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Menstuff® has compiled information and books on Gay, Bi, and Transgender issues. This section is Robert N. Minor's weekly column featured daily on our homepage. Robert is the author of Scared Straight: Why It's So Hard to Accept Gay People and Why It's So Hard to Be Human and Gay & Healthy in a Sick Society and Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. He may be reached through www.fairnessproject.org or at E-Mail. 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004
When the Right-Wing Claims Their Words Don’t Matter When gay-bashers around the country torture, torment, and kill lesbians, gay men, transgender people, and those perceived to be, they often are repeating words spoken from pulpits. While sitting on a panel of religious types, that was the response I gave when asked if I blamed anti-LGBT ministers for persecutions and deaths that take place around the country – after I said: “Yes, I do.” I added: “If you want to prove otherwise, tell me how often you’ve joined a march or rally, or spoken from the pulpit telling people it’s a sin to treat LGBT as less than human.” The response: silence, and acting as if they were the victims of my words. Anyone who’s studied these things knows that words matter. The right-wing talkers, including FOX News and Republican Party operatives like Frank Luntz, know they do because they craft their talking-points to move people to action, to make their words matter. Religious leaders know that, too. Otherwise why even give a sermon, spend hours crafting it, or even sanctify the words by claiming the Holy Spirit is behind them and their impact? We’re a culture historically replete with violent words. The recent political shootings in Tucson momentarily raised the level of the discussion of the mainstreaming of rhetoric of guns, killing, targeting, and “Second Amendment solutions” by the political right-wing against anyone who doesn’t toe their line. The response from the culprits was the usual -- using strategies that have worked well to stifle critique and move an issue to a back burner where it goes cold. They knew mainstream media would move on quickly, so they had merely to play a loud defense until other issues distracted the so-called “journalists” in our midst. You know the drill. Even as someone on the left, I could effectively use it. First, act outraged that anyone would draw the conclusion that their words had any relationship to the Tucson massacre. Even in the light of gun-sites on a map indicating the exact victim, much less the violent words, act as if you’re the ones being victimized -- and by “the radical left” again. It always works. Liberal guilt will cause them to retreat, apologize, turn on any liberal who promotes the connection, and fight among themselves, thereby confirming to on-lookers that right-wingers are the true victims of all this. Second, get liberals to join the talk that this is not a right-wing problem but that there’s actually a right/left equality in all this violent rhetoric. Act as if this is a fair reading of the facts even when the evidence is against you. Talk as if liberals are openly carrying guns to rallies too, liberal media is calling for the deaths of conservative politicians, and Democratic leaders are calling people to “reload” and blast away at their opponents. Don’t worry; liberals will even do your research in this matter to resurrect examples where this could be true. Don’t let evidence to the contrary interfere. Remember, if you repeat your position often enough, it will be treated as an equal opinion with those that are actually supported by facts. You don’t need facts to attain status in our media market. And facts alone don’t move as many people anyway; being on top of framing an issue does. Third, make sure every right-winger is on the same talking points, and continue to repeat them. Don’t worry; liberals won’t do that because they’ll be caught up in discussion and debate. They’ll try to be nice. Liberal guilt won’t let them speak ill of anyone, even those who do them ill. Fourth, paint the shooter as a liberal -- even if we isn’t -- before anyone else portrays him otherwise. Liberals will be reluctant to commit to saying that he was an anti-government convert more in line with the teaparty folks even if he is. Make liberals respond to your story, all the time remembering that just saying he is a liberal will ingrain that idea into popular understanding. Liberals will be caught up in the actual nuances of mental illness and instability. Cable and network news will act otherwise, but they really have no patience for subtlety. Fifth, take advantage of the moral principles of liberals. Know that they will decry we/them politics, playing on emotions as opposed to intellect, the volume of an argument, stereotyping of others, the use of their power (They think power corrupts.), the using of people to achieve your ends, and the fact that your claims do not fit with the teachings of religious leaders you claim to follow such as Jesus of Nazareth. Their principles might be true, but your goal is to win and protect political and economic power. Your goal is to be the arbitrator of a morality that arises out of and confirms consumerism. Sixth, don’t reach out to liberals in any way that acts that what they say is worthwhile. Talk bipartisanship and fairness but let them be the ones who compromise their ideas to move closer to you. Don’t worry; they’ll do it. One result will be that those looking on will believe you were right all along because liberals are willing to move in your direction. Seventh, when caught in a lie, never apologize. Just ignore the accusation and repeat the lie. Let liberals do all the apologizing. People will remember their apology and for what it apologizes more than they will remember that it was a lie or mistake you are repeating. This is standard operating procedure. If we were awake, we saw it play out again this past month. We cannot overlook it nor act as if this isn’t going on. Over and over again we must point it out, practice intervention when it comes to this pattern. We must firmly, kindly, and persistently be willing,
however, to be the alternative voice in these matters that
speaks clearly and truthfully. Most importantly, speak of
