A Moral Sickness
Jul. 21st, 2005 10:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
legalmooseA moral sickness
By Susan Ryan-Vollmar
Bay Windows, Thursday, July 21, 2005
reprinted without permission
Last week in Florida, a jury found a Tampa man guilty of second degree murder in the beating death of his 3-year-old son. Ronnie Paris Jr. would slap box with the preschooler, also named Ronnie, because he didn't want him to grow up to be a "sissy," according to one of Paris Jr.'s Bible study partners.
This week, Hillsborough County commissioners in Tampa refused to reconsider their ban on promoting gay pride despite the presence of two dozen protesters at a July 20 board meeting. The measure was passed last month, according to the Tampa Tribune, and prohibits Hillsborough County departments from "acknowledging, promoting and participating" in gay pride events. After passing the ban, commissioners ordered county librarians to remove a display of gay-themed books.
Anybody see a connection here?
Ronnie Paris Jr. alone is responsible for the death of his son. He killed him by repeatedly hitting the sides of the 3-year-old's head, because, as the boy's aunt testified during Paris Jr.'s trial, "He was concerned that the child might be gay." An autopsy after his death found swelling in his brain and bruises and scars on his head and face. But government figures who legislate homophobia, and religious figures, like those from Deeper Life Ministries where Paris Jr. studied the Bible, who preach that homosexuality is perverse, have blood on their hands in little Ronnie's death, too.
By giving an imprimatur to homophobia, government and religious figures lower the bar to violence. Hillsborough County commissioners must feel good knowing that their inane ordinance will comfort Paris Jr. by letting him believe that many agree with the intent of his unspeakable acts of cruelty, if not their result.
Paris Jr.'s murder of his son is homophobia at its most extreme. It is an absolute mystery why this story of a 3-year-old boy - three years old! - being slowly beaten to death over a six-week period because his father thought he might be gay has not captured the country's attention. Don't we base all of our political arguments on what's good for our children? Aren't we a nation obsessed with family values?
Well, not really. Look at the attention (or lack thereof) being given to the story of Zach, the 16-year-old Tennessee teen who revealed to the world through his blog that he'd come out to his parents and they had responded by enrolling him in an ex-gay reparative therapy program (see "Boy, Interrupted," June 23). The gay press and gay bloggers have written thousands of words on the bizarre case, which has sparked unprecedented grassroots gay activism in Memphis. Protesters have stood outside the main campus of the "therapy" program for weeks holding signs reading "Jesus Is No Excuse For Hate" and "It's Okay To Be Gay." But the case didn't get ink in the mainstream press until this weekend when the New York Times wrote about it. . . for the Fashion & Style section of Saturday's paper.
Although no doctor or psychiatrist who does not double as a religious quack will tell you that reparative therapy is a good thing, there is no cry of outrage about Zach's father's comments to the Christian Broadcasting Network last week that he'd sent his son away to "give him some options that society doesn't give him today."
Citing "statistics" that say most gay men will either be dead or have AIDS by the age of 30, Joe Stark said: "To me it's not what's right and what's left, it's what's right and what's wrong. My wife and I will stand by that 'till the day we die, as far as homosexuality is not in God's plan - it's wrong."
What's wrong is the political correctness that's infected the zeitgeist today that demands tolerance for religious bigots and their medieval views of homosexuality. What makes elected officials think it's okay to order librarians to take gay books off display? What makes religious leaders think it's okay to describe a minority of their flock as perverse and depraved? What makes a man think it's okay to box with his son to "toughen him up," as the boy's grandfather explained to the press?
A deep moral sickness, that's what.
By Susan Ryan-Vollmar
Bay Windows, Thursday, July 21, 2005
reprinted without permission
Last week in Florida, a jury found a Tampa man guilty of second degree murder in the beating death of his 3-year-old son. Ronnie Paris Jr. would slap box with the preschooler, also named Ronnie, because he didn't want him to grow up to be a "sissy," according to one of Paris Jr.'s Bible study partners.
This week, Hillsborough County commissioners in Tampa refused to reconsider their ban on promoting gay pride despite the presence of two dozen protesters at a July 20 board meeting. The measure was passed last month, according to the Tampa Tribune, and prohibits Hillsborough County departments from "acknowledging, promoting and participating" in gay pride events. After passing the ban, commissioners ordered county librarians to remove a display of gay-themed books.
Anybody see a connection here?
