"War, Religion, and Gay Rights"

Columnist James Carroll of the Boston Globe writes about the unity diverse groups can find in gay bashing and addresses a couple of the primary underlying reasons why GLBT rights are often so viciously attacked.

"Same-sex erotic love is not the issue. Humans, including Catholic bishops, have long accommodated it. But that accommodation assumes denial and shame. What brings demonstrators into streets across cultures, and what shows up in the United States as "values" politics, mobilizing bishops, is the movement to bring homosexuality out of the dark.

When gay people openly assert their identities as such, whether through parades or through the demand for full and equal social recognition, reactionaries cannot stand it. "

"The open affirmation of gay identity can pose a mortal threat to people whose own sexual identity is insecure. The Haggard story is a cautionary tale. As it happens, I was present last year to hear Pastor Ted preach a sermon at his mega-church, and it included a digressive attack on homosexuals that was as venomous and it was gratuitous. He equated gay sex with bestiality.

Even at the time, I wondered about the dark energy of his hatred. That it is revealed now as self-hatred comes as no surprise. One needn't draw a direct line from Haggard's behavior to the private morality of Catholic bishops to sense that the church's own deepening insecurity on all matters of sexuality, especially those surfaced by the still unresolved crisis of priestly sexual abuse of children, informs its exceptional opposition to gay rights."

That's right, since GLBT people have the nerve to assert their desire for equality, that has been seen as a declaration of war by people who are often focus on that while in denial or diverting attention from other issues.

Righteousness will ultimately prevail and more of these hypocrites and hidden agends will be exposed. The tide is turning in favor of equality, but it will be more of a steady flow rather than a tidal wave.