I don't want to talk about bullies on Christmas. But bullies don't take holidays, so here we go.
I accept, as a statistical inevitability, but not a moral good, that publicly speaking about controversial things wilk lead to mean-spirited responses.
I believe in dialogue and exchange. I do not take polite disagreement to be bullying. I do take irrelevant attacks and vulgarity to be bullying though.
So I want to talk about Doug Mersman. I am calling him Doug Mersman because that is the name that he calls himself, but there may be multiple real people with that name and it is possible to use a fake name on YouTube, so please don't harrass any random Doug Mersmans for the sins of this one.
The other day I made a YouTube video for work. In which I wished people a merry Christmas and spoke about Mary's love for Jesus is an example for our obligation to love the vulnerable. I stand by what I said, but it was hardly my most radical work.
So Doug came along and offered first, this comment. "Who is this homosexual!?!"
Now, I don't think homosexual is an insult. But it seems Doug does...
You may be unsurprised to learn that my professional Merry Christmas video was not actually about my sexual orientation. I didn't mention anybody's sex life at all. Not even, common as it is in theology circles, Mary's. And definitely not my own. Except for mentioning... and not claiming it was immaculate... that I am a dad.
So what was so gay about my video?
Only Doug's perception.
You may be also unsurprised to learn that in a professional Merry Christmas video I also did not discuss, one way or another, abortion. Making Doug's next attack also mysterious: "I bet you love abortion. Fuck you."
I don't know of anyone who loves abortion.
Could these comments have come from the Doug Mersman who has written many prolife op-eds across the midwest, easily findable on Google?
Someone who would spend Christmas Eve homophobically attacking a pastor he has never met, in a country he doesn't live in, about an assumed political disagreement he merely imagined on an irrelevant video... where... I was... wishing him a Merry Christmas.
(Deep breath.)
I wrestle with ignoring bigots like this vs. confronting them. But this case was so brazen, so unprovoked, so open... Someone confident in saying things and proud to say them in his own name. This proud trolling.
As of this blog post writing, his comments are not visible on YouTube while YouTube determines if homophobic attacks and vulgar screeds violate their terms of service or not. I can wait on that. I don't want to live in a world, even online, where words like homosexual, abortion, or even fuck, are assumed out of hand as always unacceptable.
There is one niche little bit of this unwelcome Christmas experience I feel qualified to talk about. It is not necessarily the most important story to be told about bullying and homophobia. It is just the one I am qualified to tell. It is the one I have lived.
To give this context, I have to share what some may think is TMI (Too much information.)
I think it is relevant information. I think treating whole swaths of our identities and experiences as unspeakable taboos is a disservice to human relationships. I think what is labelled as "TMI" is more commonly a reflection on a listener's insecurity than a sharer's inappropriateness.
But, if our relationship or your view of my profession is such that you are not comfortable knowing I am a complex human, kindly stop here. If you do not want to know anything about my sexual orientation, you may watch my Merry Christmas message, in which I didn't talk about it at all.
Nonetheless, that is where I was most recently bullied "for being gay."
So here is the relevant disclosure. I have never had sex with a man. I have never kissed a man. I have never gone on a date with a man.
I am not morally opposed to any of those things. But I happen to not have done any of them.
Yes, my TMI is telling you about my non-sex life.
Like many raised in conservative Christian circles, I have heard two persistent lies from homophobes, lies I suspect many sincerely believe are true, but are not.
"I am fine with what others do in their private lives, just don't shove it my face."
"Love the sinner, hate the sin."
I have been bullied for "being gay," by kids, by teachers, by foster parents, by extended family members, by church leaders, most oddly by a woman with whom I was in a relationship, and by internet strangers for forty years now.
And not once has it ever been because I brought up the topic of all the gay sex I have. Because I have never had any.
Victims of homophobic bullying are not "bringing it up" relentlessly to innocent bystanding heterosexuals. Homophobic bigots are obsessed with gayness so much they imagine it everywhere on their own. (Transphobia seems to be working in a similar fashion.)
As far as love the sinner, hate the sin? Nonsense. I admit I do not consider homosexuality to be a sin. But even those who do must confront this truth: if you were truly committed to loving sinners, how is homophobic harassment love?
Short answer, it is not.
I know many people who see themselves as Christians who simply uphold traditional values. They think they are not like Doug. But they train the Dougs of the world to look for deviance even among innocent children.
Evangelical values hero James Dobson taught my foster parents to hate me as a prehomosexual. Being a shy and awkward kid had no explanation in the fact I was a preteen. Or my mother had just died. Or I was separated from my siblings. Or I was a new kid in school. I was a burgeoning homosexual who needed manly intervention.
I was eleven. The only ones having immoral sexual thoughts about me were the ones claiming family values, sexualizing grief and (as yet undiagnosed) autism as sin.
I spent my adolescence in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormonism), where we were relentlessly told to avoid the sin of premarital sex.
