From:TheBahamasWeekly.com
Doublespeak and Sacred Errors: HIV/AIDS and the Bishop
By Joseph Gaskins
Nov 25, 2011 - 8:11:29 AM
Bishop Hall,
I’m going to make
this quick because I hadn’t planned writing about you or HIV/AIDS
this week. I had a pretty good piece coming up on Prime Minister Ingraham’s
call for a “culture of peace”. So here’s what I’ll do. I’m
going to summarize what you’ve said over the last week, explain to
you why you’re wrong, and show you why being wrong is dangerous. I
have no intention of challenging the infallibility of the Bible, or your
faith, but I have every intention of pointing out your fallibility.
And, while I have in the past questioned the rationale of “the Church”
in the Bahamas, its place in governance and its right to dictate morals,
there are larger questions at stake here. For me, this is about the
preservation of human life not the general enjoyment I get out of highlighting
how boisterous piousness is usually attended by blatant hypocrisies.
From your statement
to the Tribune (
here
) and your address at the apparently
non-sectarian Rotary Club of West Nassau (
here
) we can gather the general
tenor of your position on these issues. Homosexuality in your own words
is anti-family, non-productive, abnormal and essentially deadly. Homosexuals,
because they cannot reproduce, recruit children. Homosexuals, instead,
should get help under the healing “umbrella” of the church, whose
corrective power will return the homosexual man to the head of family;
otherwise the very stability of our society is in peril. Despite this
you’ve decided to not demonize them and you urge “homophobic clergy”
not to do the same. In short, you imply “the homosexual” is a family
destroying, abnormal, disease carrying bogeyman that will snatch up
your children if you let them.
Perhaps this is a question
out of vain curiosity, but if this isn’t demonizing then what is?
And, in the world of
Simeon Hall is it “Opposites Day” all
year round? (in case you didn’t get the
Sesame Street reference
) This is doublespeak, pure
and simple. Gays and lesbians aren’t some secret society of deviants,
they are busy counting your money in banks, packing your groceries in
food stores, keeping your power on and fighting crime in your neighborhoods—trying
to earn a wage, provide for those they love and live their lives as
they choose.
You are right
in saying
homosexual relationships are generally
non-(re)productive, but to call it anti-family is a statement of opinion, not a
logical conclusion or a fact. Because one
can
produce children does not mean one is
automatically
pro-family—I
have a feeling multitudes of Bahamian women doing their best to manage single parent
homes can attest to that fact. By suggesting that the restorative healing power
of the church can miraculously return gay men to the family, highlights the
failure of the church to keep heterosexual men in the home. We do know that
there are places where gay and lesbian families exist and that research shows
the children in these families display no signs of deficient social, academic
or total competence (
here
,
here
,
here
,
here
,
here
, and
here
). A cursory search on
Google
would’ve made that clear, or is
Google
also anti-family?
Given what we know of teen pregnancy (and your deafening silence
on this issue) perhaps the idea of sex sans reproduction is something we should
do a better job cultivating among our youth. And since you’ve opened the door
to willy-nilly conjecture, I think that if your concern is with fixing the Bahamian
family, it makes more sense to focus on the obvious heterosexual majority’s
part in its disintegration, instead of singling out an almost invisible
minority. I have a few thoughts about why you’ve failed to do so, but this is
about your statements, not tithes and offerings.
Your assertion that
homosexuals are in the business of recruiting children because they
cannot reproduce would be laughable if the implications weren’t so
serious. The attempt to qualify that statement by saying we should take
all cases
of child molestation seriously was nothing more than a nudge and a wink
to your audience. With rhetorical sleight of hand, non-reproducing homosexuals
(which, for you, mean all) are potential pedophiles, but the heterosexual
pedophile is articulated as an abnormality. Never mind the obvious,
problematic and fallacious conflation of homosexuality and pedophilia
(which is explored
here
), how did you even come up
with that? Is making statements without any factual basis modus operandi
in the world of Simeon Hall?
