Fighting Against The Wall

I don't get it. I'm angry. I'm a fighter. But I also recognize where there is a wall and that beating on that wall is useless. The wall doesn't invalidate our fight, but there's other ways around the wall than straight through.

There will always be angry, anti-gay Christian Extremists in the world. At least as long as we're alive, since I doubt the next fad religion will pop up anytime soon. People like Peter LaBarbera, who post up (presumably real) letters from gay people threatening him in an attempt to raise money from supporters and show the world how evil we Gays really are, will always be ignorant. Although people have changed opinions before, it's highly unlikely that people that make their living off of Extremism will ever change. I've accepted that and moved on. I can achieve my prize of acceptance and equality without him.

What saddens me then is when people I respect, like Jeremy from Good As You, posts up a response in kind, showing the world similar letters that he receives in what amounts to a "I know you are, but what am I?" argument. There are other things to worry about than LaBarbera's assassanine attempts to defame our community. Move around him, make him irrelevant, and he will disappear.

I suppose it upsets me because saying "Me Too!" to an argument doesn't really win the argument, nor does it further it. The fact that either personality receives hate mail is irrelevant. Everyone who has posted an opinion anywhere has received hate messages. Hell, I have, and I have just a handful of readers. The way to attack LaBarbera is to invalidate his claims. Who cares that he receives hate mail? He's an ass-hat, he deserves the hate mail. What we want is equality, and argueing about who's hate mail is worse doesn't get us to that goal, it simply gets us to obssess over the the wall rather than finding a way around it.