Author: Warren Throckmorton

Relevant to the recent Golden Rule, Day of Silence and Sally Kern posts is this article from Lillian Kwon at the Christian Post.

Maybe gays are having a hard time with the love thing when they are considered a worse threat than terrorists. Go figure.

Churches beware… 

On Monday night, I received a phone call from a friend who described a surreal event in a Wichita, KS church. My friend heard from another friend on the scene that a group of people posing as a film production company had attempted to disrupt an Easter play at the Central Community Church in Wichita.

A local television station – KAKE – investigated and filed a written and video report documenting the activities of the Longman Parke Production company out of Los Angeles. Here are some excerpts:

Several locations in Kansas are targeted by a film crew claiming to be making a film about culture in America. But their actions have people across the state wondering whether they’ve been part of a “Borat”-like prank.

Pastor Greg Smith of Central Community Church says they were contacted by the film crew and were told they were working on a film to be shown in Europe. Smith agreed to let them film the Easter play being performed at the church.

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\’);However, at some point, Smith knew something was not right. In security camera footage from the church, you can see crew members making preparations to cover the security cameras before attempting to pull off their prank.

The production crew also targeted the airport and another church.

The film crew also visited Mid-Continent Airport. Officials there are reviewing its media policies after the so-called German documentary film crew made a scene inside the main terminal on Friday.

“We were lied to,” says Assistant Airport Director Brad Christopher. “We were duped.”

Authorities say the film crew was not who they said they were. Last month, the group contacted Wichita airport officials about shooting part of their documentary on American culture at Mid-Continent. They arrived Friday and were shown around. Airport employees say they seemed professional.

That is, until the cameras came on and the clothes came off.

Witnesses say it almost looked like pornography. In the middle of the terminal, the film crew began stripping down. They were escorted out of the airport by police, and told to leave…

The crew also made its way to Topeka and contacted another church as well as our sister station, WIBW. One of the reporters there became suspicious after a member of the crew asked if she had seen the movie “Borat.”

I called the phone number the production company gave to the church. A woman answered who hung up on my as soon as I asked about the Central Community Church.  My contact said the men stripped down to thongs at the Wichita airport before they were taken away. The KAKE website has video of the airport story as well.

Check out this letter ostensibly from a young man named Tucker to OK state Rep. Sally Kern . Rep. Kern recently has been the subject of much controversy over her statements to a Republican group where she said gays have shorter life spans, could be responsible for the demise of our society if homosexuality was accepted and are a worse threat to the nation than terrorism. I have refrained from getting into the whole thing but I do think Rep. Kern needs help with facts, tact and her sense of perspective. The terrorism remarks are especially offensive on so many levels, but were repeated on a taped program for the Concerned Women for America. I wrote her late last week with no response, which I suspect is a common experience for many who have written. Today, a large protest took place at the state capitol.

This story may continue to have legs for awhile, in part since Rep. Kerns has not moved away from her remarks and since her curious reasoning hits so close to home for those who have no connection to homosexuality but do to terrorism. I cannot help but think of the current book, unChristian and the clear finding that young people believe the conservative church is anti-gay. The Kern controversy provides an exclamation point to this finding.

In the midst of the protests and defensive rebuttals, the Tucker letter has emerged. The letter is making the rounds on the blogs but has not been verified as authentic. You wouldn’t know that by reading blogs however. You can also read the letter here at Citizen Crain, who also has what appears to be the most up-to-date information on the matter. My contribution today is this – according to Equality Florida PR rep, Brian Winfield, the letter still has not been verified, although he has been told that Ellen DeGeneres has been in touch with him to appear on her show.

Whether true or not, I am interested in the issues the letter raises. We can use this post to discuss the Kern controversy as a whole. I am interested to hear from a variety of perspective on this and I suspect some social conservatives will take exception to my critical stance. 

The Day of Silence is looming once again with concerns expressed from social conservatives about adult identity politics intruding into the schools. As occurred last year, some conservative groups are calling on parents to keep their kids at home on the Day of Silence (April 25 in most places).

I have a different idea. How about considering this day an opportunity to promote treating others the way you want to be treated? Perhaps kids could go to school equipped with index cards which have Luke 6:31 written, “Do to others as you would have them do to you” with a pledge to honor this Scripture. It seems to me that Christian kids could be leading the way with a pledge to keep the Golden Rule.

Could this approach be more productive than staying home? 

In response to my current research project regarding experiences of heterosexuality among same-sex attracted people, I received the following email recently. This individual is quite interested in the research for reasons that are clear here. He gave me permission to include this portion of the email which speaks to the fuzziness of sexual orientation concepts as well as their inadequacy to guide value-based action.

I would probably have chosen to live a gay life if I was born 20-30 years later than I was. The option of choosing to pursue men in the early 80’s was nothing like it is today. I do love my wife very much, and do feel very attracted to her emotionally, physically and sexually – however I am not attracted to any other women at all. (Isn’t that what most women would prefer?)  Yet, I am often attracted to other men, some so intensely that I am convinced I could have lived a gay life had I never married.

So, a rhetorical question, if I may:

Do I separate from my wife just because of this? I could say that as a married man, my real identity is that of a gay male, and I should be honest with myself and pursue what I feel in my gut.  If I did, I think it’s quite possible that I could find another man to love, but eventually, still long for the softness and tenderness of my former wife.  I may be living out a straight life now while secretly longing to live a gay one; or, if I chose to follow the path of some others, I could end up living a gay life while secretly longing for what I missed from my straight one. So I have often wondered, which is the real me?  Am I really gay pretending to live a straight life, or if I switched, could I really be straight pretending to live a gay life?

Confusing? Hell yes, this dilemma has consumed me for much of my life. I know if I ever chose to leave my wife, I could never come back to her; it’s a one way road, so I have chosen to stay, “un-regretfully.” If I’m the only such man, then so be it; but surely you must come across other men just like me – do you not?

In answer to the last question, I certainly do come across other men like him and have written about this elsewhere. I began to explore the practical implications of men whose historical sexual desire includes men in general but only wives on the female side after reading this article by Daryl Bem (see especially the last paragraph). I am not sure where the term “spouseosexual” came from (from me or one of the people I have interviewed) but perhaps it comes closer than bisexual to describing this type of inner experience – although I wouldn’t quarrel greatly with any terms at this point in our understanding.