No More “Mr. Nice Gay”? Is This What We Want?

November 17, 2008 by Randy
Filed under Activism, Christianity, Church, Civil Rights, Crime, Culture War, Current Affairs, Gay, Homosexuality, People, Politics, Prayer, Public Policy, Sexuality, Tragedy, Worldview

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I don’t think so. Warning, the below video has high pitched whistles and yelling laced with expletives. The whistles go throughout the whole video. So watching at work is probably not a good idea with the volume up. A little more after the jump …

There are all kinds of rumors and reports going on around the above video. Some of the men claimed to have been touched is what I have heard. I don’t think we need to go into all of that and just let the video speak for itself.

This comes on the same weekend that a young man (identified as female) was murdered last Friday. There is an alleged call that came to his mother saying it was because he was gay.

::: sad :::

The young Christians who were chased out of the Castro, I have no idea what they said or not but my hope is that they were there to pray with people if they wanted prayer and sharing the gospel to those who wanted to hear it. Some in the gay community are characterizing them as hating gay people. For most, sharing the gospel is born out of love and not hate. If they truly hated the gay community they would mock them as they proclaimed them going to hell (Fred Phelps). If they hated them they wouldn’t tell them about the gospel that they believe would save their soul and is the manifest expression of God’s love for all of humanity.

Now, if they are beating people over the head with Leviticus, Sodom and trying to scare people into the kingdom… I don’t blame folks for ignoring them. I did back in the day. Yet, I think it shows real hatred and immaturity to act like the men in the above video. Again, I completely understand the anger in the gay community … with empathy stemming from my former beliefs. What I don’t understand is attacking individuals like the man who was murdered and these young ones sharing their faith.

Along with my belief that the gay culture war is not a continuation of civil rights movement is also the belief that whatever pro-gay policy developments happen should not occur at the expense of religious freedom. Especially freedoms of conscience, assembly, speech and so on. All of those were also violated when the young Christians were run out of the Castro. All of those were violated when the young man was murdered (including his inalienable right to life, liberty and his pursuit of happiness.)

This is not what we want.

MORE:The title of this post comes from this comment and this post (gay blog).

Michelle Malkin also has more on the El Coyote situation AND the Castro situation.

Our friend Ryan Zondervan shares this post where he talks about going with this particular group to witness in the Castro a couple of years ago. Small world eh?

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Tags: Activism, Christianity, Church, Civil Rights, Crime, Culture War, Gay, God, Homosexuality, Murder, People, Politics, Prayer, Public Policy, san francisco, The Castro, Tragedy, Worldview, Youngin's

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ChaplianChas. 11/17/2008 11:08 AM 1 point
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:::pondering the heart of God:::

Thanks for the update, Randy.

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Oceanskater 11/17/2008 12:36 PM 1 point
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The video is scary. It's sort of hard to figure out what's going on, but the "self-policing" is pretty frightening.

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Randy 11/17/2008 12:57 PM 1 point
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I was confused at the beginning of it but by the end it was obvious. The shouts if "this is our neighborhood..." was amazing to me as well.

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Ryan 11/17/2008 12:47 PM 1 point
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Wow - well I can't say I'm surprised. I've actually been part of this group in the past and been to the Castro on Friday nights (and wrote in my blog about an absolutely absurd story written by the SF Chronicle about my old church and this group). I always wondered when something like this would happen.

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Randy 11/17/2008 01:00 PM 1 point
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I just noticed your blog wasn't on my blogroll! How did that happen? Must of happened when I migrated. I am ammending that error now.

I would love to have a link to that particular blog post. I can add it to the original post.

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Ryan 11/17/2008 02:18 PM 1 point
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http://ryanzondervan.typepad.com/ryans_rambling...

Took a while to find it.
To Joe's comments: I would tend to agree. The first couple of times I went out with this group, the Lord granted amazing favor to us. We had lots of opportunities to simply talk to people and pray. In the context of everything that has happened since the election, the words "wise as serpents innocent as doves" come to mind. The outreach has been happening for at least 3 and maybe 4 years now - I know the people who started it, and in their defense its not like they showed up Friday for the first time (in fact, I'm not sure the people who were there this past Friday are even directly connected to the people who originally started the outreach). Still, maybe not the best judgment, but the reaction is definitely scary.

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Randy 11/17/2008 09:38 PM 1 point
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Thanks for sharing Ryan. Good article. I have added a link to the original post.

Also, there are reply links under each comment if you wanted to reply directly to Joe's.

It's good to see you.

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Joe Dallas 11/17/2008 02:05 PM 1 point
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To me, it seems naive to invest time and energy doing street witnessing in the Castro, where a riot is pretty much gauranteed. I deeply respect these Christians and others like them who take this approach, but whatever limitied fruit comes of it seems outweighed by these kind of upheavals. I think we'd do better equipping Christians to build relationships with gay friends, co-workers and loved ones, and in that context they can share the gospel more effectively than in an environment that gets so adversarial.
That said, when freedom of speech gets trampled on, that's worth fighting. The public should be aware of anyone's abuse of anyone else's free speech, so I think it's important this video gets exposure. (Though I hope whoever shows it is honest enough to remind viewers that a mob of angry young Castro gays isn't a good representation of the entire homosexual population.)
But hey, the comments from gay readers on the "No More Mr. Nice Gay" blog you linked above pretty much applaud these gay "strong arm" tactics. That's more distrubing to me than the video itself.

