GayPatriot Asks “Six Questions” to Bruce Bawer
When the story of how GayPatriot came to be is written, Bruce Bawer will have a prominent role. Aside from joining Log Cabin Republicans (when it was Republican), reading Bawer’s book A Place At The Table had a critical role in my thinking about what it is to be a gay man, and specifically a conservative gay man in America. So I am honored that Bawer agreed to answer “Six Questions From GayPatriot”….. (Why six? Because five seemed what you’d expect.)
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1 – Which do you think is more threatening to gays — Islamists or the American Christian Right?
Islamists. I wrote a book (Stealing Jesus) about the American Christian Right and have no illusions about its malevolence toward gay people. But it pales alongside fundamentalist Islam.
In a recent Daily Telegraph poll, 40% of British Muslims said they wanted sharia law in the UK – and sharia law stipulates the death penalty for acts of homosexuality. Gay-bashings by Muslim youth gangs are rapidly turning once-safe areas of European cities into no-go areas. For many openly gay people living in those cities, harassment on the street by young Muslim men is commonplace.
While writing and then promoting Stealing Jesus, I came into contact with many fundamentalist Christians, who knew I was gay; they argued with me stridently, but never did I see in their eyes what I’ve seen blazing out of the eyes of many young European Muslim men at the sight of a gay person. Contempt is too feeble a word for it. In their eyes, gays are lower than pigs and dogs (and they despise pigs and dogs). We do merit death in their eyes. If they don’t kill us on sight, it’s because they don’t want to deal with the hassle.
2 – Do you think, as Andrew Sullivan does, that the United States truly is moving toward a theocracy?
I agree with Andrew that the separation of church and state is a vital pillar of American freedom and that Bush and other Republicans have often seemed eager to knock it down. Fortunately, even if the US under Bush has taken steps in the direction of theocracy, that destination is still a long way down the road, and most Americans have no interest in going there.
One crucial difference between the US and Europe is this: in the US, the question of whether “Christianism” represents a threat to American secular democracy has long been the subject of brutally frank and passionate public debate; in most of Europe, by contrast, an equally honest, no-holds-barred debate about the threat of European Islam remains unimaginable. And Europe is paying the price for it.
3 – Who are your heroes?
People like Pim Fortuyn and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who care more about telling the truth, doing what’s right, and preserving liberty than about what the political and media establishment thinks of them.
4 – Why does the gay community not speak out more about the threat from Islamic fundamentalism? Are they clouded in their judgement by their hatred of President Bush?
Well, if we’re talking about so-called gay “leaders,” many of them see the world entirely through the prism of multicultural ideology. When looking at fire-breathing Islamists, all they can see is (a) people of color who (b) come from another culture (which of course is “rich” and “fascinating” and “vibrant”) and who are (c) oppressed victims of the imperialist West. All of which, of course, points to the conclusion that gays, as members of a fellow “oppressed group,” should be in solidarity with them against our common oppressors.
For such people, the fact that Islamists despise gays – and, if they gained power in the West, would be quick to teach us all just what oppression really means – just doesn’t compute. Their minds can’t process it. Confront them with such facts, and they’ll respond by demonizing you.
Many leftists, including some gay “leaders,” actually admire Islam for the same reason they once admired Soviet Communism – because it’s the only big-time ideology that won’t knuckle under to American capitalism, which, in their eyes, is the world’s great evil. For such people, Islam’s disdain for gays is an inconsequential detail. (Many gay leftists’ love of Castro, after all, is not dimmed by the knowledge that he throws gays in prison.)
In America, I suspect that the gay population as a whole is silent on these matters mainly because most gays don’t yet fully realize how anti-gay Islam is. In Europe, the situation is more sinister: many European gays have firsthand experience of Islamic homophobia, but have been cowed into silence by the political, media, and intellectual elite: they dare not even make simple factual statements about certain things for fear of being called “racist” or “Islamophobic.”
5 – Any predictions for the 2008 Presidential Election?
Nope.
6 – Did the American gay community make a tactical error in pushing for gay marriage instead of civil unions?
My own experience in Norway has led me to think that it was a tactical error to insist on the word “marriage” and thereby strengthen our opponents’ hand. If proponents of the Norwegian partnership law had insisted on the word marriage, that law almost certainly wouldn’t have been passed – and I, for one, wouldn’t have been able to live in Norway (or anywhere) legally with the man I love.
