelical 'Kingmaker' Working To Vote 1000 Christian Pastors Into Political Office - 'Bloody Mary' Tudor and Torquemada would be very proud.  

Fischer: Impeachment Campaign Should Copy The Gay Rights Movement - What?!

'Religious freedom' bills will be next chapter in anti-gay discrimination

In the 50s and 60s, they said we were perverts who ought to be jailed.

In the 70s, they said we recruit children.

In the 80s, they said we were diseased freaks who run around catching AIDS.

In the 90s, they said we wanted "special rights."

In the 2000s, they said we wanted to redefine marriage.

Now they claim we are trying to put Christians out of business and jail them.

According to Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, those against marriage equality aren't wasting any time plotting their next move. In fact, they see the victories for marriage equality as a gateway to allow discrimination against gays on  larger scale:

Most state legislatures don’t come back into session for a few months, yet legislators are already announcing their intent to introduce so-called “religious freedom” bills for 2015. These bills would introduce identical or even broader versions of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA)—the law that was distorted to allow corporations like Hobby Lobby to use religion to ignore the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate. Legislators are advocating for these bills by claiming they will create broad religious exemptions from nondiscrimination laws.

AU strongly believes in religious freedom and appropriately tailored religious accommodations. Despite the fact that these bills claim to protect religious freedom, in reality they are a threat to civil rights. The language in these bills is too broad and unclear, and could open the door for serious and even harmful unintended consequences, including nullifying discrimination, public safety, and health laws.

Several states pushed RFRA bills in 2014, but experienced passionate backlash from civil rights groups and the business community: even the NFL threatened to change the location of the 2015 Super Bowl if the RFRA bill passed in Arizona. The bill still passed the legislature, but Governor Brewer thankfully vetoed it.

At least five states have announced religious freedom bills for the upcoming session: Georgia, Michigan, Texas, North Carolina, and Utah.

Read the rest of the article to see the progress of those laws and count on the number of states to grow. This will be the next chapter of the so-called culture war and if the lgbt community is smart, we won't be caught napping . . . this time.