Here is the money quote from today’s front-page story:
Sprague said she still remembers an incident in 1994 after anti-gay legislation was proposed in Idaho. She said members of Christ Church and its pastor, Doug Wilson, showed up outside a gay dance and displayed anti-gay signs, one of which read, “AIDS Inoculation Center.”
Something happened at that dance (and possible during his stint in the Navy) that left a deep impression on Douglas Wilson. He talks about it often. He writes about it. And he worked it into Southern Slavery As It Was:
One time a man was handing out tracts at a gay and lesbian dance. Those attending the dance did not appear to be pleased, and someone apparently called a liberal Methodist pastor to come and deal with him. He came down, and in the course of the discussion, the Christian said that Leviticus condemns homosexuality as an abomination. The liberal pastor responded by saying yes, but the Old Testament allowed for slavery. The Christian responded by saying yes, it certainly did. “So what’s your point?” (Southern Slavery As It Was [Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 1996], npn)
The person he identifies as “a man” was Pastor Douglas Wilson of Christ Church, Moscow, and thus homosexuality and slavery — especially race-based chattel slavery — became inextricably linked in his mind.
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Palouse area mostly accepting, but not immune to hate
Members of the LGBT community shed light on their experiences in Pullman, Moscow
By Josh Babcock, Daily News staff writer
Some members of the LGBT communities in Moscow and Pullman say they have been subject to hate and threats and even lost friends because of their orientation and gender presentation here on the Palouse, but they say the area is mostly safe and accepting.
They say they’ve been followed, picketed, threatened and sometimes they have to think twice about holding a partner’s hand in public. Some have hid their sexuality to avoid losing a job.
Most, however, say it is only a small number of people who don’t accept them on the Palouse.
In the wake of the past weekend’s shooting that left 49 dead at the Pulse Orlando Night Club & Ultra Lounge, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., local members of the LGBT community say they won’t live their lives in fear.
“I’m not afraid of something like that happening here,” said Katie Noble, a lesbian and violence prevention educator at Washington State University.
Gordon Mellot, 33, has performed at drag shows in Moscow and Pullman for the past 13 years.
“Moscow is a pretty safe community but there are always two or three people hiding in the shadows that you have to be aware of,” Mellot said.
While the Palouse is overall inclusive, Kathy Sprague, a Moscow native who has organized drag shows in Moscow and Pullman for more than 20 years, has experienced some of the worst it has to offer.
She said she received death threats after running for Moscow City Council in 1993. One message left on her answering machine she still distinctly remembers: “Die you f—–g dykes.” She also said her friend William Hendrick, who was gay, was murdered in Moscow in 1999 because of his sexual orientation. The case has not been solved.
Sprague, 51, said she was also a friend of Steve Nelson, a former University of Idaho student and employee who responded to an online ad for sex in southern Idaho in early May and was beaten and robbed by four men. He died from his injuries.
“There is no denying Steve Nelson’s murder was a hate crime. Every day someone is gay bashed — sometimes it goes as far as it did with Steve and they die,” she said. “We can’t live in fear — we live knowing that it might be us next. You might as well ask every woman in this country if she fears being raped, it’s always in the back of our mind.”
Sprague said she still remembers an incident in 1994 after anti-gay legislation was proposed in Idaho. She said members of Christ Church and its pastor, Doug Wilson, showed up outside a gay dance and displayed anti-gay signs, one of which read, “AIDS Inoculation Center.”
“I was younger and not as secure in my identity,” she said. “And anyone who will attack a community while they’re down is showing their true colors and it certainly isn’t being a good Christian.”
Sprague said tragedies like that in Orlando make many in the LGBTQIA community relive previous attacks.
“This is what we live with in the back of our minds every single day,” she said.
Brandon Dudley, 29, of Pullman, said he feels safe in Pullman as a gay man, but high school was a different story. Dudley said he was bullied every day at Pullman High School, to the point he considered suicide once. That led to him to dropping out.
He later re-enrolled, but he didn’t stay long.
“I was assigned to give a speech on gay marriage. I told (the teacher) I didn’t feel comfortable and she told me I had no choice,” he said. “The class erupted with students calling me a faggot . . . that was my last day at PHS.”
He said he now receives more flack for being African-American than a homosexual.