Yet while the word “marriage” does not appear in the law, since its passage more and more Norwegians, gay and straight, have gotten into the habit of referring to partnerships as marriages, simply because it’s simpler and more natural to do so. In Norway, even the various official forms on which you have to check off your marital status now tend to use the one word, “married,” to cover both opposite-sex and same-sex couplings. For me, there’s a useful lesson in this: insist on calling the thing by its name and they’ll fight you over it; settle for the thing itself and soon they’ll be calling it by its name, simply because, hey, that’s what it is.
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Bruce Bawer has a new book out this year called, While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within. A must read! GPW adds: Ditto to that. A first-rate book which shows the perils of being too tolerant of intolerance and hate.
-Bruce (GayPatriot)
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Bawer: “I wrote a book (Stealing Jesus) about the American Christian Right and have no illusions about its malevolence toward gay people. But it pales alongside fundamentalist Islam…”
Calling all GLI! (Gay Left Idiotarians) Wakeup call for you on line 2!
Comment by Calarato — May 2, 2006 @ 11:57 am - May 2, 2006
I recently finished Bawer’s book. It’s frightening to read. Like others – Bat Ye’or who wrote “Eurabia” – Bawer is sounding the alarm – yet most political/media/academic leaders are insisting there is no fire.
Tragically, the lights of free speech and individual liberty are going out all over Europe. A new dark age is descending.
Vera would love to see GP ask any local Imam “6 Questions on Islam” and have the Imam answer them honestly. I’m sure it would be most enlightening.
Feeling bitchy, I decided to make a list:
Vera’s Top Ten Reasons Why She Can’t be a Muslim
1) Turbans make me look like Norma Desmond
2) Suicide belts make my hips look too big
3) Black burquas are so 1990’s
4) Crush on Celeste Holm wouldn’t square with the local Imam
5) Can’t get a decent Martini in Mecca
6) Three words: Fried Pork Chops
7) 5 X daily prayers cuts into my ‘nap time’
8) Call to prayer should be show tunes
9) Big ‘Mo’ isn’t exactly my kind of ‘mo’: if you know what I mean…
10) They’re doomed…
Comment by Vera Charles — May 2, 2006 @ 1:28 pm - May 2, 2006
Vera-
Would you email me, please. I’d like to ask you a question.
Thanks,
Bruce
Comment by Bruce (GayPatriot) — May 2, 2006 @ 1:36 pm - May 2, 2006
I agree with assesment, but I think he and Bruce overlook something important. Mainly that most of the time when American gays and lesbians see religious intolerance against them, its coming from Christians. Not because Muslims are less virulent, but because in the US they have so little power and visiblity. While I’m sure most gays can name 3-4 anti-gay chrisitian leaders, the only Muslim ones I can think of off the top of my head is Talabani, in Iraq and Farakhan(who I think of as being more racist than anything else). Muslim leaders simply don’t have the visibility that the Christians have in this country.
Comment by Patrick (Gryph) — May 2, 2006 @ 1:53 pm - May 2, 2006
If true – there’s a movie those people can go see RIGHT NOW – called United 93.
As loyal gays and sophisticated consumers, surely they’d know Mark Bingham was on the plane and which movie character was meant to be him.
Sight / seeing is a choice, Gryph. There is plenty of anti-gay violence to see in the world, from Muslim regimes. MUCH MORE than there is to be seen coming from Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson.
But of course people can’t see it, if they’ve made the cognitive / psychological choice to bury their own heads in sand, first.
The American mainstream media doesn’t help, of course. It would rather campaign against Bush than report fully accurately on the real threats facing us (and real progress being made).
The media has choices, that it exercises continually, in: what stories to dig up or develop; how to frame stories that are being forced on it; etc. 80-90% of the time, its choice is to downplay the Islamo-fascist threat… because, if it didn’t, then golly, some of Bush’s policies would actually start to make sense to the electorate. (Not all, but some.)
Comment by Calarato — May 2, 2006 @ 2:30 pm - May 2, 2006
P.S. It’s curious, Gryph, that you didn’t (couldn’t?) also name bin Laden or Zawahiri or Zarqawi as distinctly anti-gay Muslim leaders.
Comment by Calarato — May 2, 2006 @ 2:33 pm - May 2, 2006
Or the regime in Iran.
Comment by Calarato — May 2, 2006 @ 2:34 pm - May 2, 2006
#4: “but because in the US they have so little power and visiblity.”
