Despite the advances in rights for the LGBTQ communities, and a growing acceptance of at least lesbians and gay/bi men (acceptance of transsexuals is still lagging), we continue to encounter some pretty far out anti-gay stuff.

We certainly had the whackos crawling out of the woodwork here in Canada during our process toward equal marriage.  Our American neighbours seem to go in for polarized politics at the best of times and when it comes to the debate currently happening in the States around same-sex marriage there, this tendency is on full tilt.

First, we had a North Carolina Senior Pastor, Sean Richards of Berean Baptist Church in Fayetteville, exhorting his congregation to "correct" effeminate behaviour in boys by punching them, calling for fathers to "squash" the behaviour; if they "had a limp wrist", straighten that wrist by cracking it and make the boy "man up".

"So your little son starts to act a little girlish when he is four years old and instead of squashing that like a cockroach and saying, man up, son, get that dress off you and go outside and dig a ditch, because that is what boys do, you get out the camera and start taking pictures of Johnny acting like a female and then you upload it to YouTube and everybody laughs about it and the next thing you know, this dude, this kid is acting out childhood fantasies that should have been squashed... Dads, the second you see your son dropping the limp wrist, you walk over there and crack that wrist!  Man up.  Give him a good punch.  Okay? You are not going to act like that.  You were made by God to be a male and you are going to be a male."

But it wasn’t just gay boys he was after.  Young lesbians came in for it, too.

"And when your daughter starts acting too butch, you rein her in.  You say, oh no, oh no sweetheart! You can play sports...play ‘em, play ‘em to the glory of God, but sometimes you’re gonna act like a girl, walk like a girl, talk like a girl, and smell like a girl so that means you’re gonna be beautiful, you’re gonna be attractive, you’re gonna dress yourself up."

Following a firestorm of outrage, he issued a retraction...of sorts.

Keep in mind, he is a Southern Baptist minister so he is never going to see homosexuality in an affirmative light.  To him, it is and will always be "an abomination".  And that’s fine.  He’s free to believe whatever he wishes and to interpret 2000-year old words, often poorly translated over the centuries, in any manner he wishes.  That is freedom of religion.  I disagree but have no real issue with that.  Okay...I have bit of an issue with it, but I recognize no amount of logic, reasonable argument, or pointing out how the understanding of human sexuality two millennia ago was considerably less sophisticated than it is now, is going to change such a person’s mind.  I can live with that.

In his retraction he acknowledges he should have chosen his words better.  But he goes on to say,

"It’s amazing how punch has been equated to [sic] inciting violence against gay youth; that’s not what I meant!"

When asked on CNN what he did mean by the "punch remark" he answered,

"A shove.  An affirmation. You see coaches give their players a good punch or a good slug...it’s a way of affirming the gender distinctions between a male and a female..."

Then, a few weeks later, we have another Baptist minister, Pastor Charles Worley of Providence Road Baptist Church, just outside Charlotte, N.C., take it even further.

Pastor Worley preached lesbians and "queers and homosexuals" (what the distinction is between the two was never made clear by the pastor) should be incarcerated in what sounded very much like concentration camps.

"About our president gettin’ up and sayin’ it’s alright for two women to marry or two men to marry. I’ll tell you right now I was disappointed bad, but I’ll tell ya right there - and it’s as sorry as it can get - but the Bible’s [against] it, God’s [against] it, I’m [against] it and, if you got any sense, you’re [against] it!  I figured a way out, a way to get rid of ‘em, all them lesbians and queers, but I couldn’t get it past the accountants...build a great big large fence - 50 or a 100 mile long - and put all the lesbians in there.  Fly over and drop some food.  Do the same thing with the queers and the homosexuals.  And then have that fence electrified so they can’t get out.  Feed ‘em, and then you know what?  In a few years, they’ll die out.  You know why?  They can’t reproduce."

Pastor Worley is no novice to this sort of rhetoric.  In 1978 he gave a sermon archived on the church’s website in which he said,

"We’re living in a day when, you know what, it saddens my heart to think that homosexuals can go ‘round - bless God - and get the applause of a lot of people.  Lesbians and all the rest of it.  Bless God, forty year ago they’da hung them, bless God, from a white oak tree!  Wouldn’t they?  Amen..."

Whatever one might think of his beliefs - as twisted and horrifying as they may be - what will get him in trouble with the Feds is not his, I would argue, clearly advocating for the incarceration and death of lesbians and gay men in concentration camps.  It will be his crossing the line from preaching into the realm of politics.  Not a particularly intelligent move on his part.  But I’d rather deal with a stupid bigot than a devilishly clever one.  The blatantly ignorant ones are easy to spot and easy to counter. It’s the smart ones that appear reasonable and concerned as they sneak their policies and ideas in through the back door, that concern me the most.  It seems Pastors Richards and Worley fall into the former category, with room to spare.

