MY LIFE

Wow… The Pride Parade up in Boise this weekend will have a unusual participant.

Tom Munds, an evangelical Christian, believes that homosexuality is a sin.

Although he believes homosexuality is a sin, Caldwell conservative Tom Munds will march in Boise’s gay pride parade this weekend.

The 46-year-old activist said he aims to promote his views in a non-confrontational way through his participation in the parade.

“I’m not one of those people who want to be combative,” Munds said. “I just want to open up the lines of communication … I believe what they’re doing is hurtful to themselves and to other people that are in their lifestyle. I have no choice but to try to make them see that, but I have to be careful how I do that.”

Uhh… “I have no choice…?”   Are you kidding me?   Your beliefs about someone else’s reality trump their actual reality and somehow gives you the right to make them see things your way?  And does he not realize that virtually EVERYbody he will encounter has already heard that same pack of lies before and have already rejected it?   And does he not realize that many of the people he will encounter are Christians and really don’t give a fig what his interpretation of the Bible is because they’ve already made peace with their own understanding of God?    What an arrogant, self-righteous piece of shit Mr. Munds is!

You DO have a choice, Mr. Munds!   Your beliefs have NO BASIS in fact or reality, it’s just an opinion, based on faulty interpretation of ancient superstitious texts.  Your beliefs are of exactly the same quality as the guy who murdered Dr. Tiller.    You have no right to make anyone “see” anything, except maybe your backside as you toddle on back home and mind your own fucking business!

The leader of a Boise gay group explained Wednesday why he is letting an evangelical Christian who opposes homosexuality into the parade this Saturday in Downtown Boise.

Boise Pride does not restrict who participates in the Pride Parade, Brian Weatherhead, president of Boise Pride, told the Idaho Statesman.

Tom Munds, a member of Middleton’s Canyon Springs Christian Church, said Tuesday that he will walk in the parade distributing water bottles with a Bible verse on the label and spreading his message of God’s love, including the belief that homosexuality is a sin.

“He (Munds) isn’t advocating hate speech, and as long as he is peaceful and nondisruptive, he’s welcome,” Weatherhead said.

(cite)

Bullshit.   “Homosexuality is a sin” = hate speech.  It doesn’t matter if he’s smiling and handing out water.  He is still a hateful and malicious individual and should not be allowed to participate, any more than the Grand Wizard of the KKK should be allowed to smile and pass out water at a rally for NAACP, or the Nation of Islam.

He wants to spread his (HIS!) message of “God’s Love”??   How is “there is something wrong with you” a message of love?

It makes NO SENSE (imo) to let him participate, because in his heart he is NOT A NICE PERSON, and he actively wishes to harm the other participants in the Pride activities (yes, I said that and I meant it — I would hold him with as much suspicion as a guy with an AK47).  He might as well just carry a baseball bat and bash everyone over the head with it.   It is harmful to tell another human being he is not acceptable as he is, that there is something intrinsically flawed in him.  It is a message of shame, not pride, and it has no place at a Pride festival.

Boise gay activist and PrideDEPOT.com editor Jody May-Chang expressed concern about Munds’ participation in the parade.

“(It) sends the message that you’re not OK who you are and you would be better if you were someone else,” May-Chang said. “It’s a form of abuse in that respect.”

The Pride activities are about having a time and a place to celebrate who we are as humans — what makes us unique, as well as what makes us part of larger society.   How can anyone in their right minds think it could be okay to come into a Pride celebration and declare “Who you are is NOT acceptable”???    Why not wander into the Greek Heritage Festival and announce “All Greeks are less than human and deserve to be treated as second-class citizens.”

Now, Tom Munds probably thinks he’s going into this with a proper motive, but I hope someone provides him with a swift education along the way.   He can dress it up all he wants, but his message is one of shame, guilt, and condemnation.    There are many churches who have discovered that the Bible does not condemn homosexuality the way some of them still do, so he can’t say “This IS the Christian message.”  it is not, and many other Christians, both gay and straight, would thoroughly demolish him in a scholarly debate on the topic.  (I’m not arguing for any flavor of Christianity, because I think they’re all wrong at their core, but the fact that some Christians are more enlightened than others is enough to indicate there is no single “right” interpretation, and that deliberately choosing the most hateful interpretation, as evangelical Christians do, is not good policy, not good practice, and definitely not good gospel.)

And why would evangelical Christians think it is okay to go to Pride activities to preach their hateful message, yet scream bloody murder if gay folks come to church to distribute factual information about being gay?   It would be SO COOL if some of those Boise GLBT community would stand outside Munds’ church on Sunday distributing fliers about the nature of the Bible and why their understanding of it falls short of Biblical scholarship.   Yeah, turn-about is fair play. I’d love to see some gay folks outside Munds church … or even better, sitting quietly in the pews and inserting literature into the hymnals and dropping a few condoms into the collection plate as it is passed around (carefully concealed inside those little collection envelopes, of course!).

While I hope the Boise festivities go off well, and that everyone remains peaceful and has a good time, I truly hope Mr. Munds is put in his place.   He is wrong to believe that homosexuality is a sin, and definitely wrong to think he has some obligation to share that hateful opinion with others who have not asked for his opinion, and who have already heard it before.

Munds said some of his friends think he’s crazy for taking part in the parade, a Boise tradition for many years. He said he tried to persuade some of them to accompany him, but with little luck.

“I want people to understand we’re not about hating people … I feel as Christians we’ve missed the mark,” he said. “We’ve been called hate mongers and we need to change that.”

Yoo-hooo…. as long as you believe homosexuality is a sin, or that GLBT folk need to somehow change who they are, you will continue to be called hate-mongers because that is what you are!  Get a fucking clue!   Get a better understanding of your Bible!  In fact, get rid of the Bible and just get a better grip on reality!