In stark contrast, the right wing Christians – I notice Bruce Bawer uses the term “Christianist” – who would impose their dogma on the rest of us have, through the GOP, full access to the levers of political power in the US. Once again this summer, it appears we will be treated to GOP leaders pushing for an amendment to our Constitution to forever ban recognition of our relationships. I’ll devote my limited resources to an imminent threat with reasonable odds of occurring instead of focussing on the extremely remote potential of a gang of imams taking over the US govenment and instituting sharia law. So shoot me.
Comment by Ian S — May 2, 2006 @ 2:38 pm - May 2, 2006
In stark contrast, the right wing Christians – I notice Bruce Bawer uses the term “Christianist” – who would impose their dogma on the rest of us have, through the GOP, full access to the levers of political power in the US.
Actually, they have access in an even simpler manner — it’s called voting.
It wouldn’t surprise me that you would advocate denying people the right to vote based on their religious beliefs. Indeed, I think you’re rather typical of the gay left that way.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — May 2, 2006 @ 4:30 pm - May 2, 2006
When Christians start beheading and hanging gays, call us.
Comment by rightwingprof — May 2, 2006 @ 5:27 pm - May 2, 2006
There is nothing “curious” save your obsession with finding fault with me Caralato.
Zarqawi and Zawahiri, in spite of their internet fame, do not own a multi-media empire or have a daily television or radio show in the US on which they appear daily and tell everyone about the “Homosexual Menace”.
The “blindness” that gays and lesbians have regarding Islamists isn’t unique to them. Its shared by many, many Americans, in spite of 9-11, and no, not all of them are “Liberals” either. How many members of the GOP Congress are going around campaigning primarily on being “anti-terror” instead of concentrating on social wedge issues and the economy? Not many.
Comment by Patrick (Gryph) — May 2, 2006 @ 6:26 pm - May 2, 2006
While Europeans are threatened, Muslim influence over American law is in the distant future and highly unlikely. “Christian” fundamentalists are here and now and are close to dominating the Republican Party.
I will concede that, except for the most extreme bigots, “Christian” fundamentalists don’t want to imprison or execute gays. (Although back in the 1990s a county GOP convention in California did adopt a platform plank calling for the death penalty for abortion doctors and gays.)
Comment by Trace Phelps — May 2, 2006 @ 7:32 pm - May 2, 2006
I have lost several muslim friends who are “moderates”, because I would not give up my gay friends, or cut off my gay relatives.
Comment by Pamela — May 2, 2006 @ 7:35 pm - May 2, 2006
Very good interview, Bruce. Thank you also for introducing me to the works of an author I hadn’t heard of before.
Comment by Average Gay Joe — May 2, 2006 @ 8:37 pm - May 2, 2006
Who among the left has advocated disenfranchisement, NDT? As you always demand: Show us the facts.
How delightful to see dear old Mr. Bawer show up here, one of our original hypocrites. After producing screeds about the need to improve the image of gay people by keeping leather people out of pride parades, he ex-patriated to Ansterdam where he could live his own leather/ S&M lifestyle outside the scrutiny of the people he attacked here. (Check out his coded acknowledgement in “A Different Loving,” definitive text on BDSM.) Of course, he later squirmed out of this contradiction by claiming what he MEANT to say is that he wants pride parades free of stereotypes. But he didn’t explain how he can be into leather and S&M and not be stereotype while mere participation in a Pride Parade makes others a stereotype.
Comment by NitPicking4Jesus — May 2, 2006 @ 11:58 pm - May 2, 2006
#13: I’m not surprised. Of the major montheistic religions, Islam is probably the most rigid against gay people – Christianity and Judaism at least have significant sects that are tolerant or even supportive of gay people. As far as the suggestion by some that the focus of American gays should be outward towards Islamic abuses in other countries, I don’t agree. My main concern is THIS country. It’s the country to which I chose to emigrate and live and of which I chose to become a citizen. There is no chance of Sharia law being instituted in the US in my lifetime but there is an ongoing struggle with and threat from antigay Christians who have political power and will, if unopposed, use it to deny me full citizenship in this country.
I will oppose Islam as I will oppose any dogma promoting homohatred but my focus has to be the here and now: the USA in 2006. That means oipposing the political agenda of antigay Christians and their puppets in the GOP.
Comment by Ian S — May 3, 2006 @ 12:21 am - May 3, 2006
#15: I didn’t know that about Bawer. Thanks for the info. Still, he makes good points about the threat of religionists. He even used the term “Christianist” yet no one here batted an eye. Yet I was excoriated for using the same term. I guess that’s just another example of IOKIYAR.
As for NDT, he rarely presents an honest argument and, from my experience, is best ignored.
