The Bilerico Project | Daily experiments in LGBTQ

Terry Magnum, a 26 year old from Houston, said in a jail house confession that he was called by God to carry out retribution against a gay man because sexual perversion is the "worst sin". Magnum stabbed 46 year old Kenneth Cummings Jr to death last month after luring him from a gay bar. Magnum then buried Cummings' body on a farm owned by Magnum's grandfather.

Here is another attack against a gay person while the religious right continues to spew viciously anti-gay rhetoric, the Republican Party uses homophobia to win elections and Congress is still unwilling to pass a federal hate crimes bill.

It's not shocking or surprising that evangelical so-called Christians like James Dobson, Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps use the bible to dehumanize LGBT people and our families in much the same ways that their right-wing religious forefathers used the bible to justify slavery and the subjugation of women. They have repeatedly claimed that we are destroying Western civilization and defiling the "sanctity of marriage" with our demands to be able to marry. They have said that our very existence so angers God that he will continue to rain down fire and brimestone and Hurricane Katrina-like natural disasters in outrage at our supposedly wicked ways. And, they have claimed that we are a serious threat to the well being of children even as studies show that the vast majority of child molesters are white, heterosexual men.

The murder of Kenneth Cummings Jr is another example of the religious right's hate speech made flesh. They have created an environment in which LGBT people are seen as sub-human, an affront to God and a virus that needs to be exterminated.

This is the kind of opponent that we are facing in our fight for dignity, equality and the right to be who we are without shame and without fear. This means that not one of us can continue to sit on the sidelines while a small number fight to create social space in which we are treated equally under the law, in which LGBT youth no longer see their sexual orientation or gender identity as something to be hidden or ashamed of and in which we are not simply tolerated, but accepted and affirmed for who we are and what we contribute to society.

There is no easy answer or silver bullet that will unroot the heterosexist beliefs that are so deeply engrained in our culture. But, the first step must be that each and every one of us has to come out, be visible and stand our ground.

No more hiding.

No more excuses about homosexuality only being a part of who you are.

No more claims of not being political.

And, most importantly, no more making excuses for those who deny us our humanity and civil rights.

(Cross posted at Bloggernista.)