Posted by Ir (Helen) on: 06.27.2007 /
I received an e-mail from Marty Goodman about a letter he recently sent to GLAAD.
I wouldn’t have worded a letter like this because I’m in favor of building bridges with religious people. I’m posting this not as an endorsement of the specific way Marty expressed himself but because I think he is very right to protest how GLAAD equates being godless with being immoral.
Here’s Marty’s e-mail to me.
This is an email I recently sent to GLAAD, in reaction to quoted statements in a fund-raising letter I received from them:
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\”… and we must put an end to portrayals of LGBT people as godless or immoral.\”
[This is a bold and clear implication that you accept the vile and bigoted notion that being godless means being immoral. This is vile anti-atheist bigotry. This is moronic support for homophobic religious superstition.]
———-
Martin H Goodman MD
\”Religion is very important to so many Americans … and right now, average people are awash with messages that tell them LGBT people are faithless and godless.\”
[WHY should anyone care if I am (AS I AM, IN FACT) \”faithless and godless\”??!! I am PROUD of not being an ignorant, superstitious person. I am PROUD to be a \”faithless and godless\” person. I am proud to be an atheist, and one whose world view is based on rational thought and analysis, not superstition or blind \”faith\”.]
————–
\”Let me share a startling fact: 9:1. There are nine anti-gay religious voices and messages on the airwaves, in the newspapers, and on line every day for every one LGBT-affirming message or voice.
I\’m sure you agree that we cannot let this continue.\”
[What\’s so startling about this fact? The holy texts… said to be the word of [that disgusting, hateful, superstitious fairy tale called] God… or the interpreted word of God… for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam contain unambiguous injunctions to torture and kill homosexuals! This IS NOT a case of a few religious sects that happen to be poisoned by individual homophobic cult leaders. Again: The most scared texts for all three Abrahamic religions are poisoned at their the core with this filth. Thus, it is a mistake to try to promote \”religious LGBT people\”. Instead, either attack religion itself as being a source of this filth (as in fact it is) or, if you are unable to take on religion as a whole, directly, at least DO NOT support religion\’s contention that if you DO NOT subscribe to their hateful superstition, you are therefore \”immoral\”. Attack homophobia and gender bigotry where it is expressed by anyone… religious leader, athlete, politician, TV celebrity, movie star, etc. BUT DO NOT promote religion as a good thing. THAT will only backfire, and HARM LGBT and intersexual people.]
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\”When you renew your support of GLAAD today, the honorable Michael Huffington will match your gift, dollar for dollar, to strengthen GLAAD\’s vital religion and faith media work. That means your 35 dollars becomes 70 dollars
…
… help me reach our $100,000 goal for this special matching gift drive.\”
[In your president\’s ill-considered rush to suck up to Michael Huffington and his paltry $100,000 contribution, you\’ve ALREADY LOST over THREE TIMES THAT MUCH in future bequests from myself and others who have removed you as beneficiaries from our estates because of your vile promotion of a central source of homophobic hatred: religion. And because of your insulting attack on us atheists. Continue on this course and you will not only lose a substantial amount of your financial support, but you will also DIRECTLY NEGATE the good work you\’ve done in the past, and end up PROMOTING and INCREASING, not attacking and decreasing, stereotypes and defamation of LGBT and intersexual people.]
Comment by: Siamang
1I’m disappointed in GLAAD’s wording in their fundraising letter.
I think Marty Goodman may have committed the same sin when he wrote
That obviously doesn’t work, complaining that GLAAD is linking godlessness with immorality, and then explicitly calling religious observers ignorant and superstitious.
If we’re talking about RESPECT for DIFFERENCES, well… two-way-street folks, two-way street.
But heck yes, I’m disappointed for GLAAD. I was marching for gay rights back when it was dangerous to do so. More than once I risked my straight, atheist patootie to demonstrate in the faces of hateful people for the rights of a minority I didn’t belong to.
I would be very sad if this was the MO of the current leadership of GLAAD to run to faith and try to build themselves up by knocking others down.
Comment by: Doreen A Mannion
2I cannot respond to the GLAAD letter view atheist eyes, but I can through my gay Christian eyes.
Considering the bucket into which most of the target audience for this letter falls, I understand what GLAAD is saying.
There’s no debate about one can be atheist and gay.
There is, however, a hugh debate about whether one can be Christian and gay.
Being atheist and gay, you are not hassled by gays because you are atheists, and I would think you are not hassled much by atheists because you are gay.
Being Christian and gay, you are tormented by Christians who say you cannot be because you’re gay and tormented by gays who say you shouldn’t be Christian.
I don’t have an issue with “godless OR immoral” in the letter. It would have upset me if it said “godless AND immoral.”
Comment by: Siamang
3Hi Doreen.
I hear what you’re saying here.
It’s almost the tack that Marty takes above when he talks about how the very religious texts are “poisoned” with anti-gay rhetoric.
But it’s the linkage that’s the problem, I think.
Ahh… but the linkage is a problem. What if instead of describing gays as “godless or immoral” they described citizens of San Francisco as “gays or child predators”.
