Good As You has the videos if you want to watch.
Highlights if you don’t want to sit through it, and I wouldn’t blame you:
(My editorial comments/snarkage in parentheses.)
Mat Staver makes unfunny wingnut jokes about Al Gore and snowstorms. Introduces Alan Chambers. (Jazz hands!) Alan Chambers makes unfunny wingnut jokes about Al Gore and snowstorms.* He reminds the people that Jesus died for wicked meanie gays too. Gives history of Exodus which notably does not include all the various “ex-gays” who now acknowledge that they were gay the whole time. Says “success” for Exodus would be for Exodus to go out of business. (Concur!) Three practical steps for Christians to reach out to the gays:
1. Get educated! Acknowledges that it’s hard to say this at Liberty University. (Because actual education does not happen there?) Acknowledges that they dropped the “change is possible” lingo, due to their lack of success, in a roundabout way. Says he wishes there was a step-by-step process, but he hasn’t found one. Gets confused about how many years he’s been Not Gay Anymore. Acknowledges that he will always be tempted by gayness, without saying it explicitly. But God gave him the power to deny who he really is! (Jazz hands!) Acknowledges that fundamentalist Christians don’t do well debating their anti-gay position, but doesn’t make the obvious connection that that happens because they don’t have the facts on their side. Acknowledges that “gay activists” tend to know the Bible better than fundamentalist Christians. (True! Also knowing more about the Bible than fundamentalists? Atheists.) “Ignorance will render us ineffective.” (True! But ignorance envelops your entire worldview, Alan!) Whoa, then the outline gets complex:
Five myths about gayness:
A. “Homosexuality is the worst sin of all!” God hates lots of stuff worse than gays! And he hates all y’all’s sins worse than gayness! Gays are bitter because Christians haven’t been Christlike toward gays. (TRUE! But sugarcoating hate and being nicer doesn’t actually make you any less hateful. It just makes you more deceitful, Alan.)
B. “Homosexuality is a choice SLASH isn’t a choice!” Apparently it’s a myth whichever way you say it! Teaches the people that nobody chooses to be gay. Says the truth is that he would never have chosen to be gay. Says he has never met anyone who WOULD choose it. (Hello, Alan, I’m Evan. If I had it to do all over again, and I was given the choice, I would choose to be gay. Yes.) Says that to say it’s NOT a choice is wrong too! He says he “decided” to see what the gayness was about! Decided to “get involved” in homosexuality! (Signed up on the sign-up sheet, auditioned, got cast repeatedly in the chorus, never in a speaking part, got bitter.) Likes to use the word “decision” rather than “choice.” Translation: Alan didn’t choose to be gay, but he decided to pretend that he isn’t anymore.
C. “Homosexuality is all about sex.” See, it’s right there in the word “homoSEXuality.” Homosexuality is instead about “trying to meet a legitimate need in an illegitimate way.” Alan’s dad is his hero, wants to be like him, but he didn’t know how to be a Dad, so Alan…became gay? WTF. Alan truly believes that he’s gay because he was looking for someone to love him. Says he wasn’t looking for “mutuality.” (What, then, would Alan say about the millions of gays and lesbians who don’t have such hard knock sad sack stories about their emotionally distant fathers, and who actually, simply, are looking for/have found mutuality in their same-gender spouses? HOLE IN YOUR ARGUMENT, CHAMP.) Says he was looking to fill the hole left by his father with a man’s love, which led to wanting to have sex with men, but he didn’t want to have sex with his dad, but the need for the love of a man became sexualized because? Oh, no reason! (Fail, Jazz hands, Fail.)**
D. “Homosexuality is determined by one thing.” There is not a gay demon! (Of course there is. I call him Giorgio.) Acknowledges that there have been “counseling practices” that have hurt many people. (Exodus?) “Why does it matter whether gayness is genetic?” Alan says it doesn’t matter. Compares it to alcoholism, kleptomania, rage, obesity, cancer…so even if gayness is genetic, it doesn’t make it right! (Yes but how does homosexuality hurt people, Alan? Show your work and prove that it’s actually the sexuality that caused the hurt.) “Does research and science trump the word of God?” Says that they don’t. (HOLE IN YOUR ARGUMENT, ALAN: If we accept that the word of God represents reality, and research and science are explorations of reality, then research and science should confirm said “word of God,” and if it doesn’t, you only have two choices: 1. See if you’ve been misinterpreting the text, in light of reality. 2. Consider the possibility that the word of God is imaginary.) If Rogaine is strong enough to conquer lady baldness, then Jesus is strong enough to conquer Teh Gay! (Going to have to see the peer-reviewed study on that one, Chambers.) Alan “wraps up this point” by saying that homosexuality is “multi-causal,” but please understand that he did not spend one minute in the last section proving this point. Outline fail, Jazz Hands.
