It’s one thing to accept that there are religious persons who believe that homosexuality is unacceptable based on their beliefs- you can’t really argue with that. Beliefs are beliefs. You can make a valid argument that no one has a right to force their religious views onto others. You can also make a valid rebuttal about the theological points that the beliefs are based upon. But a person chooses the beliefs they chose.

It’s a totally different thing however, when the anti-gay groups put out nothing but crazy stuff and hate mongering garbage. Consider this from Tony Perkins from the Family Research Council, a group certified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center:

Family Research Council president Tony Perkins told Washington Watch listeners last Friday that they should oppose gay equality because it will lead to the end of humanity.

Perkins agreed with a caller who said that gay people should be asked how they could exist “if it were not for physical relationship, intimacy between a man and a woman,” a point which followed a long rant about how President Obama is a Muslim under the influence of the Devil.

The FRC head responded that “the human race would be extinct within time if [homosexuality was] normal.”

There is no rational way to understand this sentiment. The only way it could be real is if more and more people “turn gay” so that eventually there are no straight people having any babies. Extinction is a pretty scary idea, and the degree to which the birth rate would have to drop to accomplish this is impossible. But people don’t turn gay. People are born with a sexual orientation of gay, straight or bi. It is expected that between 3 and 10 percent of the population is gay. Even if all 10% failed to procreate, humanity as a whole would still produce enough children that extinction is impossible.

The FRC’s effort is to deny that homosexuality is normal, and if they make being gay seem frightening enough, they can distract attention away from this simple fact: homosexuality is normal as all sexuality is normal. The FRC’s strategy is to paint the LGBTQ’s desire for equality as if it threatens mort only straight people but humanity itself. As if gays and lesbians aren’t part of humanity. The FRC treats this element pif normal sexuality as if it were a thing that must be eradicated or it will eradicate all else.

Here is why a group like the Family Research Council is named a hate group. They don’t simply battle an intellectual position against LGBTQ Rights, rather they perpetuate the idea that gay and lesbians are less than human, and even a danger to real humans. So what are we to do?

The single most important thing to do in relation to groups like the FRC, is to call them out and hold them accountable for their lies and fear mongering. WE shouldn’t try to silence them. To do so allows their monster images to remain  rather than shrivel in the light of the truth. We need to let them speak this stuff and then confront it with reality- our realities and real sharing of our real humanity. They can only exceed as much as their image of us as monsters lives. If we counter their agenda with real stories about our lives, we will achieve our rights and humanity will be strengthened rather than eliminated.

Check out an audio recording of Tony Perkins and more on the Right Wing Watch site: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/tony-perkins-fears-humanity-will-die-out-due-gay-rights#sthash.0oYhiRm4.dpuf