Dismayed by pastor’s letter

12

To the Editor,
I read with great dismay and anger the letter from the Rev. Matthew Splittgerber in the last issue of The MV Times. The point of his letter was to defend the viewpoint that homosexuality is a sin because it’s in the Bible. The Bible also essentially condones slavery. Does the reverend also believe that endorsing slavery is “a viewpoint gained, by the way, through a legitimate reading of scripture”?
When the reverend quoted the statement by the Island Clergy Association that “the current trend that relegates those who disagree to a demonized other,” he sounds like he feels he is being demonized for his point of view. No, reverend, people are disagreeing with you, not demonizing you. The people who are demonized, and who have been demonized since the beginning of time, are the LGBTQ community. You, and others like you, have hidden behind the scriptures to perpetuate this demonization. Own what you teach. You teach that they are sinners. By doing so, you have helped to create and perpetuate a culture of hate against the LGBTQ community.
Lastly, the reverend strongly suggests that what we should be focusing on is the vandalism, and that The MV Times headline focused on the wrong thing (“homophobic decals”). Perhaps I could suggest that the headline for the Charlottesville marches in 2017 should have read “Marchers carry open flames, a known fire hazard.”

Jonathan Chatinover
Edgartown

12 COMMENTS

  1. Excellent letter, Jonathan. Thank you for expressing everything so well. I agree with every word, especially your Charlottesville example. Rev. Splittgerber attempted to legitimize the message on the decals. That lends support to the idea that LGBTQ is a fair target for ridicule. He did this even *after* his own peers said they are concerned about potential violence. While knowing the suspects have not been caught and could do something more. That, to me, takes his letter out of the realm of distasteful and right on into unconscionable. This isn’t a debate club exercise. People have been MURDERED due to this prejudice.

    Sure, he loudly objected to the PHYSICAL act of placing the decals. But he has no problem with their content. What? Going out of his way to separate the process of defacement from the words used, while chiding the paper for failure to focus on what matters, was strange. It lacked the most basic degree of critical thinking. Without the message, there would be no reason for the decals to exist or BE placed. Would anyone bother to tag a church with blank decals, knowing they were risking prosecution in an effort to communicate nothing? Come on. I can’t imagine the mental gymnastics required to make his argument with a straight face. No pun intended.

    It’s not like the guilty parties buried the lede. They WANT us to pick up on their animosity. If someone put up a poster with puppies in Santa hats, would we be discussing it in the same manner? Puppy decals would still be illegal. No one is allowed to alter another’s property without permission. But the public wouldn’t be deeply alarmed because it’s always the message that counts. They chose a controversial Sodom reference that has been used to justify harassment of LGBTQ forever. Sometimes to VIOLENT ends. To claim the decals are bad solely because of the delivery method is like saying that injecting someone with deadly poison is bad because needles hurt. (Not that I expect better from a man who smugly pointed out how Christians would never vandalize a pagan temple. They’re famous for basically toppling the classical world, but alright. Sorry, haven’t gotten over that one.)

    The statement from the Island Clergy Association notably referred to the decals as “anti-gay hate stickers”. This pastor wants us to know that he “gladly” signed that statement. In doing so, he acknowledged these criminals were being 1.) hateful and 2.) intended to target the gay community. Isn’t that the purpose of such a signature? To certify you agree with a document?

    He then scolded the paper and community for use of the term homophobia. A generally recognized definition of homophobia, per Oxford, is “dislike of or prejudice against homosexual people”. Isn’t that the same as the aforementioned “anti-gay hate” quote? Perhaps even a bit softer? Maybe the reverend can explain why he signed off on these people being “hate”-ful but now can’t even admit that they’re “dislike”-ful.

    “Dearth of discourse” is having to expend energy just to get someone to admit to basic facts and definitions. This man chose to play a self-serving, quasi-intellectual word game rather than support the entire community. How does that qualify one to pass out moral advice?

  2. One does not need to believe in divine authorship of the Bible, nor practice any religion, to recognize the inherent moral inferiority of chronic homosexuals.

    • Bart Gee, what is chronic homosexuality? Does the need for a distinction mean you’re down with relapsing-remitting homosexuality?

      Enlighten us with a list of non-religious reasons gay people are inferior. I can’t think of any on my own.

    • Your comment is a testament to your own moral, intellectual, and spiritual deficits. I certainly hope that the Times flags and removes it for hateful content.

    • Bart, throughput history, one group of people that believes themselves “superior”, uses another group they deem “inferior” in order to excuse and even promote something highly immoral— like slavery, murder, or social, cultural and financial ostracism. Make no mistake, it is always immoral and wrong to judge other human beings as inferior to you.

  3. “Chronic homosexuality” is a term you hear used in the fake-science “conversion therapy” discussions online. The term seems to function to allow for “lapses” because, you know, the “conversion” never takes. Interesting that old Bart felt he needed to make the distinction between “chronic” and “occasional” here, but I’m sure no one noticed.

  4. Jackie, I think he meant serial promiscuity among homosexuals especially men which is well documented and established as fact. Perhaps that is not a moral issue for you. Is Monogamy a good idea Jackie? I think it is reasonable for people to lament the pathology in the homosexual community including AIDS, Suicide, depression, cruising, higher levels of substance abuse and unsafe sex, and STD’s–the list goes on. All the studies show this and that would be ”SCIENCE” would it not?