Comment by Ian S — May 3, 2006 @ 12:28 am - May 3, 2006
Bruce, good interview and thanks for the introduction to a guy whose body of work is outside my norm.
Comment by ralph — May 3, 2006 @ 12:49 am - May 3, 2006
Who among the left has advocated disenfranchisement, NDT? As you always demand: Show us the facts.
Gladly.
Here’s another.
And yet another.
And I am being nice and assuming that Garrison Keillor wasn’t serious when he said it.
Meanwhile, to this:
That means oipposing the political agenda of antigay Christians and their puppets in the GOP.
LOL….bull, Ian. You have no problems whatsoever with antigay agendas when Democrats push them.
Let’s see you and NitPick say that stripping gays of rights based on religious beliefs is wrong, evil, and homophobic — and then say that John Kerry, Harry Reid, Howard Dean, John Edwards, and all the other Democrats who advocated for it are wrong, evil, and homophobic. Just like you do Republicans.
You too, NitPick.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — May 3, 2006 @ 3:44 am - May 3, 2006
#15 and #17
For the record, I (1) never advocated keeping leather and S&M people (or anybody else) out of pride parades and (2) am not and never have been into leather and S&M. The authors of Different Loving, Gloria and Will Brame, are old and dear friends of mine, and I was honored to be mentioned in the acknowledgments to that book, an important, richly perceptive study of a subject that had rarely, if ever, been given such serious treatment.
Comment by Bruce Bawer — May 3, 2006 @ 3:48 am - May 3, 2006
#17 – re: “Christianist” – Ian, (1) Bawer is a guest who kindly responded to Bruce’s inquiry, as opposed to a GLI (see #1) troll passing through; (2) Bawer might not mean by the term quite what you do; (3) Bawer definitely doesn’t miss the forest for the trees, as you do.
#11 – Gryph, first of all, either be glad that I gave you attention, or ignore me. If something is questionable in what you said, I may question it. (Or correct it, if it’s messed up as at other times.) If you don’t like that, feel free to ignore me and equally, feel free to disagree – but whining is unbecoming.
Second: please be so kind as to furnish the quote of Robertson or Falwell referring to “Homosexual Menace” (quote you provided). I tried to Google for it, and only saw it on paranoid anti-Bush sites.
Third and more important: even granting you the quote, please explain how they are worse for us gays than the Muslim leaders bin Laden, Zawahiri, Zarqawi, Ahmadinejad, Khamanei, etc., who seriously kill us.
Because, you see, the last time I checked, building / possessing a small Western media empire just DIDN’T AFFECT my life as a gay man the same way as trying to establish a real-life Islamist, anti-gay empire of death through terrorist acts (or threat thereof).
Therefore, it continues to be very curious that you omitted them (initially) from your list of anti-gay Muslim leaders.
Comment by Calarato — May 3, 2006 @ 8:54 am - May 3, 2006
P.S. In case anyone is wondering about the Iranian references: Iran hangs gays, is involved in international terrorism, and its President has recently begun threatening to boost its involvement in terrorism to new heights. One can dig up quotes on that.
Comment by Calarato — May 3, 2006 @ 9:34 am - May 3, 2006
Mr. Bawer, if you are still around:
Thanks for your work! I was a huge fan of Stealing Jesus, Beyond Queer, and A Place at the Table. I just ordered the new one
Comment by Calarato — May 3, 2006 @ 10:15 am - May 3, 2006
Caralato huffs and puffs:
Well, Old Bird, if you would actually read my posts instead of going into girly-man hissy fits, you would see that I’m making a point about the visibility of American Christian anti-gay groups in comparison to the lack of visibility of Islamist anti-gay groups.
And as I say above that doesn’t mean that I think Islamists are less of a threat to gay rights or less virulent. But in this country Islamist groups simply don’t have as much influence or visibility as the Christian ones do.
The “Homosexual Menace” is a phrase that dates from the 50′s and is used in some of the old anti-gay public and military service announcements. On a side note, the “Homosexual Agenda” phrase you often see bandied about is actually the title of a chapter of an old anti-gay screed written by former Rep Dannemeyer.
So Caralato, there you go.
You can go back to your regularly scheduled hissy fit now.
Comment by Patrick (Gryph) — May 3, 2006 @ 10:53 am - May 3, 2006
Gryph, the huffing and puffing and hissy fits are in your stuff. You actually don’t merit further attention from me, so this will be the last for this thread.
