Gay Conservative

Ugh…I can’t believe I just read that. Now that I’ve just suffered the blow of watching former WWE playboy Brock Lesnar top the legendary Randy Couture, I’m trying to distract myself. With this story, it’s not hard.

Nationwide protests were held today by gay rights activists across the country. In response to the passage of Proposition 8 in California–which overturned the CA supreme courts’ decision that allowed gay and lesbian couples–there was a huge turnout by GLBT people and their supporters in every corner of America. Attention has been called anew to the cause of gay rights, and as usual, the hysterics rule the day.

The most insane thing I saw came from pictures and video of the march through Hillcrest (the gay neighborhood in San Diego). You can see them here. One woman painted “stripped of human rights” on her nearly-bare torso. Signs included such sayings as, “stop LDS preaching hate,” “we the str8 people,” “love will triumph over h8″ and “is a gay vote only 3/5 of a vote?”. The most outrageous, however, said “stop the Christian Taliban!”

Yep, it really did say that. Stop the Christian Taliban.

Lemme tell you folks something. Any of my family and friends who have been to Afghanistan can back this up, not to mention those who survived the Taliban. The Taliban was the most cruel dictatorship known to the modern world. Saddam hardly held a candle to these monsters. They were (and still are) widely known to take such a hardline approach to Sharia Law that only three countries in the entire world recognized the Taliban as the ruling government of Afghanistan, and Iran and Iraq were NOT among them. The Taliban was so horribly strict in its enforcement of Sharia that their religious police were given power to viciously beat women in the streets for the slightest offense–even being caught in a taxi without a male relative escort was grounds for a sound thrashing.

We have all seen by now the video footage of a Taliban enforcer executing a woman, her crime unknown, by shooting her in the back of the head with an AK-47 while she knelt on a soccer field. Under the Taliban, women were not allowed to be educated; the only job any female was allowed to hold was in the medical field as men were banned from examining women. The traditional burqa was taken a step further under their regime, requiring all skin to be covered–even the eyes–with little more than a cloth screen to see through. Most disgusting of all was the proliferation of the practice of female circumcision, or the forced semi-surgical removal of the clitoris, which is believed by Muslims to create lust in women.

Are you disgusted yet? I sure as hell hope so.

There are far worse things that cannot be described here, crimes committed by the Taliban that the nightly news can’t report. The people of Afghanistan, particularly the women, suffered horrors untold at the hands of the Taliban. And much like comparing George W. Bush to Hitler, comparing American Christians to the Taliban cheapens the reality that they brought and the true horror they embody. It’s a slap in the face to the survivors to liken your struggle to have “equal rights” to the hell they endured.

Completely aside from that, it cheapens our message. I believe Arkansas was wrong for banning homosexuals from adopting children; some of the gay couples I know are far better parents than some of the straight families I know. I believe that eventually, we will realize our right to marry, but until then we need to accept civil unions as a stepping stone. Sexual orientation is far more difficult to prove than actual physical race and we’re fighting an uphill battle that we need to be wise about.

Calling American Christians the “Christian Taliban” certainly isn’t going to get us where we want to be. It is purely, truly and wholly an insult that takes absolutely no insight into the enormous difference between the two struggles. We’re not fighting for our survival, folks; we’re arguing to be equal. Christians (other than Phelps, of course) don’t wish to kill us, torture us, or even jail us for living our lives freely, loving who we are naturally going to love. If we’re to have any hope whatsoever of being taken seriously then we have got to quell such outrageous statements, elsewise we only lend credence to their cause.