I’ve just been forwarded a press release, announcing a “Christian Coalition Against Perverted Pride Marches” and the launch of a website, Belfast Pride official web-site

It’s a bog-standard copy of US bible belt homophobia, using material from an organisation called Exodus Global Alliance, with no effort to adapt the statistics or phraseology to Irish, or European norms. The site has been set up on behalf of the “beleaguered Christians of Belfast” against the “disgusting”, “lewd” and “filthy” behaviour of the “elite” group that is the lesbian and gay community of Northern Ireland.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Some of my best friends are from Northern Ireland. But the province depresses the hell out of me. I’ve only worked there once, a long time ago, visited a couple of other times – but I have no desire to get any closer to the place. I don’t want to lower myself to the level of discourse that passes for debate on matters sexual there – the “Save Ulster from Sodomy” rant that is as ferocious as any Taliban mullah’s pronouncements on the matter. When it’s that full of hate, dialogue is impossible. Of course, that’s been said about the sectarian divide in the past, and it is wonderful to see the giant leaps that have been made over the past decade in stopping the killing and beginning the talking. But homophobia unites both Catholic and Protestant in Ulster.
The danger in allowing bigotry to go unchallenged is that it can gain currency by default. The problem with mainstream laissez-faire common sense (such as it exists in Northern Ireland, or indeed the world for that matter) is that it doesn’t fire people up enough to fund propaganda campaigns to defend it.
What moves me to write against this website is the memory of the most fucked-up people I’ve met, over the years: gay men from Northern Ireland. In my experience, there’s a level of fear and self-loathing among them that is extraordinary – hysterical, even. Growing up in fundamentalist households with believers of this garbage, and being educated in segregated bigoted schools, leaves such enormous scars that it is amazing anyone gay or lesbian (or, of course, sentient) survives an upbringing there with any shred of self-respect or self-love at all.
At the core of the fundamentalists’ argument is that being gay is a lifestyle choice. At the Exodus site there are many “ex-gay testimonials for Christ”, apparently written by men and women who have left behind their evil ways and found love and happiness through Christian marriage. But they are not consistent – they also bemoan the fact that psychiatrists have been “prevented” from diagnosing homosexuality as a mental disorder for more than three decades, when the DSM (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) was changed, due to political lobbying by the gay movement. They would rather it was still classed as an illness requiring treatment; failing that, it’s a lifestyle choice, a sin.
They lament the concept of “sexual orientation.” They write: “This is a phrase made up by homosexuals to try to make themselves look less filthy than they really are. The purpose of the phrase is to take the spotlight from what these perverts do, and put it on the notion that they are just poor, mistreated people, who simply are attracted to members of the same sex – as if they aren’t engaging in activity forbidden by God Almighty.”
As ever, the prurience of some Christians really does betray their complete obsession with sex. They helpfully list the varieties of sex that gay people get up to, the “Filthy Practices” of anal sex, felching, rimming, scat, watersports, S&M, and fisting; all the things that bodies can do for pleasure, with a little imagination. They bemoan the rates of infection of sexual disease, including HIV and AIDS, among gay men, but only in order to complain about the cost to the taxpayer of treatment. Under a specious list of “Facts and Statistics about Homosexual practices” they boldly state that “50% of all suicides can be attributed to homosexuals”.
What a curious way of putting it – the baldness of it, the brevity of it, betraying their hatred, their unconscious desire, perhaps, that it was 100%. They have bizarre statistics about longevity: lesbians, apparently, die at the median age of 45, compared to 79 for heterosexual women. They have a section called “Homosexuals prey on children”. They write: “Because homosexuals can’t reproduce, they resort to recruiting children.” It’s amazing that this is still believed by anyone in this century in the West. But also, it runs counter to their argument that homosexuality is a choice. It’s illogical, poisonous cant.
But all the above is easy to refute. What is more complex and interesting is the thinking behind a linked site, called peoplecanchange.com, because it’s a site based on personal experience. For me, personal narrative is the best way to go in understanding each other on this planet. Under the heading “Common root causes” of (male) homosexuality, it has chapters written in the first person called “Unhealed Wounds from Childhood and Youth”, “Feelings of Masculine Deficiency”, “Idolization of other Males and Maleness”, “Fear of Men”, “Estrangement from Men and the Dissociation of Maleness”, “Over-identification with the Feminine”, “Over-sensitivity”, “Father Hunger”, “Mother Enmeshment”, “Shame, Secrecy and Self-loathing”, “Isolation and Loneliness”, “Unhealthy Relationships”, “Touch Deprivation” and “Spiritual Emptiness”.
It’s a compelling read – because I understand that many of these themes resonate with a lot of men, gay straight or bisexual. In some ways, it’s a highly perceptive critique of the loss of the sacred in the west – the crisis of meaning that many men suffer from, whatever their orientation. In particular, the tendency to idolize men, as opposed to relating to them emotionally, leads to so many of the problems of our age – the devotion to leaders such as Osama bin Laden, for example. On a sexual level, if we can only idolize men, then we are dehumanizing them, seeing them only as objects; and in so doing, we can dehumanize ourselves. It’s a valid criticism against gay male culture, no doubt about that. But it’s also a criticism against testosterone.
The writers at peoplecanchange.com believe that shame is at the root of homosexuality. Their discourse is steeped in 12-step thinking, which itself comes from a Christian, shame-based tradition – Original Sin is alive and kicking. They believe that if they heal their wounds as men, embrace their masculinity, extirpate their sexual desire and surrender to God, then they can find happiness. The desire to connect with masculinity to heal oneself by sexual means is seen as sinful, pathological. But they make no mention of the desire to heal oneself by sexual means by connecting with femininity. For every argument that pathologises homosexual desire, the equivalent argument stands to pathologise heterosexuality.
But, good luck to them, I say. Any movement that calls for such a degree of self-analysis and care, that opens up the many layers of connection and empathy between men, is a good thing. I imagine, given the tone of the writing, that at the end of the journey that they describe, if there are some men left who haven’t managed to change their natures by monumental force of will and determination, that they won’t be punished or exorcised. Maybe I’m naive.
But what I don’t understand from the other websites is the profound fear of homosexuality. Why is it so threatening? It seems to me that a fundamentally spiritual outlook is one that accepts people as they are, and encourages through example how to live a good and fulfilling life. The suspicion and hatred that fundamentalists display when dealing with homosexuality, the extraordinary lengths that they go to, to try and deny what is natural, to twist it into conformity, baffles me. In nature, diversity is a given. In organised religion, it is seen as a threat. As humanity evolves, generation by generation, if we can keep a compassionate interested eye on how we change, we learn more about ourselves. And we also learn more about the many fascinating ways we express ourselves and make meaning.