E. “The opposite of homosexuality is heterosexuality.” Alan prayed for years and years for God to make him straight, but He didn’t. (God fail.) Alan says he is more normal than his brothers and sisters. (Steer clear of the Chambers clan, is the moral here.) Alan’s journey wasn’t out of homosexuality (TRUE!), but “to the cross.” (Yes, but! Many gay Christians have also made that journey without renouncing an integral part of their being.) Acknowledges that he still thinks guys are hot (that he’s “tempted”) again. But says that everybody is tempted! Says that 40% of the people who look for help from Exodus are married already. Says you can’t hide from your gayness in marriage. (TRUE!) Can people become straight, though? Alan says yes! He thinks his wife is downright snazzy! But his marriage isn’t about heterosexuality! (Heh.) It was about “mutuality” and a “conglomeration of God’s best!” (Sounds like V-Day’s gonna be HOT at the Chambers house.) Says he will always be attracted to guys, but it doesn’t affect his marriage. (HUH? Let me tell you something about straight women, Alan, ‘kay? Straight women are not fulfilled by husbands who actually, in reality, are into guys. Just so you know.)
2. Finally back into his “three points.” Evaluate your attitude. Stop being so mad, you guys! Says they all get mad too much and have bad attitudes. (Concur!) Says that if people aren’t angry about “things” that “happen,” then they’re not paying attention! It’s just like the story of Jonah or something. You see, God thought it would be funny to deal with Jonah’s poor attitude by letting him get eaten by a whale. Then he preached a bad sermon? I don’t know. Gays probably should hate fundamentalists, says Alan! (We don’t hate you, Alan, we just want you to know that you can be free from your fundamentalist self-loathing.) Says gay jokes aren’t funny. “God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve” isn’t funny, it just makes you look like a buffoon, says Alan. (TRUE!)
3. Evangelize. Five keys to evangelizing to gays, oh god. (I am so missing men’s speed skating for this. I expect gift cards.):
A. “It’s all about relationships!” Develop a relationship with people before you tell them they’re going to hell! (See what I mean when I say “trying to be nicer and sugarcoating hate doesn’t make hate less real, just more deceptive?” Yeah. And a worldview that preaches that entire classes of people are going to hell is inherently hateful. Sorry, fundies!)
B. Be vulnerable! If you want to change a gay, you need to tell them about how you have a hard time with stuff, too! (I’m paraphrasing, heavily, yet keeping the spirit of the original text.) Do you have stories to share about your anorexia, your divorce, your porn stash, your tawdry affair, your drug habit, etc. TELL A GAY!
C. Don’t place your timeframe on others. Don’t put gays on a schedule! If you give them a timetable, then the terrorists will just wait until you leave?
D. Focus on what’s most important. Don’t debate with gays over whether or not they’re Christians, if they say they are. WAIT ‘TIL LATER, if they refuse to hate themselves for being gay. If they’re not Christians anyway, maybe you shouldn’t talk about homosexuality anyway. Just proselytize about Jesus. “Straight people go to hell too!”
Some time passes, because I had to hit pause on the video and go refill my drink because I was laughing so hard at that quote.
Okay, back!
E. You gotta have a plan! Some story about “Church of the open sore” or something. Leper colony? Derno. Watching downhill skiing now. Church is for everybody, not just for dirty gays. “Sin doesn’t happen in a vacuum.” Walk alongside your adopted gays! He’s not talking about how to make plans or anything, so I guess he just needed a fifth point.
And he’s done! Finally! See, now you don’t have to sit through an hour of Jazzhands McGay.
YOU’RE WELCOME.
*For any who are unclear, here is how snowstorms happen: Warm moist air from one area collides with cold air from another area. Snow results. Therefore! Warmer years produce crazier snowstorms! Ta-da. It’s actually really elementary, but you have to pay attention in school, or, you know, go to a school that teaches science. Also, it helps if you’re not an easily led wingnut.
**It’s only been in recent years that men in our society have been given permission to show emotion, to drop the societal expectations that a father must always be stoic, etc. The truth of the matter is that if you’re a man around Alan Chambers’ age, chances are that your dad was probably kind of distant, authoritarian, etc. It was simply the accepted societal construct. I might also add that it’s been like that in Abrahamic religious tradition pretty much since the inception of each religion. So why isn’t everybody gay, Alan? Seriously. I can think of two grandfathers in my own family who were notoriously distant, from everything I’ve heard. By Alan’s “theory,” all of their male offspring should’ve been gay. Not the case.
