Why I Don't Trust Homophobes

In other words, "Thanks, faggot, for the math. Have an apple. No, not that one. Eat this one." - My guess as to what British authorities said to Alan Turing before his death by poisoned apple. Link to the Towleroad post found here.

If you think that this mindset is gone, you're delusional to the point of needing clinical assistance. Christians today know better than to say things like Phil Robertson recently uttered, unless they're in a setting of fellow bigots, homophobes, and misogynists, which he thought he was. I'd wager that he has no regrets about what he said, only to whom he said it.

Recall, also, that recent polls have shown that people claim not to harbor homophobic attitudes in a general or public setting, but will admit in private that they don't really care much for gays or what might happen to them. 

Now, combine those two things and you get a sense of what could happen and I will even go so far as to say what will happen unless a disruptive movement comes along and changes the projected course of our future history. I believe that there will be a gay holocaust, or homocaust as I've dubbed it. Look at the places today where bias and hate have sway: Sub-Saharan Africa, where a gay genocide is already underway, funded by American Fundamentalist/Dominionist/Evangelical/Extremist Christians; there's Russia where a coverup of the national homophobic zeitgeist is being carried out, at least until the Winter Olympics are over, then you can bet that there will be deaths; and right here in the US of A, where people like Phil Robertson not only exist, but they're cheered on and funded by their redneck and other hick supporters who think that he was just expressing his First Amendment rights. Which rights, many of them no doubt hold, include 'Matthew Sheparding' a few of us. And by "a few", I mean 'all'.

If you've ever visited a concentration camp and spent time reading or listening to the accompanying guides, the common thread among them is that the first internees didn't see it coming. They thought, oh, it can't happen here!  Uh huh. Visit Dachau, and as  you enter the camp and are passing through the museum on your way to the yard beyond, look carefully at the photos of the gorgeous German - not Jewish - young men who were used by the Nazis for "medical" experiments, most of whom are dead in the photos. They weren't Jewish:  They were gay.

If you think it can't happen here...  Well, I hope you're right, but I believe you're wrong.
(Also, read Sinclair Lewis's 'It Can't Happen Here', published in 1935)

Neo-Naziism, White Supremacists, Dominionist Christians, and the US Military

Neo-Naziism was rampant in the military as far back as the mid-1980s, at least. Later, in the late-80s, our intelligence unit was conducting witch hunts for gays but left neo-Nazis, Aryan Nationals, and other white supremacists alone even when they had racist symbols clearly displayed. 

But that's probably due to the fact that our battalion commander was himself a racist. He despised gays and atheists and made no effort to hide it. His behavior toward service members of color was somewhat more mitigated, but it bubbled just beneath the surface on his cigar-chomping face. You could watch the muscles in his face twitch when he had to speak to any lower enlisted soldier, especially those belonging to groups he hated. 

In a unit whose roster was filled with soldiers with codeword security clearances and years spent learning foreign languages - both of which cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars collectively, and millions alone individually - he set soldiers against one another to ferret out any whose least characteristics showed up on his hate-radar. Soldiers with perfect records were ousted, even jailed, for the least homosexual infraction while he permitted fraternization, even marriage, between heterosexual couples, even when one member would fall into the other's chain-of-command.

His activities eventually caught the attention of Congress, a difficult low-point to hit for a battalion commander. He had managed to achieve the worst retention rate - that is the rate of re-enlistment, a crucial goal for intelligence units because of the money spent on up-to-yearlong background checks, clearances, language training, and other training, making re-enlistment, even with a $25-35K bonus, a real bargain for taxpayers - in the entire US military. Typically, intelligence units have a very high retention rate because of the specialized training, re-enlistment bonuses, and the fact that so much time is spent in uniform to achieve the necessary skills that the lure of retirement may only be a single re-enlistment hitch away.