But I also was harassed by bishops for obeying that so well that I was assumed gay. I am not entirely sure what the conventionally attractive, convincingly heterosexual kids in my congregation were up to, and though they still got to go to BYU and serve missions, it was apparently an irresistible enough good enough time that my abstinence was suspect not saintly.
Mormons are often quick to insist they believe that it is only acting on same sex attraction that is a sin. But they acted toward me that merely seeming like a gay person was sin enough for concerned intervention.
So next TMI warning.
I have had sex with a woman. But my first kiss was not until I was 23.
I thought waiting that long was being a righteous Mormon boy. Others--including Mormon leaders who literally taught me to postpone physical contact with women--thought it meant I was busy with being gay.
The reality is simply that I am shy and awkward and at all ages and with all genders. I have had only very rare instances of confirmed mutual attraction in my life.
My lack of stereotypically heterosexual masculine obsession with sleeping with women is neither religious self-control, the narrative I myself preferred to believe most of my life, nor deeply constrained homosexuality.
It is just... I am awkward?
I admit I openly identify as bisexual. If the behaviour is the only "problem," there should be no problem, right? Many people imagine bisexuality as promiscuity, but for me it is an acknowledgment that as someone who has found romance and sexuality mostly negative and painful, but who still wishes more than anything to share life with someone who loves me, gender is so far down my list of criteria as to be irrelevant.
Honestly, my sexless life at 21 and 41 have a simple cause: the people I find attractive are not interested in me.
Not the most inspiring reason, but not a ... sin?
Homophobes at their core, do not care about sexual morality. They care about difference. They use "homosexual" as a slur against anyone being different.
It obviously causes the most harm to people who are homosexual, people who want and get the love of others, in the way these bigoted third parties feel entitled to judge.
But a lifetime of not having supposedly sinful relationships with people of your own gender will not stop homophobic harassment. My lifetime has been that experiment. (So go love who you love!)
If some day I do find love, and it happens to be a man who loves me, nothing I am saying here would be invalid. The homophobic hate I have received in my life will have preceded any "behaviour" by decades.
Homophobes do not hate me because I have gay sex. They hate me because I somehow remind them of differences that they cannot process. If you are gay, they hate you because they are hateful. It has nothing to do with your behaviour.
There are homophobes who say they would leave you alone if you found Jesus, or avoided the "sin" of gay sex, or "didn't bring up your sexuality" all the time.
I am a practicing Christian. An ordained pastor. I have no sex life to speak of. And I have been homophobically harrassed for saying Merry Christmas.
I did everything right, but bigots are gonna bigot.
I wouldn't make this long response if Doug Mersman the other night was the first or only. But he is typical. I know so many people like him who go through life claiming to themselves and to the world that they are good moral people. And I know even more people who know these people and enable them. Who use euphemisms to describe the people in their church pews or family reunions who behave like this.
I know far too many people who even now, thirty years hence, consider my foster parents community pillars. They took me in, after all. If I mention the abuse, it is ingratitude.
Doug has decided to what kind of person he thinks I am based on almost nothing. I am not convincing him to repent. But maybe there is someone I know like him who I can influence.
What would you do if you saw his comments said by your brother, your uncle, your neighbour?
I could have a thicker skin, perhaps. But I am choosing today to use whatever bravery I can muster on calling him out. And being open about my experiences.
Homophobes hate difference. I have come to realize most of my homophobic bullying has really been because of my autism, not my barely existant sex life. That is what makes me seem just a little off in a way the bigots hate so much. Homosexual is just the current catch-all crtique of difference.
Allow me to conclude with this fun compilation of some of the reasons homophobes have bullied me, some may be TMI to you, but none are my having thrilling, sinful gay sex. Sex is the excuse, not the reason.
I know the stereotypes, but still... not actually sex:
I am bad at sports.
I worked as a dance teacher.
I love musical theatre.
I was in high school choir.
I worked at art museum.
My favourite colour is pink.
I like flowers.
I enjoy interior decorating.
I have supportively marched in Pride and have officiated same-sex weddings.
I love rainbows.
Impossible Self-Contradicting Ones
I didn't want to join a swim team in high school because I was too self-conscious about being seen in a Speedo.
I got over that and now swim almost daily in a Speedo.
I didn't want to get changed in a locker room in high school because I was too self-conscious.
I got over that and get changed at the pool locker room.
I don't have enough male friends. Also, I have too many male friends.
I don't spend enough time with women. Also, I have too many female friends.
And what the heck are you even talking about?
I had speech impediments growing up.
I think briefs are more comfortable than boxers.
I am a single dad.
I like swimming.
I speak French.
I made salad for dinner.
I prefer gummy bears over chocolate.
I don't drink alcohol.
I line dry my clothes in summer.
I owned a Volvo.
Merry Christmas to you all, regardless of your sexual orientation. And God Bless Doug Mersman.