How Bad Is Their Hate?

This is, guaranteed, the best thing you’ll read all day.

In, “If That’s Love, How Bad Is Their Hate?,” James Peron, president of the Moorfield Storey Institute, “an independent think tank dedicated to equality of rights before the law, social tolerance and civil liberties,” writes about a fifteen-year old boy who came out to his anti-gay fundamentalist Christian mother after writing an essay about homosexuality, in which he outed himself.

Peron begins with insightful background on hate:

Merchants of hate typically market images based on the “other.” Blacks are portrayed as subhuman criminals; Jews are malicious, conspiring, and greedy; gays threaten children, marriage, or even Western civilization itself; while “illegals” are simultaneously ingenious multitaskers, criminals, lazy, welfare-cheats, and stealing our jobs.

The object of one’s hate is often depicted as less than fully human, or as a threat to the most cherished values of society. These depictions are meant to justify inhumanity toward them. The National Organization for [sic] Marriage depicts gays as dangerous to the family. Pope Benedict opined that gay marriages “undermine the family,” and are a “threat to human dignity and the future of humanity itself.” Fundamentalist Scott Lively produced a scholarly-appearing book (appearances are deceptive) that claimed that the Nazi movement was homosexual and thus gays were responsible for the Holocaust. Hollywood has-been Kirk Cameron, now full-time fundamentalist, said gays are “unnatural, detrimental, and ultimately destructive to so many of the foundations of civilization.” Paul Cameron, related only by religion, claimed, “The homosexual historical footprint is large when it comes to the rape and murder of children.”

And then shares this beautiful story:

Recently, a fundamentalist mother reacted to her son’s school project, which included him reading an essay about gays and Christians. She was livid:

I got madder and madder as I read it as I felt like it was a direct attack against our beliefs and our Christian religion and that it was promoting homosexuality, a practice that around here is a huge “sin.”

I gave my son an earful about homosexuality and God and told him that he could tell his teacher that he would not be participating and if she had a problem, she could come talk to me and then I threw the article in the trash.Her son walked out and wrote his essay for the teacher anyway and texted it to his mother. It partially read:

I am gay and only my one friend knows so far. My mom doesn’t know yet. My dad doesn’t know yet. You didn’t know it when you gave us this homework. I am only 15 years old and I have never felt so alone. My mom and dad always are being angry about gay people and talking about how they are bad and going to hell and they also always talk about how all the gays should be shipped off to their own private island or something so that the rest of us could live God’s commandments in peace. 

Head over to The Huffington Post to read the entire piece. It is, I think you’ll agree, the best thing you’ll read all day.