how we personally see things as if we believe it –
assuming we really do. When It Comes to Religion,
Let’s Keep One Resolution This year, let’s keep one resolution – when we talk about religious people, let’s never again refer to them as literalists. That’s because they aren’t, and no one is. No one takes all their scriptures, tradition, or even their natural laws literally. They all pick and choose from the variety of material available to them, taking some of it literally and some not. To continue to label them literalists is not only inaccurate, it gives them the edge in any argument. Even though everyone -- that’s everyone -- interprets and picks and chooses from the material available to them and decides what to take literally and what not to take literally, when we refer to right-wingers as literalists, we have conceded that we are interpreters but they the ones who understand it This doesn’t mean that historians can’t determine what an old text meant to its authors in its ancient historical context with some academic probability. It means that past writings, activities, doctrines, and institutional pronouncements are interpreted by those who believe they must at be true at all costs, through the believing interpreters’ modern lenses. Who today takes literally the writings of the Bible that say: “God makes the clouds his chariot” or “”let the hills sing out for joy” or “let the floods clap their hands?” When the author of the New Testament letter to Timothy tells him to “Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss,” there are few who claim to take the five passages in the Bible that call for such a greeting literally and therefore meet people at their church door with lips puckered. They’ll argue that to understand their intent, one must see these verses in their historical context, and that today’s context causes one not to literally go around practicing, especially, same-sex kissing. So, Ah Ha! They’ve admitted that contemporary societal norms trump a “literal” Biblical c The question becomes: okay, when don’t they? But when you ask that, be prepared to stand back and watch intellectual gymnastics explain how they’re the ones who really know what verses are eternal truths and which ones aren’t meant literally. That’s what interpretation does. It’s no wonder that there are some passages in the Bible that aren’t taken literally in the U.S. It’s just not a pro-Capitalist book. Those passages would condemn our entire economic system to hell. In the older testament the Hebrew prophets regularly rail against loaning money with any expectation of interest in return, but when have you heard an American minister preach that usury meant more than 0% interest and that a society that allows usury is anti-God? If those verses ever come up, stand back again for mental gyrations that defend why they don’t apply in American Capitalism. When Jesus of the Gospels says it’s harder for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to get into the kingdom of heaven, watch the knee-jerk attempts to say he didn’t mean that literally for Americans. When he tells the rich young ruler to give all he has to the poor to follow him, don’t hold your breath waiting to have that literally take place among our richest church capitalists. It should have been no surprise, then, when last month Tony Perkins, president of the rabid right-wing, so-called Family Research Council - whom some might call a Biblical literalist -asserted on CNN’s “Belief Blog” that Jesus was a free market capitalist who would condemn the Occupy movement. For Jesus, he said, “there are winners and yes, losers.” “Jesus rejected collectivism and the mentality… that everyone gets a trophy – equal outcomes for inequitable performance.” To prove that this wasn’t just a claim that affirmed his prejudices and current net worth, Perkins cited a New Testament parable generally known as the Parable of the Talents: An abusive and crooked nobleman hated by the common people leaves town and entrusts some of his wealth to three of his underlings. In the text itself the nobleman describes himself as “a harsh man, taking what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow.” Upon return, he rewards the two who made him more money with the funds entrusted to them (probably from extorting the people who owed their master money) and threatens the one who merely held the funds and returned them. Thus, Perkins says, the evil nobleman (whom he takes to stand for God?) rewards investment-banker-type initiative and punishes the one who refuses to take money to make money. See, capitalism is holy. Other interpreters understand the third underling as a hero who practiced a non-violent resistance by refusing to further exploit the poor debtors to the evil nobleman. In the immediate literary context they see this as a parable of what is to happen to Jesus, who in the very next chapter of the Gospel of Matthew is arrested and crucified. Perkins is no literalist here. He’s a capitalist. Since he believes the Bible is true as well as the economic system that brought him his prosperity, he must interpret the Bible to agree no matter how hard it is to find American capitalism there. And Jesus dieing with no huge following or large annual budget? That’s not a very good ending to the story. It’s certainly not contemporary American. Where’s the building of a mega church? And Jesus only leaving a few very poor disciples to occupy Roman society? And they began their new little community in Jerusalem by holding, the book of Acts says, “everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need….No one claimed that any of his possessions were his own, but they shared everything they had.” Then when a married couple named Ananias and Sapphira broke this communal commitment - didn’t share what they had earned from selling a piece of their own property, but kept it for themselves - God struck them dead on the spot? Oh no! Quick! Interpret me out of that story. © 2012 Robert N. Minor Other Issues, Books, Resources
Robert N. Minor is the author of Scared Straight: Why It's So Hard to Accept Gay People and Why It's So Hard to Be Human and Gay & Healthy in a Sick Society and Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. He may be reached through www.fairnessproject.org
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