Title: Getting The Right Message Out
Written By: JaredMilne
Date: Monday, May 04 at 17:47
The gay rights movement has made tremendous advances in the last few decades. Whereas before gays could only express themselves secretly for fear of the consequences, gay rights are increasingly accepted in mainstream society, and discrimination against them is much less accepted. Gays are still threatened by violence, but while gay marriage was previously illegal, gays were condemned as going to hell, and people feared that gays wanted to “recruit” their children, most people don’t bat an eye at gay marriage now, the idea of gay “recruitment” is increasingly discredited and condemning gay people to hell is now opposed by many Canadians, as the Wildrose Alliance found out the hard way in the last provincial election.
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I am very happy that gays have made such gains in recent years. What troubles me is that so many on the left are trying to shove the religious (and Christians in particular) into the closet in their place. In the view of these secular extremists, you are supposed to "leave your religion in the church" and not talk about it in public or have it influence any other aspect of your life. Sound familiar?

Love of a deity has become the new "love that dare not speak its name". And I say this as an atheist who objected strongly to the anti-gay rhetoric coming out of so many religious institutions.

   

Religion seems to have devolved into a game of schadenfreude.

   

I don't disagree, but my intent in writing this article was to highlight the need for public support in political movements. My intent in citing the gay rights movement was to show an example of how this works...while, say, communist movements that constantly attack their critics and questioners as bourgeois sell-outs and class traitors never get any traction.

Incidentally, I was criticized a couple of weeks ago by a local Wildrose candidate who insisted that this article was a puff piece for the Alberta PCs, simply because I referred to Alan Hunsperger's "Lake Of Fire" incident from 2012. As I had to patiently explain to her, I only cited that as an example of how it's no longer publicly acceptable to demonize gays, and the consequences that can come with doing so. That's one of the successes the gay rights movement has achieved by gaining public support for their cause.