For Queer Mice
by BROWWWSER
Something Wicked This Way Comes...
This Halloween
you know what scares me? Killer clowns? Yawn. The guy from Scream? Ooh, I’m
shaking all over. Bride of Chucky? Whatever, bitch. This Halloween there’s
nothing scarier than religious fundamentalism and the Republican Party. Oh, you don’t
believe me, hmmm? Remember that creepy old guy and that mechanical device in the Phantasm
movies that sucks your brains out? Try watching The 700 Club for more than five
minutes. Or how about Invasion of the Body Snatchers or village of the Damned?
Sounds like the "ex-gay" ministry of Exodus International to me. Then there are
the psychopathic assholes that just never die, like Jason, Michael Meyers, Freddie
Krueger, Jesse Helms, Trent Lott, Lon Mabon, and Bob Dornan to name a few. And you know
the scariest thing about Halloween? Election Day is less than a week later. Eek!
If
you’ve been to the Darkness, TerrorVisions, or the Lemp Mansion, and still craved
something more frightening, saunter over to www.alccdenver.com
for a terrifying visit to the Hell House! Imagine a
haunted house put on by the Christian Coalition. Scary! Instead of witches, ghosts, and
goblins, scenes include a disturbing abortion reenactment, teen suicide and drug use, and
worst of all a funeral of a teenage homosexual boy who died from AIDS. Horrific,
isn’t it? The idea from the Abundant Life Christian Center in Denver is to scare kids
to Jesus. The creepiest thing about it is that they really believe in what they do.
I’ve got goose bumps, don’t you?
Here’s another scenario to
make your blood run cold. They say they love us, that they want to heal us, they want to
save us from ourselves, and they won’t take no for an answer! Right-wing groups like
the Center for Reclaiming America at www.coralridge.org/cfra/ even put out full-page
newspaper ads describing how we can be "cured" by the "truth" earlier
this year. Their red-white-and-blue site looks all-American, but their mission of
"developing a biblical virtues-based culture in their communities and in our
nation" frankly just makes my hair stand on end. So much for Freedom of Religion.
Other groups after our souls include Homosexuals Anonymous
at members.aol.com/hawebpage/, Exodus International at www.messiah.edu/hpages/facstaff/chase/h/exodus/,
Living Hope Ministries at www.livehope.org, and First
Stone Ministries at www.firststone.org
(as in "he who is without sin…" – ironic, isn’t it?). Sounds like
we’re a hot property. Finally the very professional-looking site at www.narth.com by the National
Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality is dedicated to the
"research, therapy and prevention of homosexuality." You wonder how far
they’ll go for the "prevention" part.
Some
groups don’t even bother with the "kinder, gentler bigotry" of the ex-gay
ministries. The always-reprehensible Fred Phelps, his WestBoro Baptist Church, and his
hate-filled web page God Hates Fags will definitely
send shivers down your spine. This site operated by Fred Phelps’s grandson is
dripping with vitriol against queers, including "Fag Facts," picket flyers,
audio clips of his sermons, and pictures from their pickets of funerals of gay-bashed and
AIDS victims. At www.godhatesfags.com they even
have a picture from Matthew Shepard’s funeral. They use "vile" and
"filth" to describe homosexuality, but that’s the same words I’d use
to describe this website.
Besides Freedom of Religion,
there’s also Freedom of Speech which allows hatemonger groups like S.T.R.A.I.G.H.T. (Society To Remove All Immoral Godless
Homosexual Trash) to create web pages like the one at www.melvig.org/mel/MELVIG.HTM. This creep
obviously has WAY too much time on his hands. Another psycho can be found at www.christiangallery.com/creator.html,
the home of the so-called Creator’s Rights Party.
This repulsive page, besides advocating the arrest of homosexuals, the war against
abortion, and how the Army of God is justified in bombing abortion clinics, is headed by
Neal Horsley who is running for governor of Georgia on the platform of secession from the
United States. But by far the scariest thing on this site is the terrible page of hate
songs you can sing along to online! Guaranteed to make you run out of the room screaming!
So who really scares the crap out of you? Pinhead? Candyman? Norman
Bates? Geri Halliwell as a UN Goodwill Ambassador? Try Pat Robertson and his Christian Coalition site at www.cc.org,
or maybe Phyllis Schlafly and her Eagle Forum group
online at www.eagleforum.org (and headquartered
in nearby Alton, Illinois). The American Family Association
at www.afa.net is headed by Donald E. Wildmon, who
advocates exposing the "truth" about homosexuality (which you won’t find at
this site). Other right-wingers with web pages include James Dobson and Focus on the Family at www.family.org,
or Gary Bauer’s Family Research Council at www.frc.org. All of these sites pretty much have the same
message: homosexuality is wrong; it must be cured; and they would
"compassionately" save us. But who’s going to save us from them?
While South park and bad
drag may be the hot costumes this year for Halloween, nothing gives me the creeps like the
Religious Right. Remember the line from Aliens: "My mommy said there were no
real monsters, but there are." Yes, sweeties, there are.
