I don’t often get trolled, but when I do, it’s usually something epic. Take this “Marcus” character for instance: he commented on an article I wrote about a ridiculous book written called The Pink Swastika, by a religious fundy who claims Hitler and his thugs were actually a gang of ‘homofascists’, intent on corrupting the world with their ‘gayness’. This revisionist history completely ignores the fact that some 100,000 gay men and women were executed in concentration camps, although I’m sure such a shitty historian probably doubts the reality of Hitler’s Final Solution as well.

I’ll let Marcus explain why this piece of shit book isn’t a total fabrication:

The Southern Poverty Law Center IS a hate group. Hitler’s Brown shirts were exclusively homosexual. You fascist neopagans only attack the religious to divert attention from the fact that you share Hitler’s Marxist views. Nothing you say can erase Hitler’s own words and policies. Just because Hitler was a national socialist instead of being a communist doesn’t change the fact that he persecuted Christians, Jews, the elderly, the deaf etc. long before the Night of the Long Knives and that he used tactics now seen in Occupy and the public sector unions and the Nazi party in NY and CA, which are groups populated primarily by angry queers. The fact is, Hitler persecuted the Jews and Christians because of their objective views on morality, views which stand contrary to post modernism, subjective morality and savage pre-enlightenment practices such as euthanasia, eugenics and the final solution to the human condition- industrialized mass murder. Ya’ll are accusing the majority of being secret Nazis when your Nazi buddies are in public view, announcing their views which mirror your own. No wonder you try to convince yourselves of lies on [sic] teh interwebs when your entire “worldviews” are wrapped up in a lie so contradictory to the truth. Your tiny socialist brains can’t handle your hypocrisy.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, in case you were wondering, is an organization that’s been fighting white supremacists and anti-gay hate groups since 1971. Calling them a hate group is like calling the Red Cross an invading army.

Now, if you’re trying to make any sense of the rest, there’s something fundamentally important you have to consider: the American right thinks communism is fascism. The confusion has multiple sources: first, it seems as though most Americans are unfamiliar with their own respective political spectrum. They are also seemingly confused by the fact that Hitler’s political party had the word ‘Socialist’ in it.

As for this strange tactic that the ‘Occupy’ movement was somehow inspired by Hitler, it would do well for this uneducated moron to read a little history: Fascism is in fact anti-union, and believes a strong relationship between government and business leaders is necessary in order to achieve self-sustainability and to ensure that businesses maintain a high degree of profitability. Fascism rejects individuality and favors a strong national identity. Adherents are unquestioningly patriotic (sound familiar?), and view violence as a means of preserving their national vitality (kinda like sending drones to kill civilians, no?).

Of course it’s not difficult to imagine that this Marcus fellow is an angry, bigoted man with zero understanding of history or political movements. But he also represents the new face of American Fascism: one that is unaware of its own identity, blinded by a conflation of terms and ideologies, and motivated primarily by the same forces that inspired those brown-shirts to mold the world in their terrifying image. When Sinclair Lewis said when fascism came to America, it would be “wrapped up in the American flag and heralded as a plea for liberty and preservation of the constitution”, he failed to understand the ones carrying that flag would be totally unaware of the consequences and significance of their own actions. Driven primarily by their own hatred of others, American Fascists are in denial about themselves. They accuse others of being communists for even the slightest hint of socialism, and then do everything in their power to hand over the keys to their country to the rich Oligarchy, promising them Christianity and the repression of homosexuals. If that doesn’t sound at all familiar to you guys, then I suggest you hit the library. Clearly, Marcus never has.

Ok, I’ll admit I think the Twilight series is terrible, but is it evil, sinister, or sick and twisted? It reads more like the kind of book you might expect a desperately lonely fat high school girl to write, with the added murderer/rapist fantasy thrown in. While you can argue about the merits of the story, you can’t argue with the sales figures: Stephanie Meyer’s series has sold over 116 million copies worldwide and has been translated in 38 languages. You may not like it, but you cannot deny its popularity.

It’s that very popularity which seems to anger the patriarchal, domineering man known as Mark Driscoll. The head of Mars Hill Church is convinced that isolated incidents of vampire-related assaults and sex-orgies are undoubtedly caused by impressionable teens reading a book with the words ‘per se’ used over 100 times.

The popularity of supernatural soap operas has inspired some real-life demonic trends. Overreaction? Tell that to the kids biting, cutting, drinking blood—sometimes while having sex—and sinking deeper into the occult:

Driscoll then proceeds to use isolated examples of weird assaults to draw a connection between teen obsession with vampires and the general degradation of society. Maybe you could make the case that print is dead, buried by the likes of Meyer and the 50 Shades of Grey guy, but this idea that everyone who reads this book will turn into a demon possessed monster is so ridiculous, it actually hurts my brain.

