gobear, um, Ikea represents good taste and sophistication?
The major explanations of how come the RR is so hung up on the ‘spread’ of gays have been covered. I also suspect that when you come from a background where what you ARE supposed to do IS proselytize your way of life, you would come to expect everyone else to be up to the same. This parallels the way the RR seems to feel that any description of something in fiction or nonfiction HAS to be in advocacy for or against (e.g. “Harry Potter books preach paganism”) .
I can actually see how members of the religious right might think that gays and lesbians are attempting to “convert” people. Among the major reasons to encouraging people to become more comfortable with homosexuality is to help gays, especially gay teens, have an easier time figuring out their sexuality. Some of these teens, of course, will be gay. If you believe that homosexuality is a choice and a sin, this would naturally be perceived as “conversion,” especially as JRDelerious says, within an organization dedicated to conversion.
Exactly as it was in the books. Ask Maeglin to explain to you medieval master servant relationships to you sometimes. He explained it to me, but I still think there’s something there.
Okay, trying to look at this from the psycho-fundie point of view (eww, my brain feels dirty)…
Most of these people think that homosexuality means (1) being attracted to ANYTHING with a penis/vagina and (2) not caring about anything except having as much filthy, mindless sex as possible. Therefore, it’s clear that they want to convert every straight person in order to be able to sleep with them. Duh.
(What confuses me is exactly how they think it’s possible to ‘recruit’ a thoroughly 100% straight person into homosexuality, but that’s another story.)
Having been accused of falling for the “Gay Agenda” and of allowing myself to be “recruited”, I have two things to say:
I have no idea why people say that, seeing as I’m both a heterosexual and an athiest. I guess it’s just because I grew up in sort of a Bible-thumping town.
I have always assumed that your basic nutty fundy type sees just accepting other peoples gay lifestyle and actually leading a gay lifestyle as being pretty much the same thing. I mean, either way you are going to hell in their books, so they lump all the homosexuals and the people who are just down with homosexuality together. Under this assumtion, I gather that “recruiting” is not necessarily about turning heterosexual people into homosexual people, its about turning otherwise god-fearing, gay-hating youngsters into adults who are tolerant of those around them.
If this is their idea of recruitment, then I can see why they are afraid of it - tolerance is obviously the enemy of the nutty fundy bunch, and in my experience exposure to diversity (in terms of sexuality, race, religion, or whatever), especially during the impressionable teenage years, has a way of breaking down a narrow world view, thus making the youth see the fundies for the wackos they truly are.
Well, I could have substituted Bombay for Ikea, but I can’t afford their prices. Love their furniture. though. I’ll trade you Madonna for Verdi. Fundies don’t like opera, either, I’ll wager.
Emarkp, people aren’t treating the other side with respect because they deserve none. Gays don’t recruit, we don’t “decide,” we don’t suddenly become gay. Sexual orientation is innate, unchosen. The urgings of the heart are not subject to the will. The fundie position is based on blind hatred and prejudice, and the proper response to bigotry is derisive laughter and contempt.
I don’t think this point has gotten the credit it deserved, jayjay, because you made it sound like a joke. Based on evidence of the homophobes I’ve had the displeasure to have known, I think many of them have a quite tenuous grasp on their own heterosexuality. They’re often “tempted” by others of the same gender, leading them to believe that they (and others) do make a conscious decision every morning to remain heterosexual.
And, as others have suggested, I don’t think it’s a far way to go from seeing the world as entirely black and white, to us vs. them, to winning and losing. You gotta fight the gays, 'cause they must be fighting you.
I was going to respond without reading, but I decided against it and found that most of what I was going to say has already been said, mostly by JRDelirious. Since the religious right knows that they themselves are trying to spread their lifestyle, they can only assume everyone else is trying to as well. And, as Journeyman said, this all fits in well with their view of the world as a horrible, horrible place (excepting themselves, of course). The RR’s cynicism about the world is overwhelming at times, it is a wonder how they can claim to have the same philosophy of Mr. turn-the-other-cheek Himself.