    • Have you ever heard of Tinder? It alone will show you that those behaviors are alive and well for many millions of straight people, too.

    • Andrew, what you think Bart MEANT by his articulate words, inserting your own issue and something entirely different (promiscuity among male homosexuals) into the conversation, is irrelevant. When someone says exactly what they mean, even when they have no self-awareness of what they’re exosing about themselves, I believe them, just as I believe you when you tell me exacty what you mean–that your need to respond and defend homophobia with your out-of-context, “well documented” long list of fears about promiscuity in some male homosexuals. Interesting that you don’t have these worries or “well-documented” morality issues about female homosexuality. You cannot catch someone else’s sexuality or gender or eye color, BTW, even if you allow all differences to exist without damning them. I absolutely believe what Bart tells us, and Bart tells us he needs to view homosexuals, CHRONIC homosexuals, (specifically not “occasional” homosexuals), as morally inferior– which, logic tells us, would lead him to feel morally superior to a whole group of human beings. I won’t go into what that says about Bart’s issues, nor about what your well documented fears say about you, Andrew.

  5. Aquinnah, the high levels of promiscuity among say 3 percent of the population is stunning and not healthy and has resulted in high levels of death, transmitted disease, suicide and mental health issues. Are you seriously equating heterosexual fooling around with this. None of it is good for our society. Don’t you think fidelity and monogamy are good things?

    • Andrew, you are either intentionally downplaying the realities of straight sex or you’re completely unaware of what many, many (many…) straight people are doing today. I don’t know which. TONS of straight people would qualify as promiscuous and engaging in risky behavior under the standard I assume you are using. Yes, so would some gay men. All gay men? No. All gay women? Not even close. The point being, it’s not a question of orientation. These issues you’ve brought up are HUMAN issues, not gay issues. Do you see how that’s wrong? To single gay people out for doing things that not-gay people are also doing? Is discrimination. Period.

      You are making a point to talk about gay men. I know monogamous gay women who have remained in relationships for decades. Do you have a problem with them, too? Because judging people with a blanket “gay people are bad, mmmkay” based on the actions of some is prejudice in motion.

      You bring up suicide and depression rates like they’re a mark against the community’s moral or collective character, a sign that THEY’RE defective, rather than seeing those rates are tightly associated with the bigotry they face. That’s beyond twisted and cruel. The bigots are the ones who are pathologically flawedfor mistreating people.

      I’ve never attempted to post a link here and am not sure this will work. If it doesn’t, Google Carl Walker-Hoover from Springfield, MA.

      https://web.archive.org/web/20100109080802/http://www.thebostonchannel.com/cnn-news/19141470/detail.html

      Or Justin Goodwin from Salem, MA, who “suffered a shattered jaw, broken eye socket, broken nose, and broken cheekbone” after six bigots beat him without mercy.

      https://www.salemnews.com/news/local_news/trial-starting-in-beating-of-gay-man/article_630fe4e3-da44-530a-ab63-a831fe1e09f0.html

      I am not gay and these stories deeply depress me, so yes, I would fully expect anyone having to endure hatred on a daily basis to suffer mentally. Doesn’t make them bad. Makes them normal. You would also suffer if subjected to constant rejection, taunting, and fears about your safety. Any of us would.

      When it comes to STIs, straight people are also affected at high rates. The right thing to do, if you really care about this, is to support providing everyone with information and access to medical treatment. Attaching a stigma to STIs means fewer people will seek help and unnecessary transmission will continue. Yes, gay and straight people would benefit from from getting those numbers down. But there’s a huge difference between taking a practical “let’s attempt to tackle the problem” approach and using illness as an excuse to degrade one group of people.

      Straight people are involved in domestic violence incidents all the time. We will never know an exact figure because many don’t report. But we don’t look at the entire straight population and say, “Uh oh, some straight people are misbehaving again, better throw away the orientation.” We just, on our better days, try to address the specific problem of abuse. The same can be done with STIs. I’d love to see those rates decline for all. Butthe existence of disease is not a valid excuse to disrespect an entire community. HPV can lead to cervical cancer and death. HPV is common among straight people. We haven’t told them to stop having hetero sex because of it. We don’t say, “The loving relationship you share with your husband is tainted because you have HPV”.

      I do think fidelity and monogamy are good things. You can be both while being gay. You can be neither while being straight. It all depends on the individual. It’s odd that you’d even bring up monogamy because when gay people try to declare themselves as such by getting married, they’re attacked for that, TOO.

      As for categorizing Tinder as straight people just “fooling around”… I’m almost speechless on that one. I don’t know how old you are or if you’ve ever been on Tinder, but that’s not a reality-based description of its function. It’s really no different than what you labeled as “cruising”. It just uses the Internet to do it more effectively. MILLIONS of straight people use it, and similiar apps/sites, to have one-night stands, threesomes, etc. Sometimes unprotected. I’m not going to weigh in right now on what I think of that because it’s mostly irrelevant. Fact is, it’s happening, and no one even denies it. Except you, here.

      Unless you think straight intercourse counts as mere “fooling around” and gay intercourse counts as promiscuity, in which case you’re not judging the same behaviors equally because it doesn’t satisfy your bias to do so.

Comments are closed.