For Noble, 32, it wasn’t until a few years ago that she started working at Washington State University and was able to come out and be open with her sexuality at work. She said her previous Pullman employer had told her “gay people should be lobotomized and shouldn’t have the same rights as other people.”
“He said it’s a mental illness or defect that should be fixed,” Noble said. “It wasn’t a fun experience working for someone who didn’t accept me for who I was. There are definitely situations you have to gauge how publicly you want to be about your sexuality.”
Mellot said he’s been followed and had his neighbors throw beer bottles at him and call him names, but such instances are rare.
“They’ve chased me down saying I don’t belong here, ‘there’s no place in Moscow for people like you,’ and they’re sick of us ‘trying to take over the community,’” he said. “They don’t happen often, but when they do they resonate hard with me. Moscow is a safe place — when it does happen it’s so out of the norm.”
Dudley said he was considering studying pre-law in Orlando.
“I would have been there at this time, I could have been at that club,” he said. “Those are my friends — that could have been me.”
Noble doesn’t have any Orlando ties, but he hopes those killed were loved.
“I feel fortunate that I have a biological family that loves me and supports me. There are so many people in the LGBTQ community that don’t have that. That’s why I feel so much sadness and sorrow for 49 people I never met,” she said, crying on the phone. “I know how difficult it can be to be afraid of who you are, and not be able to express that. I hope they were loved, and they knew that.
“For every violent person there are 40 that are not violent. All it takes for us to use our voice — that’s how the numbers change and violence happens less often.”
Sprague had a similar message.
“When you hear someone say, ‘that’s so gay,’ call them on it. ‘You throw like a girl,’ it’s all tied together. Rape culture, misogyny, they’re all heads to the same hydra,” Sprague said. “We need to treat everyone with kindness and respect, and call our peers on it when they are not doing that.”
Josh Babcock can be reached at (208) 883-4630, or by email to jbabcock at dnews.com.
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I wonder how the closeted gay men in his congregation feel about Doug Wilson’s continual mocking, name calling, and thuggish attitudes toward gay and lesbian people. Doug rarely, if ever, calls out adulterers, embezzlers, tax dodgers, child abusers, wife beaters, liars, or plagiaristic ministers and word stealing Christian school teachers and administers, all categories of which are fulsomely present in his church and denomination. Why is homosexuality his favorite topic? (I should note that women who critique his behavior are also targeted, do you suppose that might be an additional link to his psychopathy? I certainly do.) This issue has been addressed frequently in published psychiatric studies, for example:
“Although the causes of homophobia are unclear, several psychoanalytic explanations have emerged from the idea of homophobia as an anxiety-based phenomenon. One psychoanalytic explanation is that anxiety about the possibility of being or becoming a homosexual may be a major factor in homophobia. For example, de Kuyper (1993) has asserted that homophobia is the result of the remnants of homosexuality in the heterosexual resolution of the Oedipal conflict. Whereas these notions are vague, psychoanalytic theories usually postulate that homophobia is a result of repressed homosexual urges or a form of latent homosexuality. Latent homosexuality can be defined as homosexual arousal which the individual is either unaware of or dent. Psychoanalysts use the concept of repressed or latent homosexuality to explain the emotional malaise and irrational attitudes displayed by some individuals who feel guilty about their erotic interests and struggle to deny and repress homosexual impulses. In fact, West stated, ‘when placed in a situation that threatens to excite their own unwanted homosexual thoughts, they overreact with panic or anger.” Slaby ( 1994 ) contended that anxiety about homosexuality typically does not occur in individuals who are same-sex oriented, but it usually involves individuals who are ostensibly heterosexual and have difficulty integrating their homosexual feelings or activity. The relationship between homophobia and latent homosexuality has not been empirically investigated and is one of the purposes of the present study.
Specifically, the present study was designed to investigate whether homophobic men show more sexual arousal to homosexual cues than nonhomophobic men as suggested by psychoanalytic theory. . . .
The results of this study indicate that individuals who score in the homophobic range and admit negative affect toward homosexuality demonstrate significant sexual arousal to male homosexual erotic stimuli.”
Henry E. Adams, Lester W. Wright Jr., and Bethany A Lohr conducted this research at the Psychology Department of the University of Georgia where Dr. Adams is now professor emeritus.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/assault/roots/freud.html accessed: June 16, 2016
Rose Huskey
Bisexuals can be affected this way. I know that is implicit within the text, but it isn’t spelled out.
