Marked Men and Women

Or, Welcome to the Weimar Republic, Part Zwei.

The leader of a conservative Christian lobby group appears to suggest that gays should be required to wear warning labels, although he denies that was his intention.

"We put warning labels on cigarette packs because we know that smoking takes one to two years off the average life span, yet we 'celebrate' a lifestyle that we know spreads every kind of sexually transmitted disease and takes at least 20 years off the average life span according to the 2005 issue of the revered scientific journal Psychological Reports," Rev. Bill Banuchi, executive director of the New York Christian Coalition told the Mid Hudson News.

The journal regularly publishes articles described by many mainstream psychologists as misleading and faulty. The homosexuality morbidity study was conducted by the conservative anti-gay Family Research Institute.

Okay, so he's using bullshit science and making statements about sexuality (“a lifestyle that we know spreads every kind of sexually transmitted disease”) as if they are true solely of homosexuals. Last I checked, anyone getting fucked can get infected with and transmit every STD available for the catching. (Unless there’s some secret gay syphilis that makes you more fashionable before it rots your brain that I don’t know about.) So, three paragraphs in, and we know that the good reverend is a homobigot, fan of crackpot junk science, and disingenuous knob. But is he also a human tape recorder programmed to spit out the anti-gay dogma of the Right?

He called on people to "pray for those who are deceived by the lies of popular culture, who are caught up in a destructive lifestyle, and for the children who are being zealously evangelized by radical homosexuals."

Check.

The issue of labels is particularly sensitive to gays. In Nazi Germany they were forced to wear the pink triangle to differentiate them from other internees at concentration camps.

But that’s not really what he meant. He just meant that there should be a better warning system for kids thinking about going all light in the loafers, that’s all. It’s sort of like, sure—you can get a shitty tent or an ugly jacket if you smoke lots of Marlboros and save up the “miles” from every pack, but you might also get lung cancer. All Rev. Bill is saying is that maybe dying young or getting gay herpes (as opposed to the regular kind you might get losing your virginity in the back seat of a Chevy Celebrity the way the heteros are supposed to) isn’t worth that toaster you’ll get for signing the Gay Pledge—and you ought to know that before you give the nice man in pink Spandex biker shorts your John Hancock on the dotted line.

Pay attention, kids. Rev. Bill’s just looking out for you.

(Hat tip Ms. Julien.)