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Randy 11/17/2008 09:44 PM 1 point
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Great points Joe. I did an interview today where I said basically the same thing. These incidents of violence and intolerance do not represent the whole of the gay community.

But, it seems that this type of behavior is gaining acceptance within the gay community and I pray that isn't a trend and am hoping that exposing when people approach or cross the line will reinforce the need for protecting that freedom.

As for the gay blog I linked too... you should have seen the comments on the one I decided to pass by. ::: whew :::

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Nick 11/17/2008 04:39 PM 1 point
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I bounce back and forth between being depressed by stuff like this....and being hopeful that more will be reached.

My wife and I love San Francisco. We grew up near there and for awhile lived in a Christian commune in Haight-Ashbury (back in the day). But so much as changed since then.

I still pray for the city when it comes to mind. What a mission field!

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Randy 11/17/2008 09:47 PM 1 point
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Wow, that's something you could blog about :) A comparison/contrast of the San Fran you knew then and what you see happening now.

And ... uh ... a Christan commune? What exactly is that?

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Nick 11/18/2008 02:06 PM 1 point
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We had two old Victorian houses. All the men were in one and the women in the other. We had meetings, did evangelism, a radio broadcast....and we had WORK to do. I cleaned the bathrooms. Bev, my wife, worked in the kitchen. Most of our food was dated food donated by bread companies and the like. It was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. Until it got off-base and a little bit cultic.

Most of the people had come to the Lord through the ministry. Some had been drug users....and one had been a male hustler.

I may blog about it someday.

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Randy 11/18/2008 02:31 PM 1 point
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Thanks for following up on that. I would love to read more about that. I have heard of Christian communes but those stories always seemed to end badly.

I love watching and learning about group behavior. The odd thing is I don't like most reality tv because it isn't really real. So *real* real life stories intrigue me.

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Matt_V 11/17/2008 08:03 PM 1 point
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I think one of the scary things about the recent change in tone from gay activists is that, from a psychological perspective, there's a lot of oppressed and repressed masculinity in a group of gay men. It makes for a combination of a deeply-rooted anger and an unrecognized strength that has the potential to be extremely destructive. Of corse, I'm not saying that gay-identified individuals should be seen as dangerous -- the majority are very civil and level headed -- I'm speaking more of the mob mentality exhibited in situations like this.

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Randy 11/17/2008 09:50 PM 1 point
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That is a very ... very ... interesting analysis Matt. Good hypothesis.

I am trying to think if that relates to the whole "bear" thing going on in the gay community. That whole thing just perplexes me.

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B.T.Carolus 11/18/2008 12:30 AM 1 point
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I think the bear community is supposed to be a reaction against...can it be described as boi culture? and the whole insistence on thin hairless young men (at least as they percieve it). Plus it's also just a way of positively dealing with the fact that you are no longer thin and hairless. Very often bears have just as many 'femme' traits as the thin and hairless crowd, they just do it while being large, hairy, and drinking beer (sort of like when leather daddies stand around talking about their favorite musicals, while drinking beer and wearing harnesses).

Matt's whole concept is really interesting.

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Randy 11/18/2008 09:21 AM 1 point
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I have thought about trying to interview a "bear" man, for this blog, via google talk and post the transcript. But I don't know that I would find one who would be willing and would treat it seriously.

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Jay 11/18/2008 11:32 AM 1 point
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I always assumed that the bear community had more to do with preference in one's appearance (and the appearance of one's mates) than anything else. I don't think it's necessarily a reaction against anything (although often times people do see their preferences as better than everyone else's preferences). Some straight men are very attracted to overweight women, others are attracted to women who have more androgynous features, etc. Generally, they aren't psychoanalyzed. We just assume that people are going to have a diversity of preferences (for whatever reason). So there's probably as much diversity in one's "type" preference among gay men and women.

However, I can't say I agree with Matt's concept. I don't think there is necessarily any oppressed or repressed masculinity among gay men (anymore than there is among straight men). Simply having "femme" traits doesn't make one non-masculine (I know a few straight men who are extremely effeminate, just in their mannerisms; it's just who they are). Our definitions of "masculinity" and "femininity" more-or-less come from culture, anyway.

Perhaps it's not that there has been repressed masculinity among gay men that is now surfacing. Maybe it's just that people always assumed that gay men weren't strong to start with, so now they're surprised to see this kind of anger (legitimate or not) coming from that community.

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B.T.Carolus 11/18/2008 02:17 PM 1 point
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What would you ask him?

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No More “Mr. Nice Gay”? Is This What We Want?

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