Thank you, Rose. I have wondered and do not recall seeing it addressed: could DW’s vehement reaction to homosexuality and homosexuals actually be an indication of a secret struggle with homosexual thoughts, feelings and/or tendencies on his part? If so, his obsession with (his narrowly defined) ‘manliness’ and his abject rejection of strong women would make sense as well. Has this been raised previously?
Two pop culture references come to mind:
1. “American Beauty” – the strict, anti-homosexual, ex-Marine father who, as is revealed in the end, struggled with homosexuality.
2. A line from “Hamlet”, adapted for this context – The pastor doth protest too much, methinks.
@Burwell: Doug Wilson is as conflicted as Omar Mir Seddique Mateen. He is a violently repressed homosexual full of religious and self-hatred.
Wilson’s theological position on homosexuality has changed more than any other, which is a big tell. One day he wants them executed pursuant to Moses. The next day he doesn’t. The next he wants a biblical republic 500 years from now to do it (one wonders if he would implement stoning or if he’d be satisfied with death by any means). Wilson’s changing position on the cause of homosexuality is another tell. One day he calls on the church to own the curse (of homosexuality). The next day he accuses homosexuals of being afraid of difference. Some homosexuals he requires to go through mandatory sexual-reorientation counseling. Others he helps hide it (I know of two high-profile kirkers — donors). Wilson’s hyper-overcompensation is yet another tell: All of his manly chest beating, his bullying of people weaker than him, his bragging about the wretched fruit of his loins (think Jeroboam), his hairy patriarchal face, his need to shame rape victims (which is a homoerotic practice dating back to ancient Greece) — all of this points to an extremely fragile ego that absolutely needs others to think something of him that isn’t true (just as his serial plagiarism points to his need for others to see him as a brilliant writer). Then there’s his unrelenting obsession with all things homosexual, especially their bedroom activity. I have a thread of quotes lined up with him obsessing over homosexual anal sex, by name, to the point that he prohibits it between man & wife. Of course he represses his homosexuality. It’s just one more complication in a highly conflicted monster.
Freud would have a field day with Wilson: Messiah complex, Oedipus complex, daddy hunger, fratricidal cheater, misogynist, narcissist, racist, protector of violent sexual predators, serial liar, ignorant educator, church splitter, home wrecker, brazen hypocrite — he releases the pressure of his repressed homosexuality through these never-ending malignant outlets. But in the end he’s as flaming as Liberace and as closeted as Rock Hudson.
He lives in his own private Idaho.
I recall “Pastor” Wilson, in an interview with the Daily News, saying he did want Christ Church to “have more influence” on the greater Moscow community. And then said, reassuringly, that he simply meant a more “peaceable” community. Stunts like carrying signs saying “AIDS inoculation center” is a surefire way to create a “peaceable” community, Mr. Wilson. May I call you a twit? Guess I can. I just did.
I make no pretense at understanding Doug’s thought process, Burwell, except to remain gobsmacked that he spends so much time on the topic. Several years ago I was reminded of a quote that was attributed to Winston Churchill which also appeared to address Doug’s main interests: alcohol, homosexuality, beating the hell out of children, and his Naval service aboard a submarine.
Churchill allegedly mocked allegiance to traditional British Naval traditions as follows: “When Winston was at the Admiralty, the Board objected to some suggestion of his on the grounds that it would not be in accord with naval tradition. ‘Naval tradition? Naval tradition?’ said Winston. ‘Monstrous. Nothing but rum, sodomy, prayers and the lash.” (citation for this quote listed below)
It turns out that Winston Churchill, who I admire not only for his writing style but his courage and leadership, didn’t actually say anything of the kind. A brief article, well worth a quick read can be found here:
http://www.thisdayinquotes.com/2010/08/rum-sodomy-and-lash-winston-churchills.html
Rose Huskey
PS Sometimes, the best tool we have on hand to use on Doug and his posse is laughter, isn’t it?
WOW! Doug, what a way to share Christ’s love with the lost. I am sure you made a lot of converts ( to the Christian hating side anyway).I think I will stick with Ray Comfort’s( the Way of the Master) way to spread the Gospel in the homosexual community. We show Biblical love, not self worship.