Holy Terror, part 3: Battle plan

For many years my parents (or my grandparents, when they were alive) would organize family reunions. I rarely saw more distant relations outside of these gatherings. Alas, my parents and their siblings and cousins are too old to do the work to make these events happen.

Back in 2003 a distant cousin (I couldn't tell you the relationship) volunteered to host a reunion of my Dad's family at her place near Colorado Springs. This was quite a change from our usual venues in northern Ohio. So, it was more than a one-day trip. We had a chance to see many sights in the area. I had a chance to see how big the Focus on the Family compound is (though I had no intention of going inside).

One of those sights was Glen Eyrie. It is a big house built in 1871 and remodeled in 1881 to resemble a castle. It is now on the National Register of Historic Places and used as a conference and retreat center. During our visit I'm pretty sure we didn't go into any of the buildings. Instead, we were given a CD we could put in the car's sound system to drive around the grounds and look at the exterior of the buildings. The CD talked of the fine religious work done on the grounds by The Navigators, a Christian group that owns the place that has the purpose of training people to share their faith. That means they are Evangelical, though not necessarily fundamentalist.

I mention all this because in 1994 Glen Eyrie was the site of a three day conference that planned the "short term" solution to gay and lesbian Americans. With this I continue my series of posts on Mel White's book Holy Terror, Lies the Christian Right Tells Us to Deny Gay Equality. White relied on conference materials and audio tapes of the event to tell us about it. The attendees were leaders of anti-gay groups from across the country, though specifically excluding the big names (mentioned in part 2) so that the movement would have the appearance of being grass-roots and that the big players couldn't get it done without the little guy's help. The urgency and importance of the meeting were asserted from the start with Will Perkins saying, "If we lose this battle, there are no moral absolutes left for this nation." White wrote:

From the opening moments of their Glen Eyrie conference these fundamentalists Christians were evoking God's guidance on their plan to deprive lesbian and gay Americans of all the civil rights and protections guaranteed them by the U.S. Constitution. It was obvious that they believed that the war they were waging against us was a holy war and that their efforts to "end homosexuality in America" were done in God's name and with God's blessing.

A big part of the problem, according to the attendees, was that most pastors were wimps on the issue and they didn't know how to present a compelling argument against homosexuality. So this conference planned to supply that without drawing the pastor into controversies.

The main part of the Glen Eyrie conference was a presentation of the Glen Eyrie Protocol, how the Fundies were to wage war against us, their battle plan. It has three main parts.

First, prove that heterosexuality is best for individuals and society. Translation: homosexuality is destructive to both the individual and society. Yeah, the tone was supposed to be positive, but that didn't last. Attendees were cautioned to use scientific data, not biblical arguments. That's because biblical arguments didn't resonate with those who weren't religious.

The AIDS epidemic had been ravaging gay communities for more than a decade by the time of this conference. That became the prime piece of evidence that homosexuality was destructive. There were lots of examples of gay men coming out to their parents by telling Mom and Dad they were dying of AIDS.

As for actual "science" there was Paul Cameron, who back in 1983 has been tossed out of the American Psychological Association for shoddy "research." But why quibble over that detail when Cameron was able to produce such useful studies as The Medical Consequences of What Homosexuals Do, Child Molestation and Homosexuality, What Causes Homosexual Desire and Can it Be Changed?, and Same Sex Marriage: Til Death Do Us Part? Yes, every one of these is as vile as their title suggests and every one of them is stuffed full of lies. But they provided the needed scientific foundation for the battle. That "toxic waste," as White calls it, is still being used to poison minds.

Second, prove that homosexuality is NOT immutable. Translation: homosexuality is a choice and that homosexuals can change. To help with this was the National Association of Research and Therapy of Homosexuals, or NARTH. This was the top organization in reparative therapy and they had the roster of psychoanalysts and psychologists to back them up. Several denominational organizations sprang up: Courage for Catholics, Evergreen for Mormons, JONAH for Orthodox Jews, and the big one Exodus. There was a ready supply of "ex-gays" to give testimony to religious broadcast programs.

Nearly all participants of these programs discovered they didn't work. Alas, many concluded the fault was their own and suffered great psychological harm and many committed suicide. We can rejoice that in 2013 the head of Exodus admitted failure to change anyone's orientation, apologized for the pain, and closed the organization.

