Professional heterosexual Randy Thomas was kind enough to define “homophobia” for us today over at the Exodus: Live Out Loud blog.
Homophobia is not some off the cuff comment about Tinky Winky. Homophobia is what you see happening in Iran.
By “off the cuff,” Randy means Tinky Winky was the title and subject of an article Falwell wrote and then published in The National Liberty Journal.
Just What did Falwell say?
[Besides the fact he carries a purse and gays like him] further evidence that the creators of the series intend for Tinky Winky to be a gay role model have surfaced. He is purple — the gay-pride color; and his antenna is shaped like a triangle — the gay-pride symbol.
I know most cases of homophobia aren’t technically phobias but let’s have a look:
phobia – an uncontrollable, irrational, and persistent fear of a specific object, situation, or activity.[*]
Falwell’s claim irrational? Naw…
Are Falwell’s attacks on gays persistent? What would possibly make you think that?
Dare I say he mouths-off so frequently it’s uncontrollable? It’s happened more than once.
Well, I’m not about to let an anti-gay person determine what is and is not anti-gay but…Actually, Randy has recently announced he’s a Professional Celibate. Has been for years, who’d have thunk?Good for him. He can still go about in public proclaiming “I have changed (and you think that means into a heterosexual)” and also avoid the icky part about actually being a Professional Heterosexual — you know, girl’s squishy bits and stuff.
Should have added that many will be grateful to Randy for the definition of homphobia.I anticipate many will also be glad to know they are not racist if all they do is merely believe other races are inferior, and “gently” treat them as such. Drinking fountains, OK. Backs of buses, OK. Ban interracial marriages, OK. Skin lightening products, give me more.Just so long as it doesn’t involve a noose and a tree, they’re not racist.(But then again, what else would one expect from people who have come to believe that having homosexual attractions has nothing to do with being homosexual?)And odd, but nary a word about the disturbing turn of events in IraQ…
Randy obviously has never cracked a dictionary. If he had, he’d notice that the actual definition of “homophobia” is “an irrational fear or contempt for homosexuals”.
Or maybe that just strikes a little too close to home for him.
Oh. My. God. Thanks, grantdale for the link to Randy’s blog. I don’t know when last I read something that was so chilling and horrifying as the pretzel-logic leveraged by this poor deluded self-hating soul.
Now, I don’t have any issue with Randy choosing celibacy. Many people choose such a life, but it seems like Randy has “given up” on trying to quit his same-sex attraction, “given up” on trying to become a heterosexual, and has accepted the only other acceptable alternative for fundamentalists. I respect his choice, but am very offended by the notion that God “called” him to celibacy. Aside from the fact that I find it rather blasphemous whenever someone claims to receive direct messages from God, I don’t believe that we are meant to be solitary, unionless creatures.
Randy probably thinks he’s doing the right thing, since he simply cannot change his natural sexual orientation. He is making the choice that many fundamentalists believe is the only one for us. The whole “love the sinner/hate the sin” nonsense offers no other alternative if one wants to exist within the confines of that belief system.
Poor Randy. How sad that he couldn’t find fulfillment in his life as a gay man. As we know, it’s not always easy being gay – even within the gay community, with its shallow worship of youth, beauty and sex – and it’s not always fun. Oftentimes it can be very lonely. But that is where the strengh of our community comes in, with the strong bond between friends and our families-of-choice, the resources that help us get through the tough times. Perhaps Randy never developed a network of true friends. Maybe he was never able to allow himself to truly and deeply connect with other gay men. Maybe he was just too damn scared.
Regardless, I really do feel sorry for Randy on some levels. Obviously he chooses to live a life that is not desirable to me, among people who despise what he is deep down inside – how awful!! But so long as he continues to work against the interests of the gay community I won’t find it hard to hold back tears. I sincerely hope that one day he finds that God loves him and accepts him exactly the way he is and that he can indeed have a full, happy and successful life as a gay man, with a same-sex partner and the while nine yards. Pray a little harder, Randy, eh?
