I read an article from Jezebel (I’m not sure if some of you are familiar with that site or not), about a North Carolina pastor who is encouraging violence to “knock the gay out of them”. Pastor Sean Harris of Berean Baptist church in Fayetteville has been saying awful things, such as:
“Can I make it any clearer? Dads, the second you see your son dropping the limp wrist, you walk over there and crack that wrist. Man up. Give him a good punch. Ok? “You are not going to act like that. You were made by God to be a male and you are going to be a male."
“And when your daughter starts acting too butch you reign her in. And you say, "Oh, no, sweetheart. You can play sports. Play them to the glory of God. But sometimes you are going to act like a girl and walk like a girl and talk like a girl and smell like a girl and that means you are going to be beautiful. You are going to be attractive. You are going to dress yourself up."
The main point that I am attacking is not religion, but the advocation of violence against children (or anyone, really). Another facet of this story I’d like to point out is the difference in how to deal with boys and girls and this “issue”. Why is it okay to “beat the gay” out of little boys and not girls? Please don’t misconstrue this as me being equal-opportunity pro-violence, because I’m anti-violence, but what makes it okay to hit boys and not girls?
I’ve pondered this many times while out at a bar. I’ve seen people get into physical fights often and it’s almost always between men (I recognize this isn’t always the case, but it appears to be the majority of the time). I have spent time with men who have gotten into such fights (unfortunately often) and all it takes for some of them to hit a man back is one push from the offending party. In one case, the girlfriend of the offending party started punching my friend, and he tried to use words to get her to stop. It took several punches before he felt it was necessary to push her off (using physical force to get her to stop punching him).
This “violence code” that states that it is acceptable to punch and fight is you’re a male, but never a female, is interesting and it makes me wonder why it is that the overwhelming majority of people I associate with seem to hold to it.
Now I started this post focused on the particular incident regarding violence against LGBTQ individuals from a particular man of faith, and it’s expanded to the double-standard of violence against men and women. The violence that I think most women may experience is likely to come behind closed doors of domestic abuse, rather than the perhaps more male experience of violence out in the open. Both are terrible (in my opinion) and are just another aspect of life that is experienced differently because of the particular prisms of gender.
No comments:
Post a Comment