It surprises me none at all, not even just a wee Scottish bit, that Doug Wilson would come out against “It Gets Better,” a program that exists to encourage young people who identify on the LGBTQ continuum to not give in to despair — to not end it all by overdose, to not hang themselves in the closet of an abusive parent — and to believe that in time, with support and love, their lives will become less wretched, the hate and violence against them less overwhelming.
After all, Wilson, who once encouraged a Blog and Mablog mini-competition to come up with cool words for homos, doesn’t much like gays and lesbians. Like the majority of (but not all) evangelical Christians, he reads the Bible conservatively when it comes to both Old and New Testament condemnations of “homosexuality,” which, to others of us, might not be what the Holiness Codes or the Apostle Paul were referring to in their denunciation of same-sex relations. Like many who revere the Bible as God’s Word, I still wonder if Paul was condemning something that simply didn’t exist in the First Century, nor in centuries before it — non-cultic/pagan, mutual, loving, and monogamous same-sex relationships. What I don’t doubt is that an attitude of sincere love and humility is commanded of Christ’s disciples, for whom being righteous is of infinitely greater value than being simply “right.”
Nonetheless, even those who choose the first, seemingly clearest reading of the relevant passages — just four or five verses — and believe they cannot support gay friends and family members generally decry teen suicide with equal fervor. Certainly they ought to. They aren’t bigots and homophobes because they read the Scriptures more literally and less questioningly than I do. That simply makes them conservative, albeit with a burden to examine carefully the behavior stemming from their hermeneutic. Bigots and homophobes, however, aren’t interested in honestly wrestling with Scripture; they’re grateful for their reading of Scripture because it justifies, to them, their hateful speech, imprecatory prayers, and kick-the-faggot attitudes. There is a difference here, and it’s easy to see where Wilson falls, or gleefully leaps into, the debate.
I’ll start with his knee-slapping treatment of the “It Gets Better” campaign, taken unedited from BM:
“Like What Regular People Does PDF Print E-mail
Culture and Politics – Sex and Culture
Written by Douglas Wilson
Wednesday, July 06, 2011 6:52 am
Yesterday I was asked about the “It Gets Better Project,” where LGBT teens are being encouraged to hang in there with their lifestyle sandwich choices. LGBT stands for Lettuce, Guacamole, Bacon, and Tomato, in stark contrast to the more normative BLT, like what regular people does.
Of course, the Ls and Bs and Gs (and soon to be added Ps and Qs) actually stand for various forms of sexual dyslexia, and I actually can’t believe that the Ps and Qs have been left out in the cold this long. Why aren’t they minding their Ps and Qs? Where is the UN on this? Wherefore all the hate? Of course, a dyslexic often muddles up his Ps and Qs, to such an extent that he sometimes finds himself in bed with a girl. Everything is so hard to keep track of sometimes.
The point of the “It Gets Better” campaign is ostensibly to encourage kids who are victims of bullying. But in order to eliminate this kind of bullying, our culture thinks it necessary to identify evangelical Christians, who believe what Scripture teaches about human sexuality, as contributors to the “climate of hate” in which such bullying can occur. This identification is, of course, a form of bullying. Natch.
But here is the difference. This project for LGBTs is a sentimentalist one, which means it is filled to the brim with various forms of guilt and resentment. It is not just a function of being picked on. If it were just simply that, there would be a way of handling it. Christians have had their own “It Gets Better” program in place for a couple thousand years. When a believing teen is tagged as a Jesus freak and ostracized by others for his faith, he has a long history behind him of honored saints and martyrs. He is truly honored by a real community for doing something right, which is a genuine encouragement. It is an honor to be dishonored for the faith; it is a grace to be disgraced (Acts 5:41). You cannot get the same results by having a fake community try to praise and encourage you for doing something you are deeply ashamed of. So a word to conflicted teens — whenever you believe lies, it never gets better. It only gets deeper and darker.” (Doug Wilson)
Now, Wilson is free to hate whomever he chooses to, and he’s even free to believe that God hates most of the same people he does as well. In fact, as a Calvinist, he is required to believe that God, for his own “good pleasure,” has shown his hatred of certain people by creating them solely for damnation. Staunch Reformer that he is, Wilson has to draw lines between “them” and “us,” and the “us” are, astoundingly, remarkably like him. So he may mock homosexuals with flip acronymical wordplay, dismiss their abuse, condemn their self-identification, and, no matter how absurd the contention, paint a scenario in this culture wherein Christian teens are the ones really picked on; battered and tormented young lesbians and gay youth who don’t know real persecution when it nearly kills them.
Nothing puts a vicious beating into perspective like your tormentor’s Bible club being prohibited from using the cafeteria after school hours.
It is, of course, ridiculous to suggest that Christian kids suffer much at all for their faith, not only because the coolest kids on most campuses are at least “Christian-ish,” but also because the evidence simply doesn’t bear it out. Earlier this winter, there was a grievous spate of suicides by gay-identified kids, half a dozen or so in one month reported nationally and many others undoubtedly not reported. I don’t recall ever hearing of any youth specifically subject to violence because they lived out their faith in a sincere, humble, discipled manner, with the possible exception of the Columbine massacre years ago. That’s a generous stretch.
Christians in China, throughout much of Latin America, and parts of Africa know persecution. Frankly, I’d love if the Church in the United States proclaimed such a steadfast message of love and reconciliation that it suffered consequences of it from a venomous, hateful culture. The Lord Jesus would rejoice, and we would, too, if we spoke and lived out a hatred of sin and injustice, incurring the wrath of evildoers and despots, instead of picking and choosing from the former and benefiting starkly from the latter. The world would take notice if we humbly, relationally put ourselves shoulder-to-shoulder next to and in the trenches with all who suffer. But as it is now, the most base and calloused among us vilify young people struggling with understanding their sexual and other identities — identities they likely were born with, not rebellions they blithely chose one back-to-school morning — and mocking those battles while unleashing their cultural pit bulls for even more vicious ones.
I suspect Wilson knows this, but any argument that minimizes the suffering of “the other” or convinces a maligned group that it deserves its maltreatment just comes so easily for him. In the same way that he has used the most inflammatory of rhetoric to describe the “tyranny” of life under an Obama Presidency without once admonishing his readers to eschew any violence against him, Wilson now mocks gay youth and their sufferings in the context of commenting on a program designed to keep them alive during adolescent torment and abuse — without once reminding us that violence and abuse against even those he considers sinful is wrong.
Of course, if Wilson’s worship of God compels him to pray harm on his enemies, mock the sufferings of the marginalized, and blister his cultural opponents, it’s more than likely that any harm resulting from his words could be called just a real, glaring bitch of “hard Providence.” Let’s hope he recognizes God’s judgment against him as something a bit more significant.