What’s going on in the middle east with LGBTs is extremely disturbing and so is Randy Thomas’s and other religious conservatives comments on the situation. The implication of what Thomas is saying is that LGBTs in North America should be damn glad religious conservatives aren’t hanging us, that we’ve got it good and should look the other way because they’re not killing us in their attempt to minimize, erase, and punish our existence. The implication is that we don’t have a right to complain about the treatment here until we first stop the more serious maltreatment there. And it couldn’t be more wrong.
Fact is what’s going on in the middle east is due to the same homophobic attitudes people like Thomas spread here – that there’s something wrong with gays and they should be minimized. Thomas’s comment is essentially “don’t complain about the wrong I’m committing against gays when someone else is doing much worse”. That kind of statement covers the extremes from childishness to evil.
There isn’t an moral LGBT in North America that doesn’t want to stop the killings of LGBTs in the middle east. However it is the heterosexuals who are carrying out this violence and who have the power to stop it, not LGBTs in North America or anywhere else. Its incredibly cowardly of them/Thomas to point the finger at LGBTs and imply we should fix the hate there before we have a right to complain about him fostering a more controlled version of hate here. I suppose I shouldn’t expect any different from someone who didn’t have the courage to live his life the way he wanted instead of the way someone else wanted.
Jerry Fartwell just doesn’t get it when it comes to conrolling his mouth. Mel White has spoken with Jerry before about his problem and it seemed for a while that things were calming down but you know how preaching fear and money tend to go together hand and hand. So Jerry just keeps preaching fear the queers and the money keeps rolling in as a result.
Fact is, anyone and any group that expresses the idea; works towards the appointment of justices; sponsors legislation; or contributes time, effort or money towards the goal of re-criminalizing sodomy has the same agenda as the islamofascists in Iraq (and Iran).
They can speak out of the other side of their mouth about being benign or gentle; but the true and unmistakable end of their efforts is to create a rebuttable presumption that glbt people are felons– with all the attendant implications.
There is nothing benign here.
A story not found in Scripture:
“Oh, no”, said Paul, “I was not guilty of killing Stephen. It was the others who threw the stones. I only held their coats while they did so.”
Paul never made that defense. Paul recognized that he was as guilty of the martyrdom of Stephen as if he had thrown the stone that ended his life. He created the environment that freed the others to do murder him.
Randy Thomas thinks that people like himself and Jerry Falwell are not guilty of the deaths and beatings of gay people throughout this country and the world. They don’t throw stones. They don’t hang anyone. They don’t leave anyone tied to a fence to die in the snow.
But they do make it possible for all this to be done. They create the environment that allows it to happen.
They hold the coats of those who kill us.
What I find disturbing is that Randy presents himself as a model for exgays. If Exodus wants us all to follow this path, it is really problematic and sad. Thomas’ life is not something I want. His blog seems very lonely and sad. However, I guess he found more solace in his present situation than his past. Personally, I have a much better life than I could ever with celibacy.
I found Randy’s comments on celibacy interesting for a few reasons:
First, I commend Randy for finding a sexual identity that fits both his desire to live according to his religious convictions and also his internal sexual inclinations. In following the path taken by centuries of monks and nuns, Randy is able to find a peaceful resolution that does not require striving for that elusive goal of heterosexuality.
Second, Randy equates celibacy with what Scripture calls eunuchs: “The scriptures are clear that there are three kinds of celibate people, ones who are born that way (not able to connect with another person physically or mentally), made that way (life circumstance, death) or are called to be that way (Paul and Jesus.)” [Matthew 19: 3-12]
There is a school of thought which suggests that Jesus in his discussion on marriage, acknowledges gay people when discussing “eunuchs because they were born that way”. See further discussion here: https://exgaywatch.com/blog/archives/2005/10/warren_throckmo.html
Interestingly, Randy does not consider himself to be born a eunuch, but rather that God called him to be a eunuch. This, and the rest of his post, suggests that Randy could marry if he wanted because he’s had a “great measure of sexual re-orientation”. He knows what it’s like to “really want to have sex”.
