Stupid comment of the day

In response to this post, commenter Jonathan writes:

Only on a Liberal website would you find an advertisement for homosexual dates.

Un-fucking real.

Don't forget to wear a rubber.

Well. Where to start.

Quite apart from the fact that, yes, Mike and I are indeed quite gay, there are a few fun propositions here.

Let's do the simple ones first, before pointing out that Johnathon sort of missed the entire point (that I was making fun of the stupid "be free of homosexuality by embracing Jesus" thing.)

"Only on a Liberal website." First I'll assume that the capital L is deliberate. So there are no gay Tories? Right. And if he is just cro magnon and American and meant liberal, well, there are plenty of conservative gays out there.

"Advertisement for homosexual dates." Well well. Does that bug you? Too bad. You name the web site and I'll point out the hundreds of links to match.com or jdate.com or fatsingles.com or whatever, all geared towards the breeders. (And if he thinks it was an actual personal ad, give me a break--Mah reading komprehenshun skillz, let me sho u them.)

But finally, and most importantly, it wasn't a freakin' ad for sex. It was a critique.

You see, if you click the link, you get to a web site for people who are trying to suppress being gay, and are being told that if they just pray hard enough, they'll turn into good little heteros and be "free" from being gay.

First: I don't feel particularly "un-free" for being gay. Nor does anyone I know that's well adjusted.

Second: It's false hope. Praying to the sky god isn't going to do anything, and even if it were, it would be treating the symptom and not the cause.. It would be suppressing something, not changing it.

Third: These things are the fast way to mental problems. The people who are religious enough to think Jesus can help them--and want to not be gay--are clearly coming from already repressive backgrounds. They don't want to be gay because they've been told it's a sin, they've been told it's icky and immoral and they'll go to hell. I.e. they're not coming from a tolerant place. And they're conflicted and tortured. And then they get told that yes, Jesus is right, you must stop being gay, it's a sin. It's a vicious circle of self-hate, religion, more self-hate, more religion, etc.

Fourth: It's incredibly damaging to young kids. When I was a kid I used to try to wish it away. I thought about hypnosis. I thought about medication. I thought about all sorts of things that I could make it go away. I once read, when I was 15, on a bathroom wall at Cinesphere (of all places) that "it's a fact that 25% of all men have homosexual thoughts for up to 3 years." And so I spent 3 years thinking, hey, I just have to wait it out.

And I think about how much happier I would have been in high school had I not believed in false hope (or believed it was bad or wrong or unnatural (and thank god I've never believed in god)) and accepted myself for who I am. 'Cos I'm pretty damn happy with it now.

The only people who have "success" with the ex-gay-through-Jesus moment are people who suppress it, who deep inside yearn for intimacy and love but feel that if they just love Jesus enough, they'll be okay. And yet every time they're around guys, they know what they want, and they have to pray that little bit more to control themselves.

And so, dumbass Johnathon, my point was that the whole city will be full of men desperately trying to be something other than who they are.

I have some pretty good-looking friends (Mike, for one, ain't bad on the eyes). And so the point of my suggestion was hey, let's go there, and make them all the more conflicted, and show the "pray away the gay" bullshit for what it really is: a joke.