Blogs Jul 26, 2010 at 4:59 pm

Comments

1
Well there is also the solution of a certain Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus involving a colliseum and some lions (actually it was usually other beasts, but who is counting), but that was a not so straight man's solution to Christianity.
2
Yahweh hates fags, Leviticus does make that pretty clear, sure. But it doesn't say anything against lesbians that I've ever seen, no prohibition against "woman lie with woman, as she lieth with a man." And frankly, when we're talking about trying to read the mind of deity, it does seem like a bit of an overreach to assume he wasn't just singling out the one gender for some godly purpose there in good ol' Leviticus.
3
You probably won't ever run into this guy at a MENSA meeting. But you might run into him in an airport bathroom stall.
4
MMM HATECAKE NOM NOM NOM
5
What's right and what's wrong.
What's right and what's wrong.
What's right and what's wrong.
What's right and what's wrong.

Is this guy a Tea Party-created robot? Jesus Christ. Also, did anyone else notice he admitted that he's attracted to men? I think Dan might be on to something when he says all gay bigots are really just self-loathing closet cases.
6
I've said it before and I'll say it again: nutjobs carrying pictures of nooses are GOOD for gay rights. You should pay this guy to appear as often as possible.
7
For every extremist "Christian" "concerned about" gay marriage, there's a closeted self-hating gay that will be exposed by the media lurking inside ...
8
@5 - only until he was about 40 years old though.
9
Kudos to the interviewers for being very objective.
10
I have been having some pretty interesting (hilarious) conversations with the people active on their facebook page here is the link http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/even…

i'd say the majority of the posts on their wall are from non-supporters and so far 7 people have rspvd they will attend the event while almost 100 have responded NO, for a laugh I highly recommend checking out some of the bullshit they have to say
11
A much better interview than I was expecting. I thought he seemed a lot calmer in person than his sign suggested. And I liked the way he ignored the younger NOMheads' attempts to protect him from dialogue. Despite his views, I like him.
12
I have to say, I'm encouraged by his comments at the end. 50 years ago, a semi-retarded old guy like that would have been protesting AGAINST interracial marriage, and he has no problem with it. Just think - 50 years from now, some semi-retarded old guy will be protesting something else (marriage to sentient robots?), and will be fine with the idea of gay marriage.
13
Nooses, eh?

So basically they're just Westboro now?
14
There is no arguing with someone like that. He truly believes he's doing the right thing. It makes me sad
15
Heh - had just read I, Anonymous, so briefly thought this was a NOM NOM Final Solution.

http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archive…
16
It's weird, but my first impulse is to feel sorry for that guy.
17
There's so much to love in Leviticus, I mean, you could have a whole "anti-Red Lobster popcorn shrimp festival" poster with nooses on it on the other side of the street. Why aren't the fundies boycotting seafood restaurants and polyester leisure wear?

My mom recently moved to Indianapolis after living in Massachusetts for 40 years, and said that one of the first things her new neighbour did was refer to another neighbour as a "Jew-girl," so it's nice to discover there's a strong LGBT community in one of the "reddest" of states.
18
I'm glad some folks in my home state actually stepped up and protested these wackos. I feel sorry for this guy.
19
Could someone please put up a transcript of the interview? Even just the main argument would be appreciated here on the mainland. Damn you, Hu Jintao!
20
At 2:30, he admits he's gay.
21
Aren't they not supposed to give interviews with their hoods and sheets off?
22
I wonder if this man also protests at fertility clinics -- (and with the same passion) since the practice (in his view) is clearly against God's plan.
23
@5, @8, @20 Straight guys growing up are regularly the subject of name-calling (on an anti-gay theme) by their peers seeking to put them down. It's part of the whole social status pecking order business. This begins even before puberty, and even before kids have any overt idea about their own sexual preference or even a clear idea about the mechanics of sex. Where it comes from, I have no idea, but it's abusive and conditioning. I'm sure it's where a lot of homophobia begins.