Without being too dismissive, I think that Randy may be staking a claim here that allows him to pursue Exodus’ anti-gay political agenda (change is possible) while allowing for himself an exception. I don’t wish to dispute Randy’s “great measure”, but this position appears to reflect the desperation of someone who is beginning to realize that he’s been lied to – both by others he has trusted, and by himself.
Third, I think Randy is making an incautious statement when he says that “I believe all of us, as a developmental step of our spiritual, physical and relational life are intended to be seperated from earthly marriage unto God for a season and a few for their whole lives. All of us were intended to channel ALL of those relational yearnings toward Him whether we marry on earth or not.”
His approach here seems a bit ascetic and is more reminiscent of the Gnostic writings than it is of canonical Scripture. The rejected “epistles” and “gospels” of various warring Christian sects that were written within a few hundred years after Christ seemed to place great importance on chastity and the rejection of marriage.
Further, the idea that marriage and relational yearnings not have a component of lust or sexual attraction sounds like a man who has separated his ideal of love – pure, innocent, lacking in base sexual nature – from the realities of lust. He seems to misunderstand that sexual desire can be and should be a valuable addition to a relationship, not just a sinful distraction. Alternately, perhaps he thinks that sexual desire is a “relational yearning” that should be directed at God – but that’s just downright freaky.
Finally, I do agree with Randy that the evangelical church places too much emphasis on marriage. It does not leave much room for those who, like Randy, seek to embrace celibacy as a solution to conflict between their orientation and their faith.
And that’s too bad.
If the evangelical church were more open to non-sexual gay persons, there would be much less spiritual destruction in the lives of those who see no place for them, and no choice but to reject God and faith altogether.
The difference between what is being done to our siblings in the Middle East, and what ex-gay and anti-gay groups want done to our siblings here in America, is merely a matter of degree and political support. I am getting more and more convinced of this.
I find it ironic that apparently it’s not homophobia to hate gays and try to take away their rights, but it’s a “war on Christians” to not let them impose their own values on everyone else.
Skemono, that was profound.
Indeed Skemono! Parallel, as we said somewhere else:
They actually said yes. 8{
Randy has changed over the years. There was a time when he, grateful for having his life saved by a transgender person when his conservative Christian family threw him into the gutter, actually used his celibate “same sex attracted” persona to witness to churches against homophobia. But once he became a big Exodus spokesperson and got on Dobson’s payroll-by-extension, he suddenly became this Warrior For Jesus, appearing in front of Congress, fighting against gay marriage, etc.
It’s funny that this should come up now because I was just talking about Randy in my blog. A couple of years ago, I challenged him on this new Warrior identity and said that my main objection to his work was that now he was seeking to acively interfere with my personal life by lobbying against my personal civil rights. He was, in effect, putting his big nose into my family and my home.
His response? “You gays are so self-centered. You think it’s all about you.” (The real Randy — the vicious little queen — came out). I responded, “Well, who else are you talking about? It’s all homo this and homo that, and stop the homos. YOU’RE the one making it all about us.”
He hasn’t spoken to me since then. I guess he’s too busy being God’s Good Little Soldier. A paycheck and a need for the spotlight can be a very dangerous thing in the hands of someone I used to actually like.
Actually Steve — now you mention it — that providing of a spotlight and platform to those who, in other circumstances, would be a barely noticed individual seems one of the dynamics of the relationship with FOTF etc. The personal histories are full of social failure. You too can become a “Gender and Sexuality Expert” without doing any reading (‘cept the Bible)…Focus seems to know how to stroke them.
Hi everyone. I just checked in at the Exodus blog site and get a load of what gopchristian had to say. It is under Randy Thomas’ blog on Iran:
“Ever since I saw a world map revealing which countries accept homosexuality to what degree, I’ve been haunted by the idea that only Islam can withstand homosexual activists:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/Laws_on_homosexuality.PNG
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_laws_of_the_world
https://defenders-of-marriage.blogspot.com“
Posted by: gopchristian | Thursday, April 20, 2006 at 02:37 PM
What he is implying is that only our deaths will finally stop all of our ‘activism.’ How f**king disgusting, and very scary. Has anyone dealt with this idiot before?