I could be wrong, but
I’d guess that the vast majority of sexual abuse cases reported in
the Bahamas involve older men and young girls, as is the case with your
brother in the cloth, Bishop Earl Fraser. And, since I can’t seem
to find any study based in empirical evidence to support your claim,
I’m going to assume you’ve come to this conclusion through your
experiences and the media—anecdotal evidence. I too have come to a
conclusion via anecdotal evidence from which I will make generalization:
preachers most vocally against homosexuality have their own sexual skeletons
in the closet (examples
here
,
here
,
here
, and
here
). With a little anecdotal
evidence one can make all kinds of otherwise unfounded assertions. For
credibility’s sake one is often cautioned against it and errors proceeding
from the mouths of the sanctified are not truer simply because of where
they originate.
The reasoning for all
of your doublespeak, these fallacies, errors wrapped in swaddling sacred
cloth, is to bring homosexuals back to the church, transform them into
heterosexuals so as to lessen their chances of contracting HIV/AIDS.
This is specifically for men who have sex with men. Compared to both
heterosexuals and men who have sex with men, lesbians have the smallest
chance of contracting the virus. In fact, as
this article
at GlobalChristian.org points
out, HIV/AIDS rates among Christian populations world-wide remain higher
than Muslim populations for example. To use your own words, “Using
any measurement, that’s call for alarm.” Can you blame me if I’m
not convinced by your circuitous logic? I am tempted to suggest that
if the point is avoiding HIV, instead of becoming heterosexual Christians,
we should all become Muslim lesbians. A bit of a contradiction—I’m
aware—but not much more than the “non-demonization via demonization”
you’ve been going on about in the papers.
Either way, when it
comes to preventing the transmission of HIV, sexuality doesn’t matter,
but
sex does. For all your “runnin’ on” about anti-family,
unproductive, child molesting bogeymen, I’ve yet to see you advocate
for safe sex education and access to condoms for
all sexually active
Bahamians. Now there’s a plan we can get in on together.
As
this Tribune article
points out, our youth are having
sex and they don’t know how to have it safely, or where to get information.
Imagine what it must be like for homosexuals, who may want to seek advice,
help or information after being categorized as abnormal, unnatural,
pedophilic and liable to cause the destruction of our very nation. All
the research shows that by stigmatizing homosexuals you encourage the
spread of HIV (one example of a study done in Jamaica is
here
but anything by Dr. Robert
Carr is good). That is a fact, sir. You silence these men with your
uninformed rhetoric, and with your authority as a man of God. You foreclose
on the possibility of rational dialogue within our society concerning
a growing problem which affects us all. If I weren’t a man of hope,
I’d say you’re either willfully ignorant or perniciously manipulative,
which are not good qualities to have as a leader.
I’m twenty-five years old and I know far too many people,
heterosexual and homosexual, who are courageously fighting against HIV/AIDS to
stay healthy and alive. I’m also too young to be spending my nights writing
letters to grown men asking them to think before they speak. I’m not trying to
suggest you’re not a good minister or that you are a bad person. All I’m saying
is, you don’t know what you’re talking about and it’s dangerous. So, how about
we make a deal? I won’t preach in your pulpit if you agree to let the
HIV/AIDS service providers, which are trained in this area,
do their jobs. In the meantime, do me a favor and tell your congregation to add
a little Jesus to their Christianity. Lay off the judgment and show a little
respect. You don’t hear the gays going around saying, “I hate those disgusting,
abusive, fornicating and adulterous, divorcing, anti-family heterosexuals
causing crime, starting wars and abandoning their children in their tacky
clothes.” Just something to think about…
Best regards,
Joey
P.S. Notice all the
links in this letter. That’s me doing research, you should try it.
Also, don’t forget our deal!
Joey Gaskins is
a graduate of Ithaca College, Ithaca, NY with a BA in Politics. He was
born in Grand Bahama Island and is currently studying at the London
School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) where he has attained
his MSc in Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies and has begun a
Doctoral Degree in Sociology. Joey also writes for
the
Nassau
Liberal
www.
nassauliberal. webs.com
. You can reach him at
j.gaskins@lse.ac.uk
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