When I was about 15 years old, I became a Christian.  I was on fire, with a passion for the Lord and a zeal for learning about my newfound faith.  I was in my church's youth choir (even becoming a section leader at one point), and I took the advanced apologetics classes they offered to lay church members.  I had an idea that I would someday be a minister, spreading God's love to everyone I met, bringing joy to distant corners of the earth through my works.  The only problem was that I am very, very gay.  I've known since I was young, and I knew it when I was born again.  I didn't find much of a problem with it; even though my church was rather conservative, I was rather liberal and so didn't find anything wrong with believing the Bible was faulty at times, plus I believed firmly in the concept that the New Covenant replaced the Old Covenant and those laws were no longer important to us.

So I proceeded to be the Best Christian Ever, loving all I came in contact with and being an obedient servant to the Lord My God, but it all came crashing down the spring I turned 18.  My youth choir was going on a trip to Panama City, and my dad and I thought it would be prudent to inform my choir director about my orientation, as she would be the one in charge of us.  We told her, and she was fine with it.  But she informed the church's music director, and he informed the head pastor, and the next day we received a call from the head pastor, who told us that if I were to remain in his congregation, I would have to remain "celibate and silent."  In addition, he was going to start preaching against homosexuality in services.  I was mortified.  We thought it best that I quit the church right then and there, but I went to one more service.  At that service the pastor took me aside and started talking about making me whole again with Jesus, and that he knew of some ministries that could change me.  I told him that I didn't want that, and he told me that as long as I was in his congregation it was unacceptable for me to continue to have these feelings and that if I wasn't willing to cooperate I wouldn't be allowed to participate in youth activities any more.  I could read the writing on the wall, and I told him right there that I would not be coming back and that he would have no further problem from me.  

That happened almost ten years ago, and I have since lost my faith entirely, but the incident still weighs heavily on me.  I've come to realize that what happened to me was an example of a growing trend of conservative Christian xenophobia.  This xenophobia is not directed towards people of different races, but towards non-Christians, and occasionally even Christians who think differently than they do.  People who are not Christian are sinners; Christians must be protected from sin; therefore we must get rid of the people who are not Christian.  The preferred way to get rid of them seems to be to convert them, but it's starting to look more and more like some in the religious right are starting to acknowledge that not everyone can be converted.  And the question this raised for me was: what happens to those people?

Uganda's "Kill the Gays" bill seems to provide a rather extreme answer to that question.  If you insist on being a sinner, we'll throw you in jail, and we'll kill you if you do a whole lot or in a particularly egregious way.  It's a pretty simple concept and most of us in the west (especially non-Christians) are horrified by it.  Christians are quick to distance themselves from the legislation, saying that it is an un-Christian solution to the problem, and to be fair, most Christians, even the homophobic ones, are genuinely opposed to the outright slaughter of gays.  But I'm fascinated by the amount of backpedaling and doublespeak from the evangelical leaders whose sermons set the ball in motion for this utterly shameful piece of legislation.  People like Scott Lively who campaign tirelessly against "the homosexual agenda" and fight to get GLBT people banished from schools and other public positions are suddenly finding themselves backed into a corner, having to defend themselves from the consequences of their belief system.

How does someone who is most famous for being the founder and/or president of three hate groups, who wrote a book called The Pink Swastika, who is affiliated with multiple organizations that support the criminalization of homosexuality — how does this person take a trip to the most homophobic place on earth to deliver what he terms "a nuclear bomb against the gay agenda" and not expect that they're going to react by imposing the death penalty on those accused of "aggravated homosexuality?"  But the sad thing is that I believe Scott Lively when he says he "was very disappointed" in the way the bill turned out.  I believe that he honestly does not want homosexuals killed because he doesn't want blood on his hands.  He would rather that we be jailed for life for our crimes; he wants us converted if we're not already too far gone; he wants us hiding in the shadows in fear for our livelihoods — but he doesn't want us dead because that would be unpleasant.  In his mind, we can avoid all of the suffering he would impose upon us by simply converting and being cured.  This is what conservative Christians do: they claim that Christianity is about love and forgiveness, but there's a neat little scam in that statement.  Jesus is the one who gives you his love and forgiveness.  All Christians have to do is tell you about Jesus, and that for them is love and forgiveness.  Whenever you hear a conservative Christian talk about compassion, remember that "compassion" is doublespeak for "Let me tell you about Jesus."  And anything that happens after you turn your back on Jesus is entirely your fault.  The only compassion required from a conservative Christian past that point is just to tell you about Jesus again.

So my question becomes this: what place is there for GLBT people in the theocratic society these people seem to want?  They don't want us dead, apparently because they feel it is wrong to murder.  But anyone who is gay would seemingly be barred from any kind of public life or gainful employment unless they were to repent (and either be cured or be celibate), lest that person influence the community's children into becoming homosexuals.  I suppose that they would come up with places for those of us who won't convert where we can live without pushing our homosexual agenda on the rest of the world.  Prisons or ghettos, it doesn't much matter.  The bottom line is that their society will be free of the homosexual filth that currently makes them seethe with resentment - why are they, the faithful, made to watch as their gay neighbors live together in sin?  Why do they have to allow their children to mingle with other children who may not be heterosexual?  Wouldn't it be better for the truly faithful if they could just cleanse their lives of our sinful ways and our homosexual agenda by perhaps putting us somewhere out of sight where we won't be a bother anymore?

You have got to compete with them…you have to be working toward a future of your own. A picture of the future of your own that is contradictory to theirs, in which the things that they want to do have no place because you have been so successful at promoting the idea of sex within marriage…focus on transforming the society to be reinforcing of all these ideas…everywhere…When you do that then you create a climate in which these things really cannot get very far.
- Scott Lively, Kampala, Uganda, March 2009

And that leads me to an even bigger question.  Why does nobody ask questions like these?  Why has nobody asked one of these people during an interview what place they see their GLBT neighbors (or their atheist neighbors or their Buddhist neighbors) having in society?  When the answer is "none" (or more likely, some self-serving answer that sounds good but says nothing), why does nobody then extend it to the question of what happens to us?  It would be one thing if these were the rantings of a Fred Phelps, someone who has credibility in the eyes of no one.  But this is a man who directly influenced the creation of a bill that will lead to the execution of gay men.  This is someone who is gaining influence among the Christian right.  These people are starting to wield an increasing amount of political power, and it seems that the only person even halfway willing to ask them any kind of a hard question is Rachel Maddow.

So I think I have a New Year's Resolution now.  From now on, any time I see someone advocating the removal of GLBT people (or atheists, or Muslims, or any marginalized group) from some part of society, I will send them a letter asking them what their end game is.  And if I ever get a reply, I will post it online.  Or better yet, I'll try to get an interview with someone and post that.  I'll start holding my breath now...