Hateful Christian right-wing comics published in the 1970s were filled with dire warnings of the dangers of homosexuality and the “coming revolution” invading the mainstream. 40 years later the hate and fear mongering in the name of religion remains.
Why do so many still hate in the name of Religion?
Taking it to its ugliest extreme is this latest mass killing in a gay nightclub in Orlando where one man shot and killed 49 people, injuring over 50 because he saw two men kissing demonstrating their love.
Can we get to a point where violence stops being a response to people living differently than you?
The fact that some fundamental Christians on social media rejoiced at the death of LGBT Americans serves as a cruel and powerful reminder that hate is still out there.
Especially under the guise of religion.
This past Sunday, a Baptist preacher stood at his pulpit in Northern California and delivered a powerful sermon praising the brutal massacre at a gay nightclub in Florida telling his congregants that Christians “shouldn’t be mourning the death of 50 sodomites.”
Give Me That Old Time Religion
Despite the fact that most American have evolved and embrace gay marriage, a predictable backlash was swift. Opponents of gay rights legislation are ramping up, focusing a rival campaign around religious liberties claiming that a mandate to serve gays and lesbians might violate their faith. In just the past 6 months the Christian Right has introduced 200 anti-LGBT bills.
Angry protestors crying how “unlawful gay marriage is in the eyes of God” sound as though from a less enlightened time. Their fear based rhetoric hark back to the not so distant past when the very notion of gay marriage was inconceivable if not downright frightening.
Vintage Comic 1972 “Gay Blade” Chick Publications
In the early 1970s as gay rights became more vocal, pamphlets were produced by Christian conservatives filled with dire warnings of the dangers of homosexuality and the “coming revolution” invading the mainstream.
Literature circulated that was filled with homosexual warnings, as portrayed in a 1972 homophobic, religious comic booklet entitled “Gay Blade,” which ominously predicted a future filled with…gasp….gay marriage.
These small comics published by the Christian right-wing Chick Publications were filled with dire warnings of the dangers of homosexuality and the “coming revolution” invading the mainstream. The 3″x5″ comics sold cheaply in bulk making it handy for you to spread the hateful message everywhere you went- in phone booths, tables, Laundromats, school lockers, and windshields.
Called “chick tracts” these small comic booklets, approximately 20 pages in length, were short Evangelic themed stories created by Jack Chick an American Fundamentalist. Chick Publications, who boast on their current website–“publishing cartoon gospel tracts and equipping Christians for evangelism for fifty years.”
“The Gay Blade” ( originally written in 1972, revised in 1984 and now out of print) borrowed several of its frames from a 1971 Life Magazine photo essay on the Gay Liberation movement, but with the images altered to make gay men look more depraved and stereotypically feminized.
Chick tracts are unequivocal and explicit in their opposition to homosexuality and repeatedly employ themes such as 1.The belief that God hates homosexuality and considers it to be sinful and
2. The true nature of homosexuality is revealed in the Christian fundamental interpretation of the biblical Sodom and Gomorrah story.
Since 1961 Chick has cranked out tract after tract to” help sinners see the light, believing that Jesus can deliver anyone from Homosexuality and make them a new person.
The fear mongering continues over 40 years later.
One year after the most joyous pride month in history, the LGBT community and the nation as a whole are in mourning.
The struggle for LGBT equality and freedom has been hard. Let us not pretend for a second it’s over
Take time to mourn those lost in Orlando.
Love is Love.
You Might Also Enjoy
Gay Civil Rights You Still Gotta Work It
© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2016. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Envisioning The American Dream 
Sad.
LikeLike
LikeLiked by 2 people
LikeLiked by 2 people
Here, no more “inter-racial”
LikeLiked by 1 person
Who the heck is Frank Janson? Swedish roots?
LikeLiked by 2 people
Reblogged this on Fairy JerBear's Queer/Trans Musings From The City Different – Santa Fe, NM and commented:
Don’t give me that old time religion… Filled with hate!
LikeLike
I echo your sentiment, sympathy and empathy, and broader perspective Sally. Well written. ❤
And if I my add my humble two-cents please to this growing American and world problem… you are welcome to delete this part if you think it appropriate.
I am very pleased you included Fundamentalist Christianity in this post — whether it is the explicit aggression OR the implicit non-violent aggression, i.e. socio-economic discriminations — and not just the EASY counter-assaults on radical forms of Islam which too often are non-productive, even exacerbating. The roots of the insanity and derangement are much more complex, BUT easy to address properly.
The primary point I’d like to add here Sally, a point/theme I have found and witnessed to be prevalent in my 5 decades of life, is a comparison between all the world’s major religions, especially the more radical sects/denominations of the world’s big 5 or 6, which tend to be much more politically active or aggressive toward a theocratic state and world. And if those specific aspects of those ideologies feel they cannot succeed, then their ‘passion’ for an apocolyptic resolution is aggressively pursued — they are not the least bit interested in an Earthly peace.
Of the 5-6 major religions, by comparison, by the histories, and by the numbers, in general the Abrahamic religions seem to be the most lethal. And the much more lethal sects/denominations are found within the Abrahamic religions. Why is this? What is within those theological educations, teachings, scriptures(?) that seem to breed such intense hate in the name of their God?
In my personal opinion, I think the comparisons and the close examination/scrutinies of the Abrahamic religions reveal a very unpleasant, horrible conclusion. 😦
I further believe that the manifestion of the violent hate BECOMES a mental-health and mental-social economic problem, but a warped “education” certainly does not help. People are not simply born to hate the world and everybody not like them or their family!
Thank you Sally for allowing me to voice my own perspective. ❤
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you for your well reasoned comment as always. Fundamentalists of whatever religion are of grave concern.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nicely and succinctly put Sally! ❤ 🙂
LikeLike
Great article Sally, thanks so much for posting it. I well remember those cartoons from the ’70s and their hatred towards homosexuals, as well as the Biblical texts quoted. Trouble is, these religious texts, be they from the Bible, Koran, Torah or any other major religion, were written thousands of years ago by men who had no understanding of genetics. And since these words are “inspired” directly from God, they are not to be questioned.
Growing up Jehovah’s Witness it’s a living hell when you realize early on (for me age 10 or so) that you have a same-sex attraction. I went deep into the closet for the next 25+ years and didn’t come out until I was 36 in 2001. The JWs are a very strict, fundamentalist Christian sect (some would say cult). To this day my Dad still feels I “chose” to be gay, even though I tried to explain that wasn’t true; that my real choice was to accept who I am and try to be happy. I haven’t spoken to him in 5 years, and scarcely to my Mother, who only called to tell me that she doesn’t approve of my lifestyle. There is no reasoning with such people, and no path to acceptance.
There is no easy solution to the hatred that caused the shootings this week In Orlando. But surely, more religion is not the answer.
Frank
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you for sharing your story. I am so sorry for the the struggle and resistance you experienced, but sadly it is not all that uncommon especially in devoutly religious environments, where intolerance runs rampant. I applaud your courage in being true to yourself.
LikeLike
King James – 1 Samuel – Chapter 18
“1 And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.
2 And Saul took him that day, and would let him go no more home to his father’s house.
3 Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul.
4 And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle.
5 And David went out whithersoever Saul sent him, and behaved himself wisely: and Saul set him over the men of war, and he was accepted in the sight of all the people, and also in the sight of Saul’s servants.”
LikeLiked by 1 person