The problem with the occult is that it doesn’t actually exist. Oh sure, people will often pretend sinister, demonic stuff is happening, but because all that shit is totally made up, no one actually buys into it. The only ones who do are gullible Christians who think Satan is real and possessing people. The rest of us think all this crap is about as genuinely scary as Halloween (the other thing these whackjobs are also scared about). What do you expect from people who take their nonsense literally?

I know the big news story today is President Obama being re-elected, but I hope this bit of news doesn’t get buried under all the brouhaha: it seems as though the tiny state of Maryland has legalized same-sex marriage by approving “Question 6″ on the ballot. Now, before you celebrate this victory, you should know a few important details:

Establishes that Maryland’s civil marriage laws allow gay and lesbian couples to obtain a civil marriage license, provided they are not otherwise prohibited from marrying; protects clergy from having to perform any particular marriage ceremony in violation of their religious beliefs; affirms that each religious faith has exclusive control over its own theological doctrine regarding who may marry within that faith; and provides that religious organizations and certain related entities are not required to provide goods, services, or benefits to an individual related to the celebration or promotion of marriage in violation of their religious beliefs.

Can you imagine any civil rights legislation that still protected religious institutions from their blatant racism? I know I should be happy for gay couples finally getting the same rights as everyone else, but I can’t help but feel like this toothless referendum further legitimizes institutionalized homophobia. It’s no different than allowing churches the right to deny interracial marriages, since those too are specifically condemned by the Bible (remember when Lot’s daughters rape him in order not to have to take on foreign husbands?). I realize this was a necessary concession, but we should recognize the major barrier to marriage equality is still religion, and we shouldn’t be afraid to call it like it is.

One of the truly tragic things about Christianity is its propensity to label behaviors it arbitrarily decides are wrong as “sins”. This has caused all kinds of misery for individuals with a sexual orientation different from the majority of us. Gay Christians are often haunted by the idea that their sexual attraction to someone of the same gender is putting their “souls” (another childish concept we can’t seem to shake off) in imminent danger. Their solution, often times, is to deny the very fiber of their being, constructing elaborate justification for living a crazy lie.

One such poor bastard is Josh Weed, a proud Mormon who runs a site called “The Weed”. He’s recently come out of the closet, and he wrote a confused letter about his decision to stay married. While at first glance the letter may seem sweet and even charming, the underlying message is a hodgepodge of confusion and terrible advice.

sex is about more than just visual attraction and lust and it is about more than just passion and infatuation. I won’t get into the boring details of the research here, but basically when sex is done right, at its deepest level it is about intimacy. It is about one human being connecting with another human being they love. It is a beautiful physical manifestation of two people being connected in a truly vulnerable, intimate manner because they love each other profoundly. It is bodies connecting and souls connecting. It is beautiful and rich and fulfilling and spiritual and amazing.

This sounds like it’s taken straight from the Tom Cruise playbook: focus on the intimacy of sex, in order to ignore the fact that you aren’t actually attracted to the person sucking you off. Hey, I agree that sex does have that element, but it’s also a dirty, raunchy affair that’s best enjoyed with someone who naturally gets your dick hard.

Many people never get to this point in their sex lives because it requires incredible communication, trust, vulnerability, and connection. And Lolly and I have had that from day one, mostly because we weren’t distracted by the powerful chemicals of infatuation and obsession that usually bring a couple together

The passion may dwindle, but you might be hard pressed to find anyone willing TO SKIP OVER THIS PART. I would venture to guess that the guy has never actually been laid by a dude before, and his dismissing this important part of a relationship goes to show how little he knows about sex.

One of the sad truths about being homosexual is that no matter what you decide for your future, you have to sacrifice something. It’s very sad, but it is true… with homosexuality, the choices seem to be a little bit more mutually exclusive. If you are Mormon and you choose to live your religion, you are sacrificing the ability to have a romantic relationship with a same-sex partner. If you choose a same-sex partner, you are sacrificing the ability to have a biological family with the one you love.

This obsession with biology infuriates me, but it’s a consequence of religion’s insistence on humans to reproduce like wild bunnies. No doubt they long ago realized that to build a following, the quickest way to accomplish this is to ensure your acolytes have a bevy of kids. They usually end up just as fucked as their parents, ensuring generation after generation of people believe in utter nonsense. To pretend as though there are no options for having a family and being gay is both disingenuous and ignorant.

This whole article smacks of a profound ignorance on the issue of homosexuality. While Weed is correct in pointing to the fundamental incompatibility between his religion and his sexuality, their compromise seems to be “give up on your desires in order to have a family”. While such self sacrifice may appear noble, in truth it merely encourages others in similar situations to continue to deny a part of themselves, for no other reason than Joseph Smith’s twisted ideas on love and marriage.

