AT TIMES I feel really worried about the growing theocracy movement and what that means, particularly for the groups they have targetted for demonization. I wrote this diary in November and am cross-posting it to remind myself and any others that there are signs of hope too in the darkness.
God bless gay-bashing Rev. Fred Phelps. Why? Because his hatred and bigotry against gays has united a very conservative church and community in Oklahoma to rally around a 17-year-old gay man, Michael Shackelford.
The story here at the Washington Post should give us all hope that American progressive values of tolerance and “Love thy neighbor,” shared by Christians and atheists alike, are alive and well even in the red-state heartland.
The Washington Post did a story on the young man growing up gay in a red state in a community that openly despised him.
After Phelps read about the young man, Phelps brought his oxymoronic “God hates fags” campaign to the young man’s community. (Oxymoronic because if you believe God made everything and God doesn’t make mistake then God’s not going to hate anything he made.)
What happened next shows that real life is much more than blue or red and black or white.
“There is darkness and there is light and we are in the middle of the light,” Eubanks said, to more thunderous applause. “Say it: God loves us all. All of us!”
After the service, several people came up to hug Janice. One woman held her in an embrace that lasted two minutes, whispering to Janice the whole time.
A burly man with a crew cut gave Michael a thumbs-up. “Man, you be who you are,” Shannon Watie said, holding his Bible. “We got your back.”
Watie later said that he respected Michael for having the courage to come out. “I have the sin of pride, the sin of lying sometimes,” said the 37-year-old father of two. “The reason why Jesus was on the cross was because we all do.”
Watie voted for Oklahoma’s ban on same-sex marriage. Civil unions? He might have considered those. Homosexuality? “That’s between the person and God,” Watie said.
I’m a happily married heterosexual who has had a vasectomy. One could say I don’t have a stake in either the fight for gay rights or reproductive rights.
But I do. Because I’m an American and a Democrat. And Americans are supposed to look out for each other like the people in this community did for one of their own.
I saw this story as hopeful. Sure things look dark right now with George Bush’s election (stolen or otherwise), the defeat of all the gay marriage amendments, and the control of Congress in the hands of the worst group of politicians since the pre-Civil War era.
This community rallied around a gay man when outsiders challenged him. It may have helped him that the outsiders came from Kansas and they’re from Oklahoma, but they embraced him as one of their own.
The America of the individual cowboy or lone gunfighter embraced by George Bush and his capitalist cronies is a myth. The strength of America is in being united, not divided. It wasn’t an individual* that held the line at Bunker Hill, stormed Normandy beach or died at the Alamo. Martin Luther King didn’t march alone. John Glenn may have orbited the earth alone, but rose on the efforts of many. And Neil Armstrong may have took the first step on the Moon, but our hearts were there with him.
Let’s remember Michael and Sand Springs, Oklahoma when we talk about the differences between red states and blue states. So even if the Phelps family is a hopeless cause, God bless them for reminding the people in Sand Springs and elsewhere that the rest of us do share many of the same values.
*The exception being Rosa Parks, who made a stand by sitting down.
But even Rosa was just the next in the line of many others who had started the ball rolling.
“One stick can be easily broke. Many sticks bundled together cannot.”
Recommended, o Carnacki one.
…I needed to read it after spending a few days on my diary about gays and the holocaust. It’s good to get news about people just coming together.
I remember reading either your diary on this or stories about this young man online. I was rather amazed how a community in Oklahoma rallied around him as Oklahoma is one of the worst states for gay basing-I think. But it did give me just a bit of hope also.
Like you said this guy is such a violent, hateful person that he makes even people who don’t like gays kinda go ‘hold on a minute’.
Because I have friends who are gay I try to know what is going on around the country with legislation in the states and of course the whole marriage amendment piece of crap.
This guy almost and I say almost makes Dobson sound lucid on the whole subject of gays..I think there will be a special place in hell for people like Dobson and their ilk because of their pure hatefullness about gays.
it never ceases to amaze me that a man who is willing to travel thousands of miles just to desecrate an individual’s funeral/burial/memorial is even given one minute of press time, let alone the hours that fred phelps gets.
he is a sick, perverted and evil man. and his treatment by the media is, imho, overall equally sick, perverted and evil. he exemplifies the flaw in the MSM’s stupid and illogical belief that every gay-neutral or gay-positive story must have at least one (or more) virulently homophobic person in it, just so as to be “fair and balanced.”
fred phelps is, in many ways, an extreme reflection of our culture’s on-going courtship with homophobia, a courtship that maintains that not allowing lesbians and gay men their fair due is not only OK, but politically expedient, socially condoned and often times a crime that will remain unpunished.
but to hear of okies taking care of a gay okie is indeed hopeful.
now, if we can just get phelps to go to his own circle of hell that was writtten (by me, not dante) just for him, namely the 10th ring, right below satan’s ass. i’ll even pay his busfare.
I agree that the media gives to much time to this asshole. As far as I’m concerned what he does constitues hate speech which we do laws against, don’t we. They won’t have people on who use the word ‘nigger’ and espouse the viewpoint that just being black is evil..not anymore anyway.
Phelps and his ‘church group’ to my mind are a hate/terrorist organization. The media should treat him as such.
Either that or they should invite on virulent racists and treat them with respect.
“Just trying to create a balanced picture, now back to you, Wolf”
the last protected bigotry — homphobia.
which ultimately meas that we still operate in a very sexist dynamic, where men rule, and women are ruled.
well unfortunately thats pretty much what the fuckhead Hannity does half the time.
sadly, so too do folks on the left.
You & Mrs Carnacki always raise issues awful & hopeful, & often in the same post!
Blessings on you!
Indeed, it is a hopeful sign that even red staters are beginning to realise that Gays-R-Us. They are our family, & we don’t condone attacks on them. When I first saw parents of gays marching in Gay Pride Parades, I knew the corner had been turned. That was 20 years ago.
It’s a slow corner we’re turning. I hope we’re still making progress.