Like in Canada, churches and other faith institutions such as temples, synagogues, mosques and religious charities, enjoy tax exempt status so long as they separate charitable and faith activities from political advocacy.  As in Canada, the rules of tax exemption are quite clear.  Pastor Worley sailed right on past that.

"I’ll tell right now...somebody said who you’re gonna vote for. I ain’t gonna vote for a baby killer and a homosexual lover!  Ya said, did you mean to say that?  You better believe I did!  God have mercy - it makes me pukin’ sick to think about - I don’t even know if ya can all say this in the pulpit or not - can you imagine kissing some man..."  He then went on to say "I love you fellas, but not that much..."

While Pastor Worley seems to think he is free to spout whatever garbage he sees as truth because after all he lives in the United States of America and the Constitution says he can say whatever he wants, he apparently is not ready to extend that right to those who disagree with his views.

The church reputedly had requested that "all media be restricted" and media gathered at the church were told by police deputies to immediately leave the property.  More than 1000 protesters speaking out against Worley had to hold their rally 12 kilometres away in Newton, according to rally organizers, to accommodate the large turn-out and to have a more visible presence than the remote location in which Providence Road Baptist is located.  One can’t help but suspect they, too, had been told to relocate. Worley has, at the time of writing, refused to make a statement to media or to be interviewed.

The Right frequently comes out against initiatives such as hate/bias crime laws, gay-affirmative action in our schools, or any sort of limitations on freedom of speech and religion.  I understand that; I don’t happen to agree with them on those issues, but I do understand where they are coming from...most of the time.

However, why do we not hear anyone from the social conservative end of the spectrum speak out against such hatred? Does their deafening silence indicate at least a tacit agreement with such views? It’s not like there isn’t ample opportunity, in a variety of media, to speak out against such things.  They certainly seem to have access to such avenues when they accuse moderate Muslims of failing to speak out against Islamism.  They certainly seem to have plenty of access when accusing the ‘lib-left’ of failing to speak out on a variety of issues. Yet their silence on this is pervasive.  It reads as being guilty of the very thing of which they accuse others.  There’s a word for that; hypocrisy.

A recent ABC News-Washington Post poll found 53 percent of Americans support same-sex marriage; an increase of 20 percentage points from a 2004 poll which registered only 32 percent favoured same-sex marriage.  There has also been a dramatic shift in the demographics.  In 2006 only people younger than 30 years of age were a majority in favour.  The 2012 poll shows people in their 30s and 40s now are.

Currently, same-sex marriage is legal in Connecticut, Iowa, Massachuetts, New Hampshire, New York State, Vermont, and the District of Columbia. Oregon is one of the 31 states to ban same-sex marriage but it is permitted amongst the Coquille First Nation. The state of Washington only recognizes civil unions, but the state’s Squamish tribe recognizes same-sex marriage.  California conditionally recognizes it, meaning marriages performed there when it was briefly legal (overturned by Proposition 8) are recognized; others are not.  Maryland and Rhode Island only recognize marriages made outside their jurisdiction.

Civil unions are legal in Delaware, Hawaii (which also recognizes domestic partnerships), Illnois, New Jersey, and Rhode Island.  California, Maine, and Washington State recognize domestic partnerships only.  Equal marriage, civil unions, or same-sex domestic partnerships are banned by either statute or state constitutional amendments in the remaining 33 states.

Having a sitting President support equal marriage carries no legal or constitutional weight.  Congress does not appear willing to rescind the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) enacted under Bill Clinton, although Obama has directed his Justice Department to cease defending challenges to DOMA which, one assumes, would eventually lead to DOMA withering on its own vine.  While most Republicans are not surprisingly opposed to equal marriage, there are few moderates in favour.  This, however, is balanced out by conservative Democrats.

One of Obama’s major wins, North Carolina, voted 61 percent in favour of enshrining "traditional marriage" in their state constitution.  There are also concerns within his Administration that support of equal marriage could cost him important "swing states" such as Virginia and Ohio.  He also risks alienating many within the Hispanic and African-American communities which, overwhelmingly, oppose same-sex marriage and/or civil unions for homosexuals.

Obama is, of course, aware of this and still chose to "do the right thing", as President John F. Kennedy did over 40 years ago when he stood up to southern states and pushed for civil rights for African-Americans.  JFK recognized for a nation built on the premise of equality and freedom, to deny a segment of that society anything less than full equality undermined the very thing America stood for.  Obama recognizes the same thing and, like JFK, has taken a leap of faith.

Let us hope the American people, the Richards’ and Worleys and others like them notwithstanding, recognize it as well.