Let’s talk about sex, baby – Salt N Pepa
You’re welcome to argue, as a matter of personal morality and theology, that homosexuality is wrong. You’d be wrong, but you’re welcome to argue it.
You cannot make a case that LGBTQ+ rights are harmful to society.
“Oh, but they’re grooming kids.”
Oh really?
My apologies to readers here, but you’ve stumbled upon a topic covered here by a writer who has done extensive work on sexual abuse on sports. So when you come in here with your “the gays is grooming” nonsense, you’re going to get a reality check.
If you think my examples from sports, where male coaches have preyed on female athletes for generations, are anecdotal, consider schools, where the research shows the overwhelming majority of sexual abuse cases are men-on-girls.
(If only I could find the old Mad magazine cartoon in which a woman frets that she thinks her son’s teacher might be gay and is lusting after her dear boy, only to hear from another mom saying, “Imagine how I feel, knowing that all my daughter’s teachers are men.”)
And those are just a couple of areas in which the “grooming” narrative is utter crap.
Next up: History.
I’ll just run through some links to demonstrate that this isn’t some new phenomenon …
- The Greeks worshiped pansexual gods.
- Medieval Europe took a few centuries to get around to condemning homosexuality.
- Kenya traditionally had gay marriage.
- Go all the way back to Ancient Mesopotamia.
Etc., etc., etc.
Next up: Biology.
Being gay is largely a matter of genetics. Same-sex behavior also exists elsewhere in the animal kingdom.
Transgenderism also is a biological matter.
“But our brains have a lot of impulses upon which we shouldn’t act,” you may say. Indeed. You may be a married man who has had some lustful thoughts about someone else. You may have had the impulse to punch someone in the face. We devote a lot of effort steering alcoholics and addicts away from the substances they crave but can do them harm.
Transgender people, though, are at great risk for mental illness and suicide ideation, especially if they’re not allowed to go forward with their transitions. That’s not true of the impulses mentioned above. Because they’re impulses. Transgenderism isn’t an impulse. It’s hard-wired. You’re not likely to consider suicide because you had to restrain yourself from punching someone in the face for 10 minutes.
And punching someone in the face affects someone else. It’s the literal embodiment of the saying that my freedom to swing my fist is limited by the proximity of your nose.
As already stated, that’s not the case with LGBTQ+ people.
There is simply no harm to anyone else.
Therefore, there is no reason why a free society can ban or place restrictions on LGBTQ+ people.
LGBT-QED.
Opposing gay rights is virtue signaling. You can prove you’re a good little Christian by affirming to your local Bible-misreading pastor that you agree with him. That’s all.
What’s the harm in that? Plenty. You’re not letting people be who their brains have hard-wired them to be.
Imagine someone questioning your right to exist.
Then imagine that someone is encouraging violence against you.
Then ask your local Bible-misreading pastor why it’s OK to beat up someone who was made in God’s image. Then take the potato salad from the church potluck and find another church.
Further into the bedroom …
The same literal readings of the Bible — the readings that don’t take history and translation into account — that condemn homosexuality also condemn sex outside of marriage.
That’s bad news for 95% of us.
Want people to make more responsible decisions? That’s a good goal to have. So drop the counterproductive push for “abstinence-only” sex education. If responsible adults don’t teach kids about safety, the kids will look elsewhere. That’s not good.
And Republicans are voting against birth control — certain types, at least. They claim we’re all being paranoid about a looming contraception ban, Clarence Thomas’ opinion notwithstanding, and that they just want to ban “chemical abortion.” The GOP’s counterargument is that the Democrats rushed legislation to the House floor just to put them on the record as bad old people who wanted to dictate what kind of contraception is available. Whether they really are those bad old people might depend on what they do next. And whether you want to trust them with control of Congress to make those decisions is … a bit frightening, isn’t it?
Looking ahead …
Millennials and Gen Z ain’t putting up with this crap. Enjoy your pseudo-religious wonderland while you can.
FURTHER READING
- July 2022, Axios: GOP senators weigh supporting bill protecting birth control access
- June 2021, National Sexual Violence Resource Center: Fact Sheet on Injustice in the LGBTQ community
- January 2020, Pres House: Queer Theology – Learning from LGBTQ+ Christians
- October 2011, NIH paper: Abstinence-Only Education and Teen Pregnancy Rates: Why We Need Comprehensive Sex Education in the U.S
LATEST READING
Mostly Modern Media 