Take me with you, Gay pride parade
To commemorate Gay pride, here’s an article I wrote for Outlook Weekly, a gay paper in Columbus, Ohio, for last year’s Pride issue:
Last month, I talked to some of the protestors at the Columbus Pride Parade for about 40 minutes, because I was honestly curious, do they all believe the same thing? Or is it like a backwoods groupthink relying entirely on peer pressure? Below are some questions I posed them and the answers they gave. I did not change anything; these are all quoted verbatim.
AL: What are you hoping to accomplish by protesting?
Protest Leader: No. 1, we’re not protesting. We don’t protest. We’re lifting up the standard of Jesus Christ.
AL: Why aren’t there any women with you?
PL: We do have, they’re just not right here.
AL: Why are you all white?
Protestors: We were born that way.(Laughter). …If we could find some blacks and Mexicans to come out here and do this with us …There was a black guy here with us last year.
PL: Maybe a lot of people, black people, Spanish people, all kinds of people, maybe they’re all in these churches preaching tolerance. I preach tolerance, too. God’s tolerant when I sin, and God forgives me. But the Bible says, “Then, therefore, should we continue in sin, that grace may abound. God forbid.” So we don’t continue our sin for life. You see, I wasn’t a squeaky-clean guy. You know, I’ve done two big bits in the penitentiary; I done a whole lot of things. But guess what happened one day? Jesus stretched down, picked me up, cleaned me up, and set me on that solid rock, and I began to walk that straight life. If he can do that for me, he can do that for anybody.
AL: So are you an ex-gay?
PL: I’m a what? No, sir. I’m an ex-con.
AL: When you say that you’re an ex-con, it suggests that at any point in anybody’s life, they could just ask for forgiveness and that’s enough. So a serial killer would be OK?
PL: Certainly.
Slow-Speaking, Confused Protester: Homosexually, first of all, it is a perversion and a sin. I mean, look at every other kind of lifestyle and animal life and everything.
AL: Well, animals are generally homosexual. Have you ever been to a dog park?
SSCP: Well, their sexual orientation produces offspring. …OK? A male and a female dog breed, OK? …I raise dogs. There’s no intercourse. …Dogs have a desire to breed that God put in them, OK? A male dog don’t have an intellect. That’s just instinct for him. A male dog to hump another dog. A female dog, when it goes into heat, it’ll hump another dog to get the attention, so it can ultimately have a male and female breeding and produce dogs, OK?
AL: My dog’s a male and he humps another male, the dog next door, all the time. If it’s an instinct, why do they hump other males?
SSCP: I don’t know. It’s a procedure.
AL: So how could humping other males be wrong if it’s instinct?
SSCP: It’s not a choice. …If you’re human, you have a choice. …See I can control, just like you can control. You don’t have to have sex. Well, a dog, he doesn’t think, “Well, I don’t want to have sex.” Because he doesn’t have an intellect.
AL: If homosexuality is an abomination, would you protest two male dogs having sex?
SSCP: No. What are you going to do about something you never created? …I don’t know. I’m not a veterinarian.
AL: You’re saying that having sex is a choice, but being gay is not? But who you’re attracted to is not a choice?
SSCP: It is a choice. Being gay is a choice. It’s a sin. …I was attracted to my wife. …I’m attracted to every decent-looking woman. …But you’re trying to say that your natural, fleshly desires, you can’t control them. And you can. Through the blood of Jesus Christ. He’ll give you power to control them…
AL: I’ve been to ex-gay meetings, and these guys are miserable.
SSCP: Let me tell you, you reap what you sow. …you take a two-by-four, and hammer in a nail, you pound that nail into that two-by-four, pull the nail out, because (pause) what’s supposed to be in there, the nail’s not in there anymore, right? Let’s call that sin. What is still in that board? There’s a hole in there, okay? That’s sin. The scars of sin. The scars of sin lead you mentally and morally, ah, ah, into depression.
AL: But if a man tries to be pure and can’t do it, because of his sexual urges, they’re just overwhelming – say he manages, and he gets married to someone, but he’s still totally miserable – what was he supposed to be in life?
SSCP: (Long pause) God, God, God said his word, what he said, about homosexuality, and I believe it.
AL: Do you believe in independent thought?
SSCP: Huh?
AL: Do you believe in independent thought?
SSCP: I guess. Well, what do you mean by that?
AL: I’m trying to get to the bottom of it, really.
Eastern European Guy, Thick Accent: We’re from Europe, OK, and I can tell you for sure, in five years, if nothing change, in five years, listen these words, there will be bestiality, and pedophiles presented on this parade.
AL: Is that what happens when you disobey the will of God?
Sixteen-Year-Old Boy: You see, God punished the, um, the Jews, because he chose them and he, um, came to die basically for everybody. He came to them and they didn’t accept him. So basically for all this time they were being punished. Germany was killing them and everyone was killing them and basically at the end God said, “Enough is enough.”
A: But Hitler killed everyone – Jews, gays, blacks. What did the black people do to deserve being punished?
SYOB: He was a racist.
AL: So you’re saying that God was punishing the Jews through Hitler? But what does this have to do with the Bible and homosexuality?
EEGTA: If we’re talking about gay parade, uh (long pause) You saw, probably, I did, I hope you saw lots of perversion. Naked people and posing in a way I don’t want.
AL: Well, I saw a guy wearing a cock sock. I’ll give you that.
SYOB: Women were walking around with their tops off.
AL: But that’s legal in Columbus. Why is it morally OK for a man to walk around shirtless, but not a woman?
SYOB: Because a man doesn’t have, uh, breasts.
AL: Sure they do. Ever see a fat guy?
EEGTA: That’s how we go into bestiality. …The difference is because she is a woman. …Do you believe in the evolution theory? So why human wouldn’t have sex with animals?
AL: Because we’re not attracted to animals.
SYOB: (Interrupts) Well, some people – a lot of people are attracted to animals. It happens a lot.
