Reply #34: Having grown up black and evangelical

[chrislrob]

I can tell you that homophobia is widespread in the black community. And most of that sentiment stems from the churches. In fact, I have been surprised several times in recent years to learn that various churches have REJECTED homophobia. So it's getting better.

Although they CAN be schizophrenic about it.

Case in point: a few years ago I was dragged to a megachurch's book club meeting by my girlfriend. It turned out that the book of the month was written by a well-known black gay writer. The book was about various couples, gay and straight, and their relationships.

I was unhappy. And uncomfortable (so sue me). But mostly, I was surprised. Black church? Open discussion about gays without someone condemning them to eternal hellfire?

Wow. I was impressed. And felt sheepish about being uncomfortable--it's the 90's, man!

The book club meeting ended.

I then sat goggle-eyed as the next part of the program was revealed. A natural medicine "doctor" announced that homosexuality was a disease. But that he had a cure for it. That he had cured homosexuals before. It envolved taking whole groups of them to an island somewhere off the coast of the Carolinas and "de-toxifying" them using a variety of herbs and spices.

These detoxifiers were administed largely by enema.

No, I'm not making this up.

I looked around the room. And I thought to myself, "Self," I thought, "This is about to get good!" These people are gonna tear this gay-bashing ass-clown apart!

But nothing happened.

The same people that had read the book about the gay folks and discussed it with such reason and compassion now patiently listened to this idiot huckster as though he were making all of the sense in the world! A small tidbit: did you know that male attraction to the female breast is a wholly Western concept?

Well it is. Just like homosexuality it was imported from Europe! See, Westerners are attracted to breast because breasts and the resulting cleavage reminds them of BUTTOCKS!

It all makes sense if you just think about it!

WTF!

Anyway, my point is that black people are at that crossroads where at least you can present a gay viewpoint to the religious. And I think that is a relatively new concept. Because most of these people find homosexuality a sin by pointing to specific bible verses, not just because they don't want gays riding their civil rights coattails.

Evangelicals are very literal. So all that talk about God's love is no match for verses forbidding men to lay down with men.

Finally, the number of black people voting for shrub is very, very, small, so get off of our backs. What percentage of WHITE evangelicals are voting for Bush?

That said, I had to convince my 91 year old grandmother that everyone CLAIMING to be a Christian isn't necessarily a Christian. But all she watches on TV is religious programming. She see's Pat Robertson and the rest support Bush everyday.