COLUMBIA--On January 8, South Carolina blogger Alvin McEwen
published an online booklet designed to take a new direction in refuting anti-gay
propaganda.
Three weeks later, he is astounded as to how successful the
booklet, How They See Us: Unmasking the Religious Right War on Gay America,
has been.
Since being published on the online site Scribd, the booklet has generated over 8,000
reads, over 81,000 embedded views and over 600 downloads. It was also named to Scribd’s Rising List, which is a list of publications
on the site generating many reads and views in a short amount of time.
McEwen credits the booklet’s success to fellow bloggers who,
like himself, embedded the booklet on their sites and publicized it by word of
mouth.
“This booklet wouldn’t have been as successful as it was
without the help and promotion of many of my friends and people who believe in
the work which I am doing. So I am extremely grateful for their help and
encouragement,” McEwen said.
However, mainstream gay media attention has eluded How
They See Us.
McEwen sent press releases to various large scale gay
magazines and blogs with little success.
He said he understands the lack of attention by the mainstream gay media
because of so many things happening in the gay community and the fact that he
has neither a national name nor reputation.
For the most part, McEwen has received much positive
feedback for How They See Us. But as
with all projects, there were a few complaints. Two complaints bothered McEwen tremendously.
“Some people got angry because I didn’t launch a wholesale
attack on Christianity and religion in general,” he said. “The goal of this
booklet was not to bash religion. I would never want to bash anyone’s religious
beliefs.”
And the other criticism really alarmed McEwen because it had
a lot to do with what he calls laziness and apathy.
“Some felt that my booklet was a waste of time,” McEwen
said. “They felt the anti-gay groups and the people mentioned should be ignored
and thus they will go away. That’s a serious problem in our community. We
deliberately underestimate the reach and power of religious right groups and
then get angry when these groups demonstrate that reach and power. Then we
think that raising hell and complaining about being ‘second-class citizens’ will get us over. We
refuse to be proactive rather than reactive. We rarely study these groups and
we rarely prepare to combat their lies before they come out.”
McEwen blames this on
a tendency of members of the gay community to run away from debating anti-gay
propaganda. He said it bothers him
whenever an anti-gay spokesperson is featured on a news program and his fellow
lgbts get angry, not because the spokesman is allowed to repeat the propaganda
unchallenged, but that he or she is allowed to speak at all.
“I personally have no problem with a spokesperson from the
Family Research Council or the National Organization for Marriage being
interviewed on a news program,” McEwen said. “The only problem I have is when
the interviewer hasn’t done his or her homework on the group or the
spokesperson isn’t debating someone from a pro-gay group. Censoring these people will only make them
stronger. We have to publicly call these
groups out and engage them in debate whether or not they want that debate.”
But McEwen was also encouraged by how some took to his
booklet, particularly lgbt youth. He said a few college and high school students
sent him messages thanking him for the information and some also said they
passed the booklet or the link around in their GSAs.
“This tells me that our lgbt youth are hungry for this
information because they are bombarded with negative propaganda almost every
day,” McEwen said. “And more than that, it underscores the need for us older
lgbts to publicly challenge anti-gay propaganda and those who push it. I think
it empowers our youth to see us calling the religious right out on their lies.
And unfortunately they don’t see enough of that.”
McEwen said he hopes that How They See Us will
reach over 100,000 reads and embedded views by the end of this week.
How They See Us is available for free on McEwen’s
blog and can also be downloaded from here.
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