I strongly urge you to read the two-part post written by my good friend, Don Charles, on his excellent blog, Christ, The Gay Martyr. The post is entitled: "The Pervert Mentality."
As part of my May 18th post on the article to which Don Charles is referring, entitled, "Ladies Love Gay Male Porn," and that appeared in the May 15th edition of "LA Weekly" while the California Supreme Court had yet to decide on the fate of same-sex marriage in California, I wrote:
"..when so much is on the line in California and elsewhere; where the hearts and minds of the electorate are needed to be won so that they see that Gay couples deserve the same marriage rights as heterosexual couples enjoy; when tens of millions of dollars are being spent to convince the voters that Gay couples deserve the same marriage rights as do heterosexuals; when tens of millions of dollars are being raised by our opponents to convince the voters that same-sex couples don't deserve marriage rights; when religious leaders in most denominations in the institutional Church need ammunition to convince their congregations as to the "immorality" and "otherness" of LGBT people, one can only wonder at how many potential allies are being dissuaded from voting for same-sex marriage rights by virtue of this article, and articles like this one."
If I had to define what Don Charles calls "The Pervert Mentality," I would define it as follows: "'The Pervert Mentality' manifests and projects to others a witting or unwitting one-dimensional self-definition and identity as hedonistic, where sexual activity monopolizes one's thoughts and behaviors." And that presentation of self in such a manner reaches the public eye, fulfills so many of the negative stereotypes that have been used as "justification" to demean and discriminate against LGBT people, and thus gives further ammunition to homophobes, as well as sticking a finger in the eye of potential allies, and is clearly inimical to achieving full and equal civil rights for LGBT people!
Anyone who is in any way desirous of achieving full and equal civil rights for LGBT people, must come to see that such articles and other such public displays to which Don Charles and I are referring, the use of pejorative and hateful words being used as self-identifiers, and the display of assorted images that show LGBT people as one-dimensional, sexually obsessed characters who hate God and who fulfill virtually every negative stereotype that the oppressor uses to "justify" both homophobia and the denial of equal rights, are sabotaging that quest and that goal.
Indeed, if it is the avowed and deliberate purpose of those with "The Pervert Mentality" to derail and sabotage the quest for full and equal civil rights, they couldn't be doing a better job! They're doing the homophobic oppressors' work for them in a far more "credible" manner than those oppressors could do on their own.
What better way to sabotage this civil rights struggle than by projecting to the world degrading stereotypes through a one-dimensional sexualized presentation of self, and use of hateful epithets as self-identifiers (in the mistaken and naive belief that their use indicates "liberation," and that they are "reclaiming" those terms for purposes of neutralizing them and empowering themselves); by advertising images, and writing articles that reinforce virtually every negative stereotype used by "religious" and political oppressors (giving them even further ammunition to win the hearts and minds of our potential allies), and which might as well have been precisely designed to be viewed as patently "offensive" by any potential allies who would even think of supporting full and equal civil rights for LGBT people?
I strongly urge you to read Don Charles' insightful and thought-provoking two-part post entitled, "The Pervert Mentality," on his blog, Christ, The Gay Martyr.
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