Homophobes and Other Confusions, Part II

While on my way home from work today, I nearly drove off the road when I heard Paul Weyrich, CEO of the ridiculously conservative Free Congress Foundation, tell the host of All Things Considered that "It has been known for many years that Congressman Foley was a homosexual. Homosexuals tend to be preoccupied with sex." He said that this is a fact, confirmed by many psychologists and psychiatrists who "have to deal with them."

Them. He said them.

I'd never heard of the Free Congress Foundation, so I went right to their website where I found an article, written last November, entitled "Liberals Have to Practice What They Preach." Oh, the irony of it all.

This country has many "traditional" societal values that dominate Western culture. These values, like the Protestant Work Ethic which equates work and wealth with morality, are very important to the dominant power structure because they ensure the preservation of the social heirarchy. When the majority population attempts to draw clear distinctions between itself and another group that is "different," say, for example like stigmatizing gays and lesbians as over-sexed, this reinforces another "traditional" American value: that of Puritan Morality. Puritan Morality is a requirement for honesty and abstinence from vice...you know, like personal or bodily indulgences.

The divide and conquer strategy does just that. It divides us.

Vilifying homosexuals as child-molesting perverts who are obsessed with sex is a disgusting attempt to justify the entrenched heterosexism that denies millions of honest, decent people the rights and privileges the rest of America tends to take for granted.