The Gathering Storm – Them Gays is Scary
By Dave Hitt on Apr 25, 2009 in Religion, Things Atheists Didn't Do
I’ve never liked the term whatever-phobe, which makes the usually spurious assumption that fear is the only reason to dislike something. I’m not afraid of Islam; I hate it because it is a vile religion that sucks in every way possible. I’m not an Islamophobe, I’m an Islamocontempter. I’m Islamodisgusted.
Likewise, those who hate gays are not usually afraid of them, they just don’t like them for a variety of (stupid ignorant) reasons. The term homophobe isn’t accurate.
Except when it is. Evidently queers scare the bejesus out of the Mormons. And a Mormon without his beJesus is a pitiful creature.
You’ve probably already seen this:
Just to clarify, here’s my positions on the issues involved. I despise the Mormon church (and I challenge anyone to use the term Mormonophobe without sounding more ridiculous than a toy poodle doing a pit bull impersonation). But the few Mormon people I’ve known have all been nice, friendly, decent folks. Perhaps it’s their magic underwear. My reaction to homosexuality is the same as most heterosexual men; the idea of gay sex between males is gross and disgusting, and between females is really hot and can I watch? But I honestly don’t give a damn how adults amuse themselves with their genitalia as long as they don’t scare the cattle. Just like my heterosexual friends, none of my gay friends have ever had sex in front of me. Guys, thank you. Ladies, come on, just once. Please?
So, hesitantly, I’m going to give you Mormons some advice on how to conduct your next “Them Fags is Scary” campaign.
First off, don’t. Gays aren’t scary. They just . . . aren’t.  If you’d get to know a few of them you’d find they’re about as scary as, well, Mormons.  So you have to give us a different reason to hate them. I have yet to hear a good one, but I’ll be happy to consider any you have to offer. For instance, I’ve been married for nearly three decades. If you can explain to me how my marriage will be threatened if two strangers with the same plumbing take vows, I’ll be happy to listen.
Secondly, don’t hide behind some front group. If you’re going to be asshats and douche bags, celebrate your asshattery and douche baggyness. Revel in it. You think Fred Pehlps is embarrassed about being an asshat? Hell no, he loves it, and he’s delighted to be known as the world’s biggest douche.
Thirdly, realize that in today’s world of instant communication and cheap production tools, anything you do is going to be parodied, so don’t make it so easy. Use some focus groups, and when they laugh out loud at your commercial, consider a different approach.  Try some production values that require more than a green screen and some stock weather footage. This ad was self-parodying – additional parodies were redundant, but that didn’t stop anyone. There were so many parodies on YouTube I couldn’t find your original there – I had to look at the source code on your site to find the link.
Ok, back to the non-Mormon readers. Most of the parodies of this commercial sucked, bigtime. Here are a few that didn’t.
Gathering Storm Chasers:
Stephen Cobert did a great parody preceded by a great commentary, but the code Comedy Central provies to embed a link is crammed with useless and ugly crap that would take too long to clean up, so I’m just giving you the link.
And one more:
The worst problem it seems with all this pro and con discourse on gay marriage is the increasing polarisation of opinion and it’s ramifications in violence.
Sure, teh gayz were always ‘othered’, but in a lot of discourse non-heterosexual men and women are almost described as a sub-human species, that will stop at nothing to achieve their queer utopia. The fact that ‘the gays’ are all somebodys sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, co-workers and neighbours doesn’t really come into it. Othering at its finest.
My major concern is the ramifications this polarisation of opinion and centrality of sexuality has for violence. In the last two weeks there have been two highly documented suicides of two non-queer identifying eleven-year-olds, who were bullied because of some perceived ‘gayness’ weather imagined or real. This is not exactly new, but I can only imagine incidence like this and other forms of violence against non-heterosexuals increasing in both frequency and intensity.
Lastly, a lot of this discourse seems to be undoing a lot what has been achieved in areas of gender politics. “Family Groups” have a tendency of being essentialist, with strict views of what it means to be a male or a female and how people in those genders are supposed to behave. If it is to believed that gender is for the most part a social construction, an injustice is being done to both men and women.
Jack | Apr 25, 2009 | Reply
Dave,
First, I am with you on the 2 guys makes me sick, 2 girls let me watch, but both remind me that homosexuality is a sexual preference, as are pedophilia, bestiality and necrophilia, not a different species, or gender. I don’t think anyone would agree that someone marrying a corpse, a child or an animal should be treated the same as your marriage to your wife.
Second, the people of California have voted twice against gay marriage and there is now a second attempt to use the courts to over rule the people.
Third, when the latest proposition in favor of gay marriage was defeated (by the people), of all the groups opposed to gay marriage the gays chose to attack … THE MORMONS, not the Christians, or the Jews, or any of the big groups against it, just the Mormons. So this is mostly an attempt (and a poor one) at an answering shot.