But then, a lot of us grow up, and find love. Those of us who are straight eventually realize that we were always straight and will probably always be straight, and it's totally silly to worry about our gay friends and neighbors being some sort of negative influence on us, or society. It doesn't affect us one whit. Less so, in fact, than how many times Liz Taylor or some other Hollywood figurehead has been married.

Those who never get over it are either still mentally living in junior high, closet cases, or otherwise bitter and twisted.

It's not a net-sum game. The more happy, contented people in the world, the better for everyone. Equal Marriage NOW!
24
Lev 20:9 " 'If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be put to death. He has cursed his father or his mother, and his blood will be on his own head"

Man... that is about 97 percent of the world population... or more.
26
@25 In the circumstances, it's a miracle he didn't yell. And notice that other people from the organization didn't seem to keen on him doing the interview.
27
I think the interviewer did a fair job of letting the man say what he wanted to say. She prodded a little, but she was decent about it.

I might have asked him about the shrimp thing, but then I'm ornery.

In an interview like this, you aren't facing off with Maggie Gallagher. Just let the man talk.

That's the start of dialogue.

I really think it's important to keep it civil -- even with people who don't want you to have what you think is a basic right -- especially when they are behaving in a civil fashion, too. This is even true if one is interviewing someone like Fred Phelps -- though it would probably be hard for me to pull it off.

28
If you believe you're going to win on this issue, you can afford to be decent -- especially to old guys like this.

You can even afford to be nice.

You aren't going to change this guy's mind, and you don't really have to.

It's people in the middle who matter, and a video like this will play well with them.

There really are people in the middle who are moving towards support for same-sex marriage. They are moving slowly, but they are moving.

There's a place for ACT UP type confrontation, but not with doddering old men.

And for what it's worth, I know plenty of church-going old men (and old women, too) who are fully in support of same-sex marriage.
29
It was great how she pretty much got him to admit that he's closeted.
30
>@17: There's so much to love in Leviticus, I mean, you could have a whole "anti-Red Lobster popcorn shrimp festival" poster with nooses on it on the other side of the street. Why aren't the fundies boycotting seafood restaurants and polyester leisure wear?<

Sounds like a great idea for some street theatre/education, especially if dressed as Fred Phelps types and playing it "straight", and adding just enough subtle references to Levitical admonitions against sex for restaurant patrons to make the connection..
31
@23 - it happens to gay boys growing up, too. I like everything you said, though.
32
@23 Yeah, it happens to gay boys too- the only difference is that instead of brushing it off because you determined you liked girls, we had those insults and fears reinforced when we realized we actually DID like boys.

Want to know why so many gay boys commit suicide? That's why.

It's not a right of passage, and it's not cool... no one should ever have to experience that sort of mental anguish.
33
Ugh... apparently Maggie Gallagher was in my town, one block away from where I live. What she was doing in my part of Ohio is a mystery (besides the whole bigot, NOM bitch thing), seeing as we care more about the economy right now than social politics.
34
Honestly, I would have preferred him to scream and shout. I like my bigots frothing at the mouth. The nice-guy, honestly-wants-to-help kind makes me sad, because they seem like they could be such awesome people to know if they weren't so misguided...

I think it's sort of awesome that he admitted, on camera, that he's felt attraction towards men. Despite what he says about that next.
35
Religionists advocating murder? Shocking!
36
Leviticus is a series of prohibitions placed on the priests (the Levites). God didn't hate all those things in there (like planting certain crops near each other, etc.) in general, he just didn't want the Levites doing them.
37
@16. . . I felt the same way too. I felt sorry for the guy. Self-hating has got to be a foul tasting flavor of hate.
38
Why do these folk harp on Lev 18:20 and ignore Lev 18:1-3
1 The LORD said to Moses, 2 "Speak to the Israelites and say to them: 'I am the LORD your God. 3 You must not do as they do in Egypt, where you used to live, and you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you.

Israelites?
Egypt?
Canaan?

