Religion Does God Love Michael’s Two Daddies?
posted by on November 2 at 14:29 PM
It’s gotta be a trick question—everybody knows that God hates fags, right?
My God. What’s not to love about this book?
First, there’s the author’s name. If Sheila K. Butt isn’t a highly placed operative of the International Homosexual Conspiracy I’ll eat my tit clamps. Second, there’s the fact that the Christian right felt it necessary to bring out a book like Does God Loves Michael’s Two Daddies? at all. Clearly children with opposite-sex fundamentalist parents are encountering children with same-sex gay or lesbian parents—oh, the humanity!—coming home and asking questions. Good.
Third, this book shows that the fundies are, believe it or not, evolving. The religious right used to argue that children—all of them, including I suppose my own—should be shielded from any information about homosexuality; even acknowledging our existence was an attack on their “family values.” If their children found out that some people are gay, well, they might decide to be gay themselves. Or something. Well, so much for that. When it comes to homosexuality, I guess, fundies no longer regard ignorance as the best line of defense. Ah, progress.
Fourthly and finally—and shhhhh, don’t tell the fundies I said so!—presenting children with warped misinformation and anti-gay propaganda often backfires. The very first thing I ever read about homosexuality was in David Reuben’s terrible and terribly stupid book Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex* But Were Afraid to Ask!. It was horrifying stuff—and it was all I had to go on at 13. And you know what? Reading Reuben’s book I thought to myself, “This can’t be right.”
What I took away from Reuben’s book—and the entirety of the Bible, which I’d read the summer before—wasn’t despair over my sad fate and all the sex I’d be having in public toilets and all the eternity I would spend roasting on a spit in hell. The book left me feeling hopeful. There were other people like me out there somewhere. They had sex lives, they had boyfriends, and some people—David Reuben, the authors of the Bible, people like my parents at the time—just didn’t understand. But I wasn’t alone and one day, God willing, one day I’d be happy and healthy and out.
Just like Michael’s two daddies.
Full disclosure: I haven’t actually read this book yet, but I’ve ordered it. There are two reviews up on Amazon—one sarcastically pro, one scathingly con. Read ‘em here. And I can’t believe this book has been out since March and I’ve only just heard of it!
God has consigned Michael's two daddies to the eternal flames of Hell, and if Michael doesn't denounce them and turn to Jesus, he's gonna be next.
Jeez--don't you ever read Jack Chick?
I love Jack Chick's little notes of inspiration. I used to collect them from all the fundies passing them out because they are so absurd that they're almost cool. Nowadays, they never have the Chick comics when I ask and instead want to hand me a magazine. I tell them to fuck off.
Looks like Seth and Sara's mommy has a bit of a drinking problem. The half closed eyes, the vacant smile... Christ, I can smell the Johny Walker in that iced tea from here!
The nutjobs in the media don't speak for all Christians? What a shock!
All I know for sure is, every time a faggot has an orgasm an angel dies. That's why they call it "le petit mort, the little death". Angels are little, you see.
I wonder if they ever show Seth and Sara's parents meeting Michael's parents, perhaps at a soccer game or school play. I'm wllling to bet they'd keep their god-mouths shut in person instead of trying to save their souls from hell.
Speaking of religious-right-zealot-fundie-backfires, here's a really cool story about a high school girl who is taking part in her high school production of The Laramie Project (a play based on Matthew Shepard's death), which her own mother, co-founder of anti-gay rights group, MassResistance.
After she told her mom that she's in the play, she came out as a lesbian.
Tough break, biggot mom!
http://queertoday.blogspot.com/2007/10/massresistance-daughter-i-am-lesbian.html
Hmm. I meant to say that Her mom is trying to gain community support to protest and have the play shut down.
oops.
Fnarf, is it the excitement or the sin that kills them? Hmmmm. Just wondering!
Not all Angels are little some are quite big.
*sigh*
Why, oh why, did I look at that cover and think it would be a book about gay Christians? Obviously the sunlight is bringing on hallucinations.
I don't think the two reviews up there are one pro, one con. They both seem unashamedly 'con' to me -- except that the first one is couched in true Colbert style, otherwise known as Vintage Internet Troll. The good ones, you know, the ones you have to read all the way through before you recognize them.
Of course God loves Michael's two daddies...he just hates all that messy santorum they leave all over the sheets! If they wanted to engage in manly love, God would prefer that they become priests or Republican senators. Oh, and Michael shouldn't call them both "Daddy"--just the one on top. The other one should be "Uncle Joe" or "Father Priestly."
I was surprised that the 'pro' review was not by General J.C. Christian. I'm sure he would have given an equally helpful review though.
If this was poetry it would just have to sell 50 copies in a month to get on the top ten bestsellers list.
Think about it.
Rewrite the book as a series of poems for kids.
Of course God loves Michael's two daddies...just like Jesus loved his two daddies.
I think you're missing the point. This book isn't meant for fundies and their kids. The writers want to fool people looking for pro-gay info into buying anti-gay propaganda.
Look at the cover: "Does God Love" is tiny and easily missed. "Michael's Two Daddies" is in huge print and could be confused with pro-gay titles like "Heather Has Two Mommies. If it were meant for fundies, it'd be reversed.
I go to a very small mainline Christian church in Seattle and on many Sundays the only kids there are the sweet, lovely, well-behaved biracial adopted kids of the only gay couple in our congregation. We are privileged to have them, and yes, God loves them and their daddies.
I think you're spot on about this backfiring, but the closer analogy is drug education. Fundie parents who buy this for their questioning kids are basically presenting the gay parenting equivalent of Reefer Madness, and when their kids contrast the misery depicted with the reality of well adjusted children of gay men, they're going to start questioning a lot of other things they've been told.
The untold story is that Michael was found in a dumpster by one of his Dads. The young girl that threw Michael in the dumpster was concerned that her God-fearing evangelical parents would beat her if they knew she was pregnant; she feared burning in hell if she had an abortion. Now sweet little Michael has a loving home and caring parents....
I'll get the book published soon.
This "book" is pure crap - and I donīt pay for crap.
Neither of the reviews is "pro". You need to go back and read the first one again.
Gitai - I think you've hit the nail on the head. My neice was raised JW, but now's she's hit 19, and has discovered pubs and boys (or, more specifically, shagging, I assume), has begun to question all that was instilled throughout her childhood.
We should be encouraging the fundies to churn out this tripe, so that they expose themselves for the ridiculous hysterics they are.
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