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Yesterday, I ran across a Truth Wins Out blog post by Evan Hurst. Evan dissected an interview between Peter LaBarbera (of the disingenously named Americans For Truth About Homosexuality) and Matt Barber (of Liberty Counsel). Both men are professional (and by that term, I only mean that they get paid for those efforts) anti-gay activists. Matt was talking about the recent flack he’s been (justifiably) taking for claiming that gay kids commit suicide because they know deep down that being gay is a sin. During that interview, Matt made the following infuriating comment.
They promote these propagandist ‘LGBT’ laws to the exclusion and detriment of other classes of kids who are perhaps even more frequently bullied and in larger numbers: Overweight kids and racial minorities come to mind.
This is infuriating to hear, because the statement is nothing more than a diversionary tactic by s9omeone who doesn’t care about anti-gay bullying. It’s not only disingenuous, it demonstrates that they don’t really care about anyone who gets bullied. Want proof? What “all-inclusive bullying protections” have Matt Barber and company actually supported? What “all-inclusive” legislation have they pushed any level of government representative to introduce, sponsor, or support? Any? Any at all?
And truth be told, Matt is ignoring the institutional church’s and many religious organizations’ complicity in anti-gay bullying, complicity that encourages and condones (if not explicitly, then implicitly) in ways that the bullying of overweight kids or racial minorities aren’t.
I know of know major Christian denomination who has an official doctrinal stance that states that overweight people or racial minorities are inherently disordered. I know of no religious organizations that have been formed specifically for the purpose of “fighting the evil overweight agenda.” I have yet to hear an entire sermon preached on the evils of overeating or being black. I have not ministers, religious organizations, or political organizations make a concentrated campaign to spread defamatory and damaging propaganda about overweight people, and no one outside of organizations who attack racial minorities would even consider remaining silent when confronted by those organization’s tactics.
No, this kind of institutionalized dehumanization and vilification is currently reserved solely for QUILTBAG individuals, and it’s the kind of thing that not only condones anti-gay (and anti-QUILTBAG) bullying, but implicitly (if not explicitly) encourages it. And that’s the painful truth that people like Matt Barber are trying to obscure when they pay lip service to the truth that all bullying should be stopped. They’re trying to shift attention back to the cases of bullying they can fully get behind so that no one notices their silence regarding the bullying they’re okay with.
