Posted by First class wingnut Peter LaBarbera from the pompously named Americans for Truth (and that makes the rest of us what?) has a ridiculous article slamming President Bush for not condemning Mary Cheney because of her pregnancy. It includes some absolutely looney statements:
The whole Mary Cheney-baby episode typifies how the “gay” agenda advances in our emotionally-driven culture. The personal becomes political, and “open and proud gays” use their relationships with family members, friends and co-workers to persuade them to embrace behaviors with which they once disagreed — or at least go silent about them. This is the goal of homosexual activists’ “coming out” strategy, which is brilliant in its manipulation of human nature.
Well yes, Peter, one of the happy and healthy results of gays coming out of the closet is that it makes people realize that they have, in fact, known and cared about gay people all along despite their conscious distaste for homosexuality. That’s not manipulation of human nature, it is human nature; it’s a lot easier to demonize people and think they’re evil if you don’t actually know them. When people find out that someone they know and already care about is gay, gays no longer just an abstract them, they’re real people with real feelings.
When I was in college, my buddy Jeff came into my house very upset and showed me a copy of the State News (the MSU student newspaper). On page 2 was a story about a candlelight vigil held the night before by the Gay/Lesbian Council, and in the picture was another friend of ours, Chuck, a guy we had taken with us many times to judge at debate tournaments. Jeff was extremely agitated by this and it prompted a discussion that went something like this:
Jeff: “Chuck’s gay.”
Ed: “Okay.”
Jeff: “That doesn’t bother you?”
Ed: “Not really. Should it?”
Jeff: “Hell yes it should. Think about how many weekends we’ve spent with hotel rooms with him at tournaments.”
Ed: “Well isn’t that kind of the point, Jeff? We’ve spent all those weekends in hotel rooms with him and we didn’t even know he was gay. Either he doesn’t find us attractive or it’s just not our problem.”
Jeff: “I can’t believe you think it’s no big deal.”
Ed: “Jeff, it’s still Chuck. We’ve known him for years. He’s a great guy. Am I supposed to suddenly decide he’s not just because he’s attracted to guys? It has nothing to do with me. It’s like deciding not to like someone because they have big feet or red hair.”
He stormed out, and for the next several days he was very upset about it. He eventually came around. In fact, a few years later he came out of the closet himself. And the same thing I said about Chuck applies to him too. He’s one of my best friends. Am I really supposed to dislike him because of that? That would be completely irrational. I didn’t really need him coming out of the closet to convince me of that, but a lot of others do. A lot of people harbor evil views of homosexuals until they find out that someone they know and care about for their whole life has been gay the whole time. That brings them face to face with the inherent irrationality of their prejudices and turns them into us.
“I’m gay, so you can’t be anti-gay,” is the basic approach, and then parents are brought in through groups like PFLAG (Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) to expand the “gay”-positive network. Christians talk about “friendship evangelism,” but it’s the homosexuals and their families and friends who have proved themselves adept at changing society — and undermining Biblical morality and tradition — through personal relationships.
Those crafty gay people. They make you care about them just to destroy Biblical morality and tradition. That’s the same thing black people did too, they actually moved in to our neighborhoods and acted all normal and stuff. They made us think that they were human beings just like us and we fell for it. So much for tradition. Those crafty little devils.
“Coming out” as a tactic is most cynical when encouraged among young people: homosexual school clubs called GSA’s (“Gay/Straight Alliances”) are merely the application of this approach to radically change a generation’s attitudes toward homosexuality and gender confusion (“transgenderism”). And it’s working: just ask the many Christian parents whose high school children have scolded them about being “homophobes.”
Guess what? A lot of parents need to be scolded for being homophobes. Perhaps if LaBarbera could stomach the presence of gays long enough to actually talk to them, he’d find out about parents who disown their children just for being gay. It happens all the time, with devestating effects. Their hatred and bigotry destroys relationships, families and more than a few individuals. There is nothing cynical about teenagers joining together to protect their friends from the bigotry of people like LaBarbera.
But here’s where I think he really goes off the deep end:
Mary Cheney is not “expecting a baby” WITH Heather Poe. She artificially conceived a child with the aid of some yet unidentified man. Heather Poe has no natural relationship to the child. When the media say that two homosexuals are “having a baby,” a biological impossibility, they trivialize the huge differences between natural, mom-and-dad families and artificial, homosexual-led households.
But this is quite absurd. The fact that Heather Poe will have no “natural” – i.e. biological – relationship with the child is absolutely irrelevant to the question of whether she will have a healthy parental relationship with the child. Mary and Heather have been together for 15 years, and in all likelihood will be together for the rest of their lives. Heather will be a parent to this child every bit as much as Mary will despite the lack of a biological relationship. The first rule of parenting is this: biology is irrelevant; only relationships matter.
Shaquille O’Neil was raised by a man named Phillip Harrison, who is legally his stepfather. Shaq says Phil is his real father, and he’s right. His biological father is a man named Joe Toney, who suddenly appeared in 1994, when Shaq was a budding NBA superstar. Shaq’s response was to do a rap song called Biological Didn’t Bother where he says that “Phil is my father…cuz my biological didn’t bother.” Shaq knows something that LaBarbera doesn’t, that parenthood has virtually nothing to do with biology and everything to do with relationships.
If my father called me tomorrow and told me that I was adopted, I wouldn’t even blink. I wouldn’t wonder about my “real” father because I know who my real father is. My real father is the man who raised me, the man who held me when I had bad dreams and spanked me when I was bad. The man who taught me the right way to treat other people and who taught me that when someone you care about needs help, you’re there for them, every time, without question. That’s my father. And if it turned out that he wasn’t the guy who supplied the sperm, that wouldn’t change one iota.
I would like to think that Heather Poe will be a parent to this child just as much as my father has been a parent to me. She’ll help her with her homework and help instill a sense of dignity in that child like all parents should. She’ll punish her when she deserves it and praise her even when she doesn’t. That’s what good parents do, and good parents are not determined by genetics but by love. If she does all those things that a good parent does, does LaBarbera really think that the child will care whether Heather is her biological mother or not? If so, he’s nuts.
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