For whom are these rules intended?
How did Bronze Age tribal laws become universally applicable?
39
"How did Bronze Age tribal laws become universally applicable?"

I want a t-shirt that says that.
40
I'll second what Fnarf said - this sort of thing exposes the superstition and irrationality at the heart of homophobia (although closeted gay self-hatred is definitely another big factor) and probably helps more than it hurts. I sometimes wonder, in crazy moments, if that isn't Fred Phelps' whole agenda, to actually promote gay rights by exposing exactly how insane virulent homophobia is. He once said something to the effect that he's "the best friend [the gays] have got." Maybe Westboro is really not what it seems. Or maybe I'm delusional again. Hate it when that happens.
41
Actually, a man CAN'T have sex with a man in the same way as he has sex with a woman, as one of the criteria is that one is having sex with a man vs. a woman. The Leviticus passage is a tautology; and it WOULD be an abomination, as it would violate reality. It specifically DOESN'T say "man shall not lie with man at all" or "men shan't have sex with other men" etc.

Also, even if we interpret that as sex with men and women generally, the passage clearly just says you can't have sex with BOTH men and women; it bans bisexuality, not homosexuality. Not that the Bible's English translators had a particularly good command of logical nor grammatical conventions (even for the time, although compared to the illiterate masses they were leaps and bounds ahead). I can't comment on the intent nor rendering of the originals (or early copies, as most/all the originals are gone) as I do not read Aramaic, Ancient Hebrew, Ancient Greek, nor Latin.

Also, according to the several translations of the Christian Bible I've read, Sodom and Gomorrah were dens of unspecified sin (could have been simply eating meat on a Friday, eating shellfish, not believing in Yahweh, etc.; the list of damnable sins is pretty long in the Torah), not necessarily homosexuality or any other form of sexual "sins". They were ultimately razed because the two angels sent couldn't find even ten righteous men, as per Abraham's agreement with Yahweh, only Lot (also, the men of the cities wanted to rape the angels); of course, Lot offered his daughters to the rape-mob in place of the angels and later fucked them himself, and he's supposed to be the good guy. That should tell you something about the moral compass of the author; do you want to be taking morality lessons from someone who thinks father-daughter incest is okay? (Of course, the idea that all of humanity came from two people necessitates this anyway, which might be why it doesn't bother the author or the True Believers.) Anyway, claiming that the destruction had something to do with gay sex, as the interviewee says, is mere projection. These guys can't even be bothered to make sure their 'beliefs that they get from the Bible' actually have anything to do with what's in the Bible.

Not that there's a NEED to debate "Christian Values" in the context of granting the premises that 1) Yahweh is real; 2) Yahweh dictated/inspired the Christian Bible in its entirety; and 3) Yahweh exists as characterized in the Christian Bible, as it's all made-up anyway. I just think it's funny that I CAN make rational arguments against this stuff by going straight to the source text.

I do feel kinda bad for him, though: he says he's had homosexual desires that's he's resisted. He's as much a victim of pernicious socialization as a perpetrator, though he certainly is both.

@17: Er, because this has nothing to do with Yahweh's will, or even what's actually in the Christian Bible, and everything to do with maintaining a social hierarchy as defined by a number of religious sects. Plenty of them work on Saturday (or Sunday, if you follow one of the overwhelming majority of Christian denominations that has trouble counting to six), eat pork, practice Idolatry (the prohibition is against ANY idols, not just of gods other than Yahweh; this is whence the Orthodox Jewish practice of not writing Yod-He-Vav-He with the vowel marks or it's [likely] Latin alphabet transliteration "Yahweh" comes; the worry is that if one creates any images representational of god, they can be destroyed or otherwise defaced, and the Christian Cross, with or without attached Jesus, is a clear violation), etc. The crop-planting one is just bad advice; bio-dynamic farming, the future of sustainable food production as global warming increases desertification of previously arable land, requires growing different crops together to maximize water usage and soil nutrient use/retention.