Ronnie Paris Jr. alone is responsible for the death of his son. He killed him by repeatedly hitting the sides of the 3-year-old's head, because, as the boy's aunt testified during Paris Jr.'s trial, "He was concerned that the child might be gay." An autopsy after his death found swelling in his brain and bruises and scars on his head and face. But government figures who legislate homophobia, and religious figures, like those from Deeper Life Ministries where Paris Jr. studied the Bible, who preach that homosexuality is perverse, have blood on their hands in little Ronnie's death, too.
By giving an imprimatur to homophobia, government and religious figures lower the bar to violence. Hillsborough County commissioners must feel good knowing that their inane ordinance will comfort Paris Jr. by letting him believe that many agree with the intent of his unspeakable acts of cruelty, if not their result.
Paris Jr.'s murder of his son is homophobia at its most extreme. It is an absolute mystery why this story of a 3-year-old boy - three years old! - being slowly beaten to death over a six-week period because his father thought he might be gay has not captured the country's attention. Don't we base all of our political arguments on what's good for our children? Aren't we a nation obsessed with family values?
Well, not really. Look at the attention (or lack thereof) being given to the story of Zach, the 16-year-old Tennessee teen who revealed to the world through his blog that he'd come out to his parents and they had responded by enrolling him in an ex-gay reparative therapy program (see "Boy, Interrupted," June 23). The gay press and gay bloggers have written thousands of words on the bizarre case, which has sparked unprecedented grassroots gay activism in Memphis. Protesters have stood outside the main campus of the "therapy" program for weeks holding signs reading "Jesus Is No Excuse For Hate" and "It's Okay To Be Gay." But the case didn't get ink in the mainstream press until this weekend when the New York Times wrote about it. . . for the Fashion & Style section of Saturday's paper.
Although no doctor or psychiatrist who does not double as a religious quack will tell you that reparative therapy is a good thing, there is no cry of outrage about Zach's father's comments to the Christian Broadcasting Network last week that he'd sent his son away to "give him some options that society doesn't give him today."
Citing "statistics" that say most gay men will either be dead or have AIDS by the age of 30, Joe Stark said: "To me it's not what's right and what's left, it's what's right and what's wrong. My wife and I will stand by that 'till the day we die, as far as homosexuality is not in God's plan - it's wrong."
What's wrong is the political correctness that's infected the zeitgeist today that demands tolerance for religious bigots and their medieval views of homosexuality. What makes elected officials think it's okay to order librarians to take gay books off display? What makes religious leaders think it's okay to describe a minority of their flock as perverse and depraved? What makes a man think it's okay to box with his son to "toughen him up," as the boy's grandfather explained to the press?
A deep moral sickness, that's what.
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no subject
Date: 2005-07-21 02:45 pm (UTC)2) I think I just died a lot inside.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-21 02:45 pm (UTC)It's what's for dinner.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-21 03:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-21 05:25 pm (UTC)"What makes elected officials think it's okay to order librarians to take gay books off display? What makes religious leaders think it's okay to describe a minority of their flock as perverse and depraved?"
no subject
Date: 2005-07-21 02:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-21 03:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-21 03:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-21 04:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-21 04:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-21 03:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-21 03:37 pm (UTC)The problem is that religion is often hijacked by bigots who can't find any rational defense for their prejudices, and so they have to pervert a religion in order to exculpate themselves from what would otherwise be seen for the ignorant hate which they harbor within themselves.
I will not presume to speak for the rest of the Christian world, but for Roman Catholicism, whose reputation has been much impugned (and perhaps somewhat deservedly so) because of its severe inconsistencies on this issue, I can say that we are living in a period of transition. The mainstream Church is beginning to realize, albeit only gradually, that homosexuality can't be reduced just to a question of occasional "sodomy."
It will take time; governments can be created by revolution, but ideologies grow by slow accretion.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-21 03:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-21 03:12 pm (UTC)I went to school with a guy who'd been put through "therapy" to "degay" him. Poor guy was one messed up individual. Ended up joining the Marines and threatening my life when he later heard a rumour I was trying to out him.
What was the tv show Daria always watched? Sick Sad World? Who knew how true that lil statement could be, eh?
no subject
Date: 2005-07-21 06:21 pm (UTC)The US is in a going down the drain
no subject
Date: 2005-07-21 08:32 pm (UTC)Abraham was commanded by God through a dream to kill his son Isaac. He was only stopped at the last moment by an angel. Isaac was at least 25.
The rest of that family story is not very uplifting either. Abraham has by this time disowned his first-born, Ishmael, whom he has sired with his (till then) barren wife's handmaiden, and after the divinely-inspired and -aborted infanticide, disowns and bans all his other children besides Isaac, since Isaac was obviously chosen by God.
The Bible is the worst place to take examples of what is considered harmonious family life in the third millenium AD.