Last week, the National Football League (NFL) held its annual scouting combine. Eli Apple, an Ohio State standout, attended the event, which is meant to showcase the talents of NFL hopefuls. During one of the interview sessions, Atlanta Falcons secondary coach Marquand Manuel asked Apple, “Do you like men?” Manuel’s question caused quite an uproar, resulting in the Atlanta Falcons coaching staff being required to take an NFL-approved social training class. Atlanta coach Dan Quinn said Manuel received additional training. Most people think that a player’s sexuality is irrelevant. All that should matter is what players do while on the playing field.
Peter LaBarbera, chief homophobe for Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, wants to know who is doing the counseling. One News Now reports LaBarbera saying:
“First of all, who are the counselors? Are they bringing in people from groups like GLAAD, which is a homosexual activist group — which is bigoted against Christians? Are they bringing in anti-Christian homosexual activists to be their so-called advisors?”
First, why would it matter whether a counselor holds a negative view of Christianity (actually Evangelical Christianity)? Isn’t the ONLY issue the fact that a person’s sexual identity and preferences are out of bounds and have no bearing on whether a player is NFL material? LaBarbera needs to understand that people of his ilk are no longer in control of our culture’s understanding of human sexuality. Most Americans now know at least one person who is gay. They are no longer willing to damn to hell friends, family, and work colleagues who just so happen to be gay. As with many former homophobes, my view of homosexuality changed once I met and befriended someone who batted from the wrong side of the plate.
Second, I am convinced that those who scream the loudest about the sin of homosexuality often are closeted gays themselves. In the same One News Now article, LaBarbera stated:
“I saw — I think it was a hockey game — where they had the kissing cam, and it was two guys kissing. And our kids are there. Do we want our sons and daughters to think it’s okay for two people of the same sex to kiss? It’s not okay! It’s immoral! It’s wrong!”
I wonder, is LaBarbera really “offended” by two men kissing, or does their kiss cause some sort of sexual stirring — one that must be suppressed lest the true Peter LaBarbera be forced out of the closet? My money is on the latter. Every time I see a picture of LaBarbera I think, this guy is a closeted gay.
Here’s to hoping that contumacious LaBarbera will have a Ted Haggard moment. The Evangelical closet is chock-full of gays — male and female. Those who take the high moral road often drive off a cliff, crashing and bursting into flames, exposing for all to see their lies and hypocrisy. When these crashes happen, the world rightly laughs and ridicules the fallen saints—not because of their religion, but because they dared to think that they were morally superior to the unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines of the world.
For readers who might not be familiar with LaBarbera, here is a partial list of things he has said about gays:
“Only a decaying society pretends that homosexual relationships are morally equivalent to normal, male-female couples.”
“God detests homosexual practice and so we should expect that, since this is a sin movement, we should expect that they lie and are often nasty.”
It’s almost as if homosexual sodomy was created to spread disease.”
“My test is [to] substitute another sexual sin and see if it makes sense. Would we be talking about a survey of porn-using Christians or incestuous Christians? That sounds stark, but that’s, I believe, the appropriate biblical analogy.”
“I think there are Christians who struggle with the sin of homosexuality — but proud homosexual Christians? That’s an oxymoron to me in the same way as I would say proud adulterous Christians,” he adds. “And so, I think we have to be very careful because I see the tactic of the Emergent Church and the Christian left is to start talking more and more about ‘gay Christians,’ and what they end up doing is demonizing the so-called ‘Religious Right’ and saying that the Religious Right is all wrong in the way it has talked about homosexuality.”
“And have you considered the likelihood that some of the homosexuals will request sex-change procedures? I know for a fact that a significant percentage of my Law School class was undergoing sex-change therapy or surgery.”
“During my enlisted service, homosexuals seemed to be a clumsy lot. They had a tendency to repeatedly fall headfirst down an engineroom ladder. Some were even known to trip on deck and “fall” overboard.”
“If we get to pick and choose which laws we uphold, which laws are next on the line to ignore? Carnal Knowledge? I would think a service man or woman who has sex with a minor (Carnal Knowledge) could perform military duties as well, if not better, than a homosexual.”
“This is what’s going to happen all across the country the more homosexuality is promoted by the armed services. I would venture to say that someday, we’ll see servicemen marching in uniform in a sexual sin parade like what we saw here in San Diego. So the fact is homosexuality, in other words sin, does not stay in its closet; it always wants to boast and be prideful.”
Let me conclude this post with a video of Dan Savage’s masterful four minute take down of LaBarbera — also known as Porno Pete.
Gay people say they think about gay sex WAY less than homophobes like this douchebag. 😉
No kidding! I’ve had gay male friends since I was in high school (and my 30-year reunion is this year!) and I’ve had some very frank conversations about sex with some of them over the years. Not one of them has been as obsessed with sex (especially anal sex) as “Porno Pete” as some of his ilk seem to be. In fact, according to one of my gay friends, a good number of gay couples don’t even engage in that particular act; wonder what “Porno Pete” would say about that?
I have no doubt in my mind that Pete LaBarbera is gay, or at least bisexual. The idea of kissing or having sex with a man turns him on, and he can’t handle it, because he is ignorant about human sexuality and so steeped in the fundie mindset that says he’ll burn in hell if he acts on his true feelings. He’s miserable, and wants everyone else to be as miserable as he is. Just sad.
I’m also beginning to wonder seriously if the reason that Franklin Graham, Gordon Klingenschmitt, and so many other anti-LBGTQ activists equate homosexuality with pedophilia is because they were themselves molested as children by a male pedophile (the vast majority of whom are straight, according to research), and have never received justice or proper counseling to deal with it. My own significant other, a recovering fundie and former homophobe himself, admits that he now wonders if his homophobia stems of an incident in his childhood, when a Boy Scout leader tried to molest him. He got away, but when he told his very fundie parents what happened, instead of going to the authorities, his father instead blamed and punished him, and gave him a lecture on the evils of sodomy!!! Talk about messed up….
I appreciate your growth in this area, but please reconsider your use of the word “homosexuals” as a noun referring to gay men and women. While not as offensive as “sodomite” or the f-word, it really has become the term of choice homophobes like Porno Pete like to use for us, which has made it more negative than it might seem. Try gay and lesbian or LGBT people instead.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/fashion/gays-lesbians-the-term-homosexual.html?referer=&_r=0
I corrected the article. Thank you for providing the informative new article.
Bruce
When I was in highschool a female classmate went on an anti-gay crusade. She actively tried to “help” lesbian friends by encouraging them to lust after boys, which she considered the lesser of two evils. I now wonder if this was a case of protesting too much.