Out in the Mountains

Christian Right Employ Hitler-like Strategies

Cleland E. Selby

A friend recently stated this truth about
me "Cleland, you are as passion~filled
about the fundamentalist monsters as
they are about your sexual orientation."
That probably is true. But, unlike these
ministers, I seem to lack the Christian
rhetoric that all too often disguises their
hates. They claim to love me even though
they hate my "sin." I just cannot seem to
feel much love toward them. And I do
despise their "sin."

But I am equally as frustrated by many of
my fellow gay brothers and sisters who
seem blind to the Christian right's
Nazi—like strategies. Just as "we are
everywhere", so are the increasing
numbers of Christian fundamentalists.
Their churches are sprouting up
everywhere. Twenty—five Vermont

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Recognized Independent Schools, which
are all adjuncts of Christian right churches
have been germinated in recent years.
These schools have an enrollment of 1200
plus students. And these figures do not
include the hundreds of students who are
in fundamentalist home school programs.

I am very concerned for a wide variety of
reasons. And I refuse to minimize the
impact this movement is having, not only
upon those of us who are gay, but upon the
child abuse that occurs when the rod is not
spared for fear that the child will be spoiled.

Once upon a time the Christian right's
single agenda was the evil of
communism. Then they moved into the
evils of feminism and abortion. Now its
focus is primarily upon homosexuality.
These ministers are ruthless. A Shelbume
Baptist minister wrote this in a recent
letter to me: "Homosexuals are human
beings trapped in a sinful behavior, just as
an alcoholic is trapped in his... I
categorically deny that God made you or
anyone else to be a homosexual.
Somewhere along the line you may have
had certain desires within you, to be sure.
But being homosexual is a choice."

Now I have one ally, one other gay man
who has spoken out much more

eloquently than I have done on this issue.
Reverend Mel White, when he was
struggling within his heterosexual
marriage for some relief for those desires
within him, ghostwrote for Jerry Falwell,
Pat Robertson, and Billy Graham. In his
poignant memoir, Stranger at the Gate.‘
To Be Gay and Christian in America, Mel
White has "outed" the strategies of the
Christian right clergy. He cites examples
of language used by these "pastors"
which is taken verbatim from language
used by Hitler and other leading Nazi
figures. That hatred momentarily
paralyzed me last week when I followed
an Oregon car that hosted these two
bumper stickers, placed parall to each
other: Take Pride in America: Kill a
Homosexual and Jesus Saves.

I know the horror of these ministers.
When I was the principal of an
elementary school here in Vermont, I
was supoenaed to testify in court about
the evidence of physical abuse I had seen
on the body of a six year old boy who
eventually lay comatose from more
severe beatings. In that court the father
and stepmother "bore witness" to a God
that wanted them to discipline Joel, to
force out the evil in this child. Under oath
they told about the sermons their

 

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