@22: I never bought the "God's Plan" argument against abortion; if the conception is part of God's Plan, despite the necessity of at least one person's (and hopefully two) intentional disruption of the status quo through at least one act of vaginal-penile intercourse, why is a second disruption of the status quo through intentional human action NEVER part of "God's Plan"? There's nothing in the Christian Bible about abortion, and chemical abortion was common through the 19th century, as tradition held that the soul entered the body AT BIRTH. The relatively recent formulation of the concept of Purgatory in the Catholic tradition was a direct response to the shift in cannon to the idea that the soul entered a fetus before birth, such that the souls of stillborn babies needed somewhere to go. Anyway, this is sort of off-topic, I realize, except that it deals with Christian views of sexuality and sex practices.

@38: In the shift from Judaism to Christianity, when salvation moved from an opportunity for the Israelites alone to a universal one.
42
The interview was pleasantly surprising. Even though I don't agree with what he is protesting, his honesty and candor are admirable.
43
I just noticed, while going back through to transcribe for beckysharp (#19), that he got the Sodom and Gomorrah story right the first time. My bad.
44
@19: You're in luck: it's a slow day at work.

[Unintelligible noise until 00:09]

Courage Campaign Interviewer: I'm sorry?

National Organization for Marriage Organizer: Nothing.

CCI: Okay, I was just talking to him; is that okay?

NOMO: Yeah, I just talked to him too.

CCI: Okay. Is it okay if we just go over there and do an interview?

Larry Adams: Sure.

CCI: Thank you.

[video cut]

CCI: Can you tell us your name?

LA: My name's Larry Adams. Take your hands off of me.

NOM Organizer 2: I'm [unintelligible, to me at least]. We don't want anything inflammatory, okay?

LA: Oh.

NOMO2: We're here in love.

LA: Oh, you're, you're with the other guys.

NOMO2: Ye-
LA: _______-You're with the good guys.

NOMO2: I'm with, I'm with, uh- traditional marriage, sir.
LA: _________________________-[laughs] Sorry!

LA: Okay, okay. It be all about love, buddy. I'm with you guys.

CCI: Now, can you just tell us your name?

LA: Uh, my name's Larry Adams.

CCI: Okay. And, um, can you tell us why you're here today at the NOM rally in Indianapolis?

LA: Well, I'm, I'm, I believe what they believe, then: a marriage's between a man and a woman, not between a woman and a woman, a man and a man. uh, God designed that in a natural way with Adam and Eve, and two men can't p- provide a child, and two women can't provide a child. The only way you can do it is by artificial insemination, which is against God's word too. And I love all of these people out here that's, to give us a hard time, and, uh, they're just lost. They're all confused about what's right and what's wrong, and... The Bible says in the last days men's minds will get confused, what's r- right and wrong, and they say right is wrong and wrong is right, and I'm trying to tell 'em the right thing out here, 'cause, 'cause I care for 'em and I don't want anybody [to] go to hell.

CCI: So, what, what do you think will happen if gay and lesbian people are allowed to get married?

LA: Well, they're doing it right now, in several states right now.

CCI: And so, has the world sort of ended, because those people have been able to get married- or how has it affected your life -that these people have been able to...
LA: ____-No____________________________-I, I think, I think, I think god is real patient with us, but eventually his patience is gonna give out and he gonna say, "Okay, that's enough." He done it with Sodom and Gomorrah; he said, "Okay, I been patient with ya, I couldn't find ten righteous men in Sodom and Gomorrah, so I'm gonna wipe 'em all out." And, and what you gotta do, he was saying, "You gotta take it out," and the law's supposed to be used, the Indiana law's supposed to say, uh, uh, if, if, if you're doing some- uh, that's against the law, you need to be punished.

Other NOM-Affiliated Protester: I wouldn't talk to these two; they're not, they're not out for any good.

LA: And, uh... uh... In or- order to punish people for doing the wrong things, you're, you're, you're stopping sin like this here. If homosexuality was, was, it's supposed to be against the law; if it was punished like it's supposed to be, there wouldn't be so much homosexuality out here.