In any case, I came out of this feeling sorry for Josh. He’s clearly a sweet man, but this living a lie thing has him spouting all kinds of dangerous nonsense. No one should be forced to deny their sexual attractions, least of all for purely biological reasons. I think this guy needs a cock up his ass, stat.

The key to spreading a message is to keep it simple, stupid. The reason is simple: most minds are only interested in confirming their pre-existing belief, and if your message requires a lot of introspection or even thinking, it’s just not going to make it big. This might be one of the reasons why actually educating someone’s position is infinitely more difficult. Brains dislike the hard work of coming to conclusions on their own. They usually like someone else doing it for them.

One group that seems to have mastered the “keep it simple” unsurprisingly comes from a land of Biblically educated cretins. They effortlessly give their hoards of unthinking masses plenty of talking points that sound, at least to them, somewhat compelling. Take Caiden Cowger, a 14 year old kid who hosts his own podcast. He recently published a show claiming homosexuality was a choice (and a sinful one at that) and President Obama and Biden were “making kids gay”. It doesn’t take very long to realize this kid doesn’t really have any opinions of his own: he’s just repeating the hateful bullshit he’s been hearing all his life. But because he lives in a world where no one bothers to scrutinize what you say, he’s free to continue to spread the hateful message of the religious right. It’s easy: all you have to do is repeat verbatim all the dumb shit you hear from your local preacher, or perhaps your conservative radio host.

Caiden doesn’t need to learn about biology, or psychology to have an opinion on homosexuality. He’s free to simply take whatever hateful message he hears coming out of other “conservatives” and rebroadcast it so the rest of the world can lament the waste of another human being lost in their own bigoted world view.

(Update: Caiden now writes for “The Family Council“)

A few weeks ago, Pastor Sean Harris learned two important lessons: 1) enticing any kind of child abuse publicly is a stupid idea because, 2) the Internet forgets nothing. So, with these important life lessons now firmly in mind, he’s issued a non-apology for saying fathers should give their gay sons a “good punch” for acting like girls.

“I was telling them in strong words that were not careful. What did I learn this week? Be more careful with your words”

And with that care, I give you his apology:

You know, it’s amazing how ‘punch’ has been equated to inciting violence against gay youth. That’s not what I meant.

Yes, there is some kind of amazement in what you’ve said, Sean. Only this kind is about how anyone who condones violence against children for having same sex attraction can say something this daft and not be immediately shamed back to the Bronze Age. Sean, do you seriously think we’ll believe that you were telling your parishioners all their gay sons needed was a “go get ‘em, champ” punch in the shoulder, or are you just being careful not to be open about your violent hatred of homosexuals? The whole “hate the sin and not the sinner” shit is just another form of this veiled hate, but it can only contain this kind of venom for so long. We can smell your disgust from here, Sean, and we don’t like it.

Luckily, the Internet is here so anyone can go back and hear these very words spoken by you at any time, thanks to the magic of streaming video. Your speech will undoubtedly be one of many used in a documentary someday showing just how shamefully ignorant many of us were, back in the day when you needed to fight for basic human rights. Like the Segregationists of old, these religious crusaders will be remembered as the last obstacle in the quest for not only marriage equality, but respect and dignity. Sean Harris may not have learned any real lessons, but the rest of us certainly did.

In light of homosexuality becoming more accepted in society, there are still those individuals who have a problem with the idea two people of the same sex can love each other. Of the few institutions that still harbor an intense hatred of gays, the most respected is religion, and this has meant the fight for civil rights has been pitted against “religious freedom”. This tactic isn’t new; Southern Baptists were using the same tactic when trying to fight against African Americans being guaranteed the same rights as other citizens through government legislation.

Now the same kind of tactic is being used when talking about the rights of gay to marry, and be protected from abuse and violence. Illinois recently had an opportunity to do the right thing and chose not to do so due to fear and hatred of homosexuality:

The Illinois Senate today turned down a bill that would have encouraged anti-bullying programs in schools, after conservatives argued that such programs could be used as a front to promote homosexuality.
“There are anti-bullying programs that have an agenda, to only protect one class of individuals,”

We’ll ignore the fact gays are disproportionately bullied in schools: there was nothing about the program that singled them out. It was simply a measure meant to try and curb the growing problem of bullying. Fearing homophobic students motivated by religion might be put in a situation exposing their bigotry, the State Assembly chose instead to allow kids to live in terror rather than allow some gay kids to live their lives free of fear and persecution.

The bill could have actually passed, but because a dozen legislators chose to vote “present”‘, it failed. Like the persistence of any prejudice and social injustice, it is those who stand by the sidelines who contribute to the misery. Evil persists when good men and women do nothing, and that’s exactly what these cowards did. It should be a lesson to those of us who choose to say nothing in the face of injustice, ignorance, and bigotry. For every one of these poltroons, two brave men and women must take their place, to drown out the voices of those who oppose the rights of their fellow human beings. Although this battle may be lost, we will never let them win this war.