Why get offended? I didn’t say gays WERE child molestors…. I just … LINKED the terms. Draw your own conclusion.
I think that one can well make positive statements about gays of faith without contrasting them with unnamed godless and/or immoral people.
Comment by: Doreen A Mannion
4But GLAAD is not referring to gays as “godless or immoral.” They are referring to portraits of gays as “godless or immoral.” That’s why I don’t understand the condemnation of GLAAD in this instance. It is not GLAAD who made this linkage.
But then, I stopped contributing to the Human Rights Campaign when they spent a lot of money trying to stop John Roberts’ nomination to the Supreme Court….
:)
That’s what I’m trying to say; WE can make these positive statements, but GLAAD cannot. If they do, they won’t get $$$ from those who think gays cannot be Christians.
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
5I think the GLAAD letter is ambiguous - when people say “godless or immoral” they might be linking the two or they might not.
But either way, the implication of the letter, to me, is that calling someone godless is a bad thing. To me the letter implies “religious” = good, “godless”= bad.
I don’t think godless should be assumed to be bad.
Did anyone else see this in the letter or is it just me?
Comment by: Siamang
6Well, here’s a quote:
Now, WHY again must we put an end to protrayal of LGBT people as godless exactly?
Would it read better as “We must put an end to protrayals of LGBT people as Jewish or immoral”?
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
7Siamang, I’m wondering why too - the only reason I can think of is if being portrayed as godless is an insult.
If GLAAD thinks it’s insulting to be called godless then doesn’t that indicate prejudice on their part against godless people?
Comment by: Marty SB
8Is the original Fundraising letter from GLADD posted somewhere. It would be interesting to see the quotes in their context in the letter.
Comment by: Laura M.
9I think Marty is right, in that to make a judgement I would have to see the context.
Based solely on the excerpt here, I wouldn’t read it that way. I think most people take offense to being misunderstood/mischaracterized. That is how I’m perceiving the statement here from GLAAD.
It would obviously be silly and would never happen, but let’s say for the sake of argument that gays were stereotyped as being “Jewish or immoral”. If I were gay, I could see GLAAD making the statement,
“We must put an end to protrayals of LGBT people as Jewish or immoral”
as being reasonable. Not because there is anything wrong with being Jewish, but simply because those are the only two options.
Stereotyping gays into these two small catagories (godless or immoral) should bother gays because it is so obviously innacurate. And I think that is a large part of the mission of GLAAD, to promote more accurate portrayals of gays over the stereotypes now prevalent.
I think it would have been helpful if they’d put a little more thought into how the wording would also be percieved as offensive to ‘godless’ people, particularly gay ones.
Comment by: Laura M.
10The problem is the statement could be understood to mean:
“we must put an end to portrayals of LGBT people as (either) godless or immoral.”
*because both are bad(?)
or:
“we must put an end to portrayals of LGBT people as (only) godless
or immoral.”
*because there are more options
For now I’d give them the benefit of the doubt, since they didn’t say godless and immoral.
Comment by: Laura M.
11Here’s an excerpt from a post by Hemant about an article on Camp Quest:
So I think the major complaint here isn’t that it is automatically wrong to be ‘opposed or indifferent to religion’, just that those are the two only options presented and assumed about atheists.
Comment by: Siamang
12Let’s move onto a different sentence, then:
Right now some GLAAD Seinfeld fan really needs to say “… not that that’s a bad thing.”
Comment by: Laura M.
13Siamang,
As a faithless and Godless person, I would certainly agree that that’s not a bad thing.
Now let’s try the Jewish analogy again:
Silly right? Silly because it’s so apparantly innaccurate.
Some gays obviously are Jewish and not Christian, but most aren’t Jewish.
To me it sounds like GLAAD is saying the same thing about “faithless and godless”. That it’s innaccurate, for the same reason I mentioned before: because it’s so limiting.
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
14I agree that it would be helpful to see the whole letter.
I think Doreen’s interpretation of why they wrote this and what they were getting at is probably right.
Along with what Laura and Siamang have written: why couldn’t GLAAD have said “we are opposed to inaccurate stereotypes such as ‘gay people are godless’ not because we affirm that there’s anything wrong with being godless, but because many gay people are religious. So it’s wrong to imply none of them are.”
They could have clearly separated their reasoning for opposing the ‘immoral stereotype’ (that it’s inaccurate and moreoever, insulting) from their reasoning for the ‘godless’ stereotype (that it’s not necessarily insulting but it is inaccurate).
I hope they will take note of the consequences of their failure to do so.
Comment by: Siamang
15And yes, I flubbed the Seinfeld joke. How could I have messed up one of the classic punchlines of all time, “….not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
Comment by: Stephan
16It looks like there is a little something to offend everyone here. Conservative Christians can be offended that GLAAD thinks they are wrong about homosexuals. Homosexuals can be offended at being called godless or immoral. Atheists can be offended by associated the terms “godless” and “immoral”. I’m sure there’s someone else in there I’m missing.
Snakes on a plane…
Comment by: Siamang
17My snakes are offended.