“…I’m making a point about the visibility of American Christian anti-gay groups in comparison to the lack of visibility of Islamist anti-gay groups.”
Understood 100%, all along. And again: It is a bad, i.e. invalid, point. What part of Islamo-fascist terrorism – and anti-gay, anti-Jew and anti-woman qualities – are somehow NOT more visible than Falwell or Robertson??? Again, people would have to CHOOSE to not see them.
Now, admittedly, Iran’s hanging of gays hasn’t received the mainstream media attention it deserves, so people are less to blame there – and the media, correspondingly more – as I brought out in #5.
“But in this country Islamist groups simply don’t have as much influence or visibility as the Christian ones do.”
Again – referring to the sense you mean: hogwash.
It would be true that Islamist groups and terrorist cells in America both tend to hide somewhat. It would also be true that, in 400 years, Christnianity has had much more (helpful) influence in building up our country, than Islam has had.
But going back to the sense of the words you intended: What part of American life has NOT been influenced by 9-11 and the War on Terror???? HOW could it not be visible to anyone, except by the person’s choice to play ostrich?
You said: “The “Homosexual Menace” is a phrase that dates from the 50’s…”
Comment by Calarato — May 3, 2006 @ 11:05 am - May 3, 2006
(hit Say It! by accident – continuing sentence) …. And that is MY POINT EXACTLY. Thank you.
So, Gryph – Having spent upwards of 20 minutes on you today, I have spent enough time arguing with people who refuse to understand the discussion and apparently wish to degenerate it. Goodbye now.
Comment by Calarato — May 3, 2006 @ 11:09 am - May 3, 2006
#21: Look, either the term “Christianist” is offensive or it is not. It makes not one whit of difference whether it’s used by Mr. Bawer or me. And yes, in the context of Mr. Bawer’s interview where he’s warning of the danger of Islamists, it’s clear the term has exactly the same meaning for both Mr. Bawer and me.
Comment by Ian S — May 3, 2006 @ 11:42 am - May 3, 2006
(sigh) OK, Ian, let’s try again.
Re-read the post. No Ian: Bawer didn’t say “Christianist”.
He did say “ChristianisM”, putting it in suitable scare quotes. I.e., quotes not added by me. Implying that Bawer, too, questions the word or distances himself from it, on some level. OK?
You don’t. I saw you use it (in the past discussions you’re referring to) with more of a direct, hurtful or ad hominem type of intention. OK? Clear now?
Now, my comments here are limited to the text in the post. Obviously Mr. Bawer may come back and say “I do use the word Christianist”. Which would be a new discussion.
Comment by Calarato — May 3, 2006 @ 12:02 pm - May 3, 2006
P.S. Please note that I myself use the words “Christianist” and “Christianism” at times, in scare quotes (implying distance, or the words’ invalidity on some level).
It’s the intention of the usage and no, it is not at all clear the word would have “exactly” (your claim) the same meaning for you and Mr. Bawer.
I hope this is dead and nailed in the ground now. I will decline to spend further time on it.
Comment by Calarato — May 3, 2006 @ 12:06 pm - May 3, 2006
Iran is a rich, vibrant, in-touch-with-nature, third-world culture! And they don’t export terrorism, they export the proletariat’s struggle against evil Joooo imperialism! Just ask somebody from Queers For Palestine!
And “Christianist/Christianism” isn’t offensive — just stupid.
Comment by rightwingprof — May 3, 2006 @ 1:51 pm - May 3, 2006
Actually, I think Iran is a great example of the hypocrisy of the moonbat Democrats.
Remember their arguments on Iraq? “We would have supported it if we had proof of….”
Meanwhile, you have Iran, which is even more positively linked to terrorism, defiance of the UN, human rights abuses, and terrorism than Saddam (which takes effort, mind you), and is now bragging that they have missiles capable of hitting Europe.
And what’s their response?
Along with their call for the return of the troops from Iraq, organizers said, the march was meant to express opposition to any military action against Iran. The event was organized by the group United for Peace and Justice.
“We’ve been lied to, and they’re going to lie to us again to bring us a war in Iran,” said Marjori Ramos, 43, of Staten Island. “I’m here because I had a lot of anger, and I had to do something.”
In short, the Democrats will shriek “Bush lied” regardless of the facts.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — May 3, 2006 @ 3:20 pm - May 3, 2006
Projection.
Comment by rightwingprof — May 4, 2006 @ 11:32 am - May 4, 2006
It’s known as liberalism.
Comment by rightwingprof — May 4, 2006 @ 3:37 pm - May 4, 2006