So, when you walked through the barracks rooms - in buildings built by Hitler specifically for his SS troops, the original Nazis - and saw swastikas and other neo-Nazi paraphernalia displayed, you knew why those displaying it could sneer at your recommendation to take it down: They had the full support of their battalion commander. 

The battalion commander was a Dominionist Christian, as well. In the 2 or 3 experiences I had with those in the military, they also sympathized with the white supremacist movement. I don't know if that's a 1-for-1 ratio or if I found some overlap, but it has always struck me that Dominionists are white supremacists, also.

Jerry Sandusky, Roger Clemens, Pete Rose, and Tonya Harding

What do the 4 "athletes" above have in common? Bad behavior!

Since the early-80s and my time in college, I have felt that college athletics have taken too large a chunk of many schools' budgets. I realize that some schools reap a profit from athletics, too. But college is supposed to be about academics, not sports. There's nothing wrong with having football or any other sport at colleges and universities, but sports should never be the focus of the school, as it so often is. 

Here in the South, football is a way of life for many. It seems that most associate a university's name solely with the sport and if asked about its academic programs, one gets a blank stare, as if you'd asked God's middle name or the Speaker of the House of their state legislature. Total...vacuum.

In high schools here in the South, it's not at all unusual for a coach to pick up the phone on Monday morning and get a star athlete out of trouble with the law. These are going to be Captains of Industry, not jail fodder. That's what poor people who can't afford to play football are for. So they get poor-but-pretty cheerleaders knocked up. Well, you know, wink wink, boys will be boys...

I see these guys in executive positions in companies whose staffs are filled with people imminently more qualified to fill the Athlete's shoes than the former sports star ever will be. I've worked for these Athletes. They make great parrots, regurgitating any information given them (and given them, and given them, and...), but haven't had an original idea, or at least one they haven't stolen from their staff, since they came to the company. Trophy hires. So they get the poor-but-pretty clerk knocked up. Well, you know, wink wink, boys will be boys. But let's keep this quiet from his wife...OK? We'll just keep that between the two of us and I'll owe you one. But, of course, if you should ever try to cash that chip in, you'll get your ass fired so fast you'll think the building exploded.

Because there are two tiers of civilization in Football, USA. There are Athletes, and then there is Everyone Else. Those Athletes have important contributions to (steal and pretend to) make that will benefit (the wealthy guy who owns the company). They'll play golf on Wednesday afternoons (and the good Prosperity Christian boss told me to lie and say they're with another client) and leave early on Fridays...if they show up at all...in order to get out on the boat a little early. Gotta have that tan in order to make the new suit look good and, really, isn't it all about looks, anyway? 

Of course, there are also the Little Folk, aka Everyone Else. Mr Athlete gets pulled over for 85 in a school zone, well...wink wink...Have fun out on the links! Mr Little Folk does 57 in a 55 and gets a ticket, a fine, points on his license, and maybe traffic school. And that's how it SHOULD be because God Wills It. Yep, God's a Prosperity Christian, too. Pretty sure! I mean, he gave us the win on Saturday and that always makes everyone a little more...shall we say 'tithe-ful'...on Sunday. And by "everyone" I mean the Little Folk. Because Mr Athlete gets a pass on anything extra in the collection plate until such time that it can be made into a Big Deal...and then the local paper will be there to write up a fine article about how Mr Athlete dug deep (a whole extra .01% of his salary, dontcha know!) and there were photos taken, and of course, it was announced that the new annex will be named after him. Yeah yeah yeah, don't go on about all the extra money the Little Folk have put in the plate all these years before this...I mean...hell, they're not important anyway...right? 

Besides, Mr Athlete needs the spotlight to shine a little less on his personal life right now what with all those unpleasantries being said about the kids popping up that bear a striking resemblance to him...but not his wife.

So, yeah. Damn right! It's sports for me, buddy. You take your faggy smart self back to your cubicle...but leave that proposal here with me. I'll take care of that, don't you worry your poor noggin one lil bit. Wink wink!