Even so, this part of the battle plan has been effective. From a 2003 survey by the Pew Forum:

People who believe homosexuality is a choice, as opposed to a trait people are born with, are far more opposed to gay marriage, as are people who believe homosexuals can change.

Third, demonstrate why society needs to make certain demands on people sexually. Translation: government needs to be persuaded to use its power to enforce fundamentalist Christian sexual morality, especially on homosexuals. This part of the plan is deeply rooted in the idea that America is supposed to be a Christian nation built on absolute, God-given morals. The pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness are supposedly dependent on these absolute morals.

This part of the plan is built on four principles:
* Convince elected officials to take a stand against pro-gay legislation.
* Eliminate government funding of immoral behavior – including funding for AIDS research and prevention (yup, it's our own fault if we contract AIDS and we deserve to die).
* See a spiritual awakening. Translation: give gays and lesbians a last chance to confess their sin and be guided into an ex-gay ministry.
* To strengthen the male/father image. Translation: reinforce patriarchy and make sure sex education is only about abstinence until marriage.

Robert Skolrood, one of the leaders, gave this rallying cry:

Homosexuality denies, really, the fundamental values of Christianity. It denies life, it denies God's expressed desire that men and women cohabit, and it denies the root structure that the Bible prescribes for all mankind and the family. What these people are against is absolute values. And Christianity is one of the stumbling blocks in their way.

White explains the "root structure":

God has given each of us a role to play in sustaining life on this planet. A gay man who refuses to do his God-given duty as husband and father helps bring down the entire structure.

I've heard the comment that when the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union collapsed, Fundie groups needed a new way to raise money. Raising the specter of Godless Communism just didn't sweeten the pot like it used to. So Fundies turned to demonizing us to raise funds. White dismisses that comment. While Fundies did indeed raise millions off our backs and did so not long after the Iron Curtain fell, we weren't just a convenient target. These people genuinely believed we were (and are still) a dire threat to everything they hold dear.

This Glen Eyrie meeting described the "short term" solution. This solution included: deny all rights to same-sex couples, end all sex education except abstinence, stop gov't support of safe-sex progams and AIDS research, prevent gays from adopting, remove lesbian and gay teachers and pastors, remove hate-crime protections, prevent laws that ban discrimination, ban gays and lesbians from the military, recriminalize homosexual behavior, and do whatever else they can to keep us in the closet (or convince us to become straight). White asks the important question: If this is the short term solution, what is the long term solution?

Once fundamentalist Christians have successfully dehumanized our lives, demeaned our relationships, denied us our rights, devastated our families, destroyed our influence in church and society, and driven us back into our closets, what comes next?

This was a difficult post for me to write. It wasn't because the words didn't flow. It was having to spell out one false statement after another, knowing they were intentionally false and with the purpose of doing harm to me and my kind. We have been living with, trying to combat, and suffering from the poisons these statements have injected into the national conversation for 20 years now. I take great comfort that even with these poisons regularly hurled at us the public opinion of same-sex marriage, public accommodation laws, and hate crime laws has consistently shifted in our favor over the last 20 years and is now a majority opinion. Because of this very effective campaign, the GOP is still against us. In spite of it the nation is embracing us. These false statements are still out there and still do harm. Thankfully, more and more people see them as false.

There is another sign of hope, though it comes with pain. At the age of 12 Ryan Robertson told his parents he was gay. They, Rob and Linda, guided Ryan into a reparative therapy program. It didn't work and Ryan died of a drug overdose at the age of 18. Rob and Linda could have left their church. Instead, they chose to challenge the false teaching. The church leadership is having harder time simply branding them as no longer being a "real" Christian. Rob and Linda are using blogs and social media to find and band together with other parents who choose the love of a child over church doctrine. Various seminary scholars are becoming more vocal in their challenge to doctrine. The closure of Exodus has raised the question, "If I can't change my kid into being a straight Christian, then what?" Linda Robertson said:

I got a lot of emails from parents who said, "I don't know one other parent of a gay child. I feel like in my community, I don't have permission to love my child." They have a lot of questions. But then they're going back to their churches and speaking to their pastors, speaking to their elders and speaking to their friends, saying, "We have a gay child. We love them and we don't want to kick them out. How do we go forward?"