Now I have no use at all for religion, in fact I think the world would be much better off and safer if religion were outlawed. I also think that someone telling me that I will go to hell if I don’t accept their religion is about as intelligent as them saying I will die if a black cat crosses my path. As for the different religions, I rank Mormonism one step above Scientology on the “Stupid Factor” so I can’t really defend them, so I will try to ignore BOTH groups and hopefully they will go away.
Brian
Brian | Apr 27, 2009 | Reply
In most cases sexual preference is hard-wired. Considering the huge difficulties homosexuals face, why would someone choose to be gay? The only advantage to it is avoiding that seat-up/seat-down argument.
The same goes for pedophilia. It’s hard wired, so they should be locked up for life. (I’m talking about real pedophiles, not an 18 year old with a 16 year old girlfriend.)
The Mormons deserve to be singled out because they are a huge, driving force behind the “God Hates Fags” movement. Alleged homosexual Fred Phelps is a minor player – so obviously batshit no one takes him seriously. By contrast the Mormons are a force to be reckoned with. They spent twenty million dollars inciting hatred to fight gay marriage in California. As this cheesy ad shows, they’re just getting started.
We should not be able to vote away other people’s basic civil rights. It doesn’t matter if the majority opposes gay marriage, as long as the state is involved in the marriage business everyone should have the same rights.
The simplest solution is to get the government out of the marriage business. Let them endorse civil unions – basic contracts – for anyone who wants them and let the individuals involved decide if they want to call it a marriage or not. But that’s not going to happen in our lifetime, so the best alternative is to let whoever wants to get married.
I have yet to hear a good argument against gay marriage. “The People” don’t want it? Screw them, they’re idiots. And idiots shouldn’t be making other people’s decisions for them.
Dave Hitt | Apr 27, 2009 | Reply
Reminds me of a line in a NOFX song: “Majority rule don’t work in mental institutions.”
Secret Agent X9 | Apr 28, 2009 | Reply
I don’t know that pedophilia is hard-wired, just contagious and incurable. You left out that kids, animals and corpses are not consenting adults.
Here’s my strategy against the mormon church’s opposition to gay marriage, though I don’t anybody will take it up: Make both gay marriage and plural marriage legal. We’ll get on board with plural marriage if they’ll get out of the way of gay marriage. Plural gay marriage? Negotiable.
Dan the Man | May 29, 2009 | Reply
Hi all,
I’m bisexual and I honestly get really annoyed with “gay” being just a sexual preference. Chances are if you screw random people straight or gay its for lust. If you marry someone chances are its for the really difficult emotion of “love.” If you love someone providing their the right age limit, you should be with them. If David marries Jack, the thing that would bother me is incompatibility not that its 2 guys. Like I said before “gay” is not just sexual, its what you are attracted to emotionally. Whores are whores, dont get it confused.
Lex | Jul 31, 2009 | Reply
Brian:
The reason that the jews weren’t attacked during the prop 8 issue is that they weren’t against it. and as dave so points out, the christians have always been very out and proud about thier asshattedness. The mormons, more specifically, the mormon CHURCH (in utah), contributed huge amounts of money, time, and resources (phone banks, etc) to defeat (I guess I should say pass) a CALIFORNIA initative. Both times that the “public” has voted to remove this basic and funamental right (Life, Liberty, & Persuit of HAPPINESS is what the Declaration of Independance says.) they have violated law. Civil, constitutional, and natural laws. The COURTS proved that. And why, or how, they failed to have the backbone to stick to their guns a few short months later is beyond me.
At one time, “the people” voted that black people were only 3/5 of a human. And had to use seperate resturants, bathrooms, hotels, SCHOOLS, ad neausum. Something tells me that the 16th president of the US knew that for the bullpucky that it was. One time, “the people” also voted that alcohol was bad. Seems that didn’t work out so well either. When are we going to learn? And, finally, before you drag out “the will of the people” again, realize that prop 8 passed by a mere 2.5 percent. That’s far from a “the will.” Fact is, laws are supposed to protect the minorities from the majorities.
For reference, if you ever want to know if a law is fair and equitable, replace the group you are demonizing, and replace it with your own. If the law still sounds good and fair, it probably is. If it doesn’t, it never was. For example if prop 8 said that all straight marriage was illegal, that marriage was only to be between 2 men or 2 women, would that give you a “hey, yeah! Sure, let’s go for that!” response? or maybe a “WTF!?!!”
Secondly, homosexuality is not, never has been, never will be, the same as beastiality, necrophilia, nor pedophilia; so for the love of god (lower case, not a “deity”) stop saying that!!!
Homosexuality is as much a choice for me as heterosexuality was for you.
Jeremy
Jeremy | Nov 11, 2009 | Reply
To all of you who read old blogs but not history books, there is something you are forgetting: you can’t stay neutral on a moving train.
This is not my name. | May 31, 2010 | Reply