The recent scandal surrounding former Congressman Mark Foley and the sexually charged instant messages he sent to congressional pages has given the religious right a convenient excuse to express its bottomless reserves of homophobic hatred. A look at the Family Research Council's Web site reveals what's on the minds of the religious right's leaders and followers.
"[N]either party seems likely to address the real issue, which is the link between homosexuality and child sexual abuse," Family Research Council President Tony Perkins wrote in an Oct. 2 commentary titled "Pro-Homosexual Political Correctness Sowed Seeds for Foley Scandal."
Let's get one thing straight: Child sexual abuse is not about sex; it's about power and control. By contrast, when two gay men or lesbians have sex, it's purely for physical and emotional gratification and it typically involves no power imbalance. Furthermore, a gay man is no more likely to molest a child than a straight man.
It's also worth noting that while reprehensible and unacceptable, a dirty old man's on-line flirtations with 16- and 17-year-old boys hardly constitute something comparable to molesting prepubescent children, especially considering that many of the pages were flirting back and could easily have blocked Foley if they had wanted.
To suggest that a "link" - which I take to mean "correlation" - exists between homosexuality and child sexual abuse is like suggesting there is a similar link between African-American culture and violent crime rates or between Judaism and financial crises. No such link exists, and Perkins' claim that it does constitutes nothing short of outright hate speech.
Many of the religious right's sympathizers are unfortunately likely to fall for Christian conservative leaders' disregard for reality and common sense. If you already think that gay men and lesbians are bad people just for having sex with each other, then it shouldn't take much to assume that they must all be potential child molesters as well.
Religious conservatives need to reconsider their notions of "morality." Most Christians today are able to ignore the Bible's advocacy of slavery and the idea that fathers may have their incorrigibly disobedient sons executed by stoning.
But for some strange reason, many can't seem to ignore Leviticus 20:13, which actually demands that gay men be executed. This comes despite the American Psychological Association and American Psychiatric Association both recognizing that homosexuality does not meet the criteria to be considered a psychological disorder. Besides, it can't be rationally argued that two consenting adults in the privacy of their own home are hurting anyone or violating anyone's rights.
Prejudice can be addictive. Many people, when their racism, sexism or homophobia is confronted, will simply abandon it and move on. Unfortunately, many other people will instead become defensive, especially if they learned their prejudice from authority figures such as parents, teachers and religious leaders. In this case, religion provides good cover for prejudice because religious beliefs are not easy to just dismiss as prejudice, and challenging somebody's religious beliefs can be considered disrespectful.
If you are one of those people who claims homosexuality is "immoral" because the Bible tells you so while conveniently ignoring the less popular words of God, then you are a hypocrite. Not only that, but you uncritically accept society's prejudice and try to make it look respectable instead of challenging it, which indicates a lack of independent thinking skills.
But no part of the Bible I've read promises damnation for challenging hatred, especially when that hatred kills people.
Alaric DeArment is a senior journalism major and writes 'The Dork Report' for the Daily News. His views do not necessarily agree with those of the newspaper.
Write to Alaric at ajdearment@bsu.edu.
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