CCI: Do you think that to be a homosexual is a choice, or do you think that god made them that way?

LA: It's a choice.

CCI: It's a choice? So, do you think that you could choose to be a homosexual?

LA: ...It's always a choice.-_____-God, god wouldn't make somebody, someone that, that
CCI: ____________________-So...-
LA: couldn't go to heaven. They can all go to heaven, but they couldn't go to heaven if they's made that way by god. [Ed: What about people who lack the senses from birth to learn, or the cognitive capacity to understand, and therefore practice your religion?]

CCI: So you, you can make the choice to, to be attracted to a man right now? Like, you would, you could go out- and date a man right now.
LA: ___________________-Yeah.

LA: Yeah, I, I, god gave, god gave that choice.

CCI: Have you ever had that temptation?

LA: Uh, what?

CCI: Have you ever had that temptation?

LA: Oh, yeah.

CCI: You have?

LA: Yeah.

CCI: And you've, sort of, just avoided it?

LA: Well, I knew it was from the devil, so I avoided it.

CCI: Uh huh, uh huh. Are, do you ever wonder, and my last question is, you know, uh, I don't know if you're a god-fearing person- but do you ever wonder: what if you're wrong?
LA: ____________________________________-I am.
CCI: You know, what if, what if god made the- made these homosexual people to be
LA: _______________________________________-Now see...
CCI: okay, and what if, what if your sort of have to justify how you feel about them once you sort of meet your maker?

LA: Well, uh, I was all confused myself 'til, uh, I was about forty years old, and, uh, started reading the [Ed: Christian] Bible, somebody told me about reading the Bible and I started reading it, and now I know what's right and what's wrong. You gotta know what's right and what's wrong, and in the Bible it says what's right and what's wrong.

CCI: And...- I, the Bi-_____________-The Bible says a lot of things are right and wrong, but
LA: _______-The Bible says it, then -I believe it
CCI: you're here at this rally today, but- you don't protest other things the Bible is
LA: _________________________________-Yeah.
CCI: necessarily saying are wrong.

LA: Oh, yeah, there's lots of things out here that's wrong, and, uh, it's not about black and white. Sometimes people say they don't know what god, how god interprets it, so I, I try to help 'em. I'm, I'm a spokesman for god, so I'm supposed to be out here as an ambassador for god, and tell 'em what it really means.

CCI: Some people fifty years ago, or so, black and white people couldn't marry, like I couldn't marry you, for example, um, even if you loved me, um, and some people would compare that situation about fifty years ago to this situation. I'm just...

LA: Well, no, I could marry a black woman. The Bible says don't be unequally yoked, d- and that means don't be married to somebody that's got a different god, not a different color.

CCI: Uh huh. Uh huh.

LA: Race has nothing to do with, uh, getting married.

CCI: Okay. Thank you so much for your time, sir.

LA: You're welcome.

CCI: I really appreciate it. -I'm sorry,_____-you know, we weren't too bad, were we?
LA: _____________________-Have a nice... -that's...

LA: [laughing] No.

CCI: [laughs] Oh, okay. Thank you.

LA: Thank you.
45
Lance, I agree. Perhaps HRC ought to give Phelps a lifetime achievement award. He's made outright opposition to homosexuals something very distasteful to most Americans.
46
That's messed up, man. Seems like the people who claim to "want to help us" really just want to kill us. Yikes...

Also, why does Loveschild always forget to troll threads that make her look bad?
47
41

"That should tell you something about the moral compass of the author; do you want to be taking morality lessons from someone who thinks father-daughter incest is okay? "

Where does it suggest that the author thinks father-daughter sex is okay?
48
@30 That's exactly what I was thinking. Get enough press coverage and that could wind up being pretty funny.
49
Oh, boy. This poor poor guy. From 40 to now, rammed back in the closet, held there by only a book. He's sweet, too. Fucking awful.
51
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