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June 2016

This is the sort of thing I don’t normally post here. These are the hate filled words of Stephen L. Anderson of the Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona. He gave a hate-filled rant against “faggots” just hours after the killing of 49 innocent people. (The video was quickly taken down for violating the ‘hate speech’ rules on YouTube.) Anderson claims to be a Pastor – a guy who purports to teach the workings of the Lord – but he’s actually embodying an evil that masks itself as religion. That’s the most insidious atrocity of all, but it’s really not for me to decide. If your God is one that aligns with this despicable human being and the hatred he spews, I’d be more concerned for your own soul than mine.

Before most of the bodies had been identified, before the families had even been notified, Steven Anderson posted a video exalting in their deaths. That takes a certain level of cruelty that I have never witnessed until now. Certainly I’ve read about it – the mass murderers, the dictators, the genocides – but I’ve never quite seen it in this way, directed pointedly at me just because I’m gay. As annoying as I can sometimes be, I’ve never seen anyone actually feel so strongly that I deserved to be killed or, as he puts it, exterminated.

It’s a strange feeling to have such a bull’s eye on your chest.

It inspires fear in some people, but the opposite in me.

I feel galvanized and energized, enough to write this post and to make a promise that it won’t be the last.

Even though he has wished death for me and my LGBT family, I do not wish the same for him, and that’s hard to do. It would be easy to return his volley with acts of similar vile. But I won’t, as he has done, actively wish him harm or ill. Instead, I will merely share his words, from his mouth and his heart, and let you make up your own mind. This is one self-professed Christian’s response to the murderous rampage that killed 49 innocent people in a gay club in Orlando, Florida:

The Bible says that homosexuals should be put to death, in Leviticus 20:13. Obviously, it’s not right for somebody to just, you know, shoot up the place, because that’s not going through the proper channels. But these people all should have been killed, anyway, but they should have been killed through the proper channels, as in they should have been executed by a righteous government that would have tried them, convicted them, and saw them executed. Because, in Leviticus 20:13, God’s perfect law, he put the death penalty on murder, and he also put the death penalty on homosexuality. That’s what the Bible says, plain and simple.

So, you know, the good news is that at least 50 of these pedophiles are not gonna be harming children anymore. The bad news is that a lot of the homos in the bar are still alive, so they’re gonna continue to molest children and recruit people into their filthy homosexual lifestyle.

I’m not sad about it, I’m not gonna cry about it. Because these 50 people in a gay bar that got shot up, they were gonna die of AIDS, and syphilis, and whatever else. They were all gonna die early, anyway, because homosexuals have a 20-year shorter life-span than normal people, anyway. At least these dangerous predators, these dangerous filthy pedophiles at this gay bar, at least they’re off the streets.

- Stephen L. Anderson, Faithful Word Baptist Church

As for my usual penchant of avoiding such hideous people and ignoring their existence and hateful rhetoric, I’m taking exception in this instance, as I’ve done in cases that are especially egregious. Every now and then, you must acknowledge such evil, and if there’s one lining of silver in all of this it’s that there are now faces behind the hatred.

If you refuse to acknowledge that this plays a part in what happened in Orlando, if you cannot see or understand how the preaching of hatred disguised as religion is a direct cause of such needless violence against innocent people, then you yourself are part of the problem. And it’s everywhere – it’s in the question of whether this was a hate crime or an act of terrorism (they are not, nor have they ever been, exclusive of one another), it’s in the question of whether he intended to strike a gay club, and it’s in the question of why we’re so upset about this – if you wonder about those things, even on a philosophical level, you are part of a system that has trampled on LGBT individuals for centuries.

A true believer in Love and Light and whatever God in which you put your faith does not wish for death upon innocent people. They don’t follow the hypocritical ramblings of a book written centuries ago and proven antiquated and wrong time and time again. A true believer (and this goes across the board in all major religions) does not condone death upon another – those are man-made doctrines. Rather, at the core of every religion is a respect and love for ALL human life.

When the reasonable, thoughtful, caring and compassionate people of the world – the true bearers of peace and love, are faced with deciding what is right and wrong, Anderson will be confronted with a judgment not by God, but by humanity – by simple human decency – and it will be love, not hate, that banishes him to his own hell.

When our country was attacked on September 11, 2001, and my office was evacuated and sent home, I stepped outside into the brilliant blue-skied day of our backyard and felt haunted. Everything I did suddenly seemed small and insignificant when the scope and atrocity of what had just happened started to sink in. I went back inside and did the only thing I’ve done when nothing else seems to matter: I wrote. To my family, to my friends, to the people who mattered most to me, I wrote. Simple letters, letters telling them how much they meant to me, and how this was the only thing I could think of to do in such a tragic time. I guess that’s what I’m doing now.

This weekend was a celebration of LGBT Pride in many cities across the country. We attended a couple of events, and even in the face of torrential downpours we made an appearance at Albany’s Gay Pride celebration. When it was all done, I looked at Twitter and FaceBook and Instagram, and all I saw was love and happiness and joy. It was a rare and welcome break from political fighting and exposed hatred, the kind of day when all is rainbows and giddiness and smiles. On Sunday, I woke up, still on that Pride high, to the news that a shooter armed with an assault rifle had killed 50 people in a gay nightclub in Orlando. The shooter’s father apparently said that his son was disgusted by the sight of two men kissing. It is now the worst shooting in American history. Think about that. More than Newtown, CT. More than Aurora, CO. More than Columbine, CO.

As I struggle to find meaning in all of this, when clearly there may be none other than simple hatred, I wonder what, if anything, we can do about it. Gun control laws? Insuring that homophobic leaders don’t get elected? Supporting laws that continue to push for equality? Yes to all of that, but for me it begins on a smaller scale.

Whenever something like this happens, the first thing I want to do is hide and retract from the world. To give up on everything that makes me, and others, so happy. That shooter wanted to stop two guys from kissing because he didn’t like it. He would likely find offense at every other post on this site. And though my voice is small and limited, and the shooter is already dead, the best thing I know how to do is write posts like this. He tried to silence us, and so I shout louder.

The world is violent and mercurial – it will have its way with you. We are saved only by love – love for each other and the love that we pour into the art we feel compelled to share: being a parent; being a writer; being a painter; being a friend. We live in a perpetually burning building, and what we must save from it, all the time, is love. ~ Tennessee Williams