Since you forced me to answer… let me just say, uh, ‘No’

Last week I got an email from a very well known blogger with whom I have never corresponded.  As if that weren't enough to pique my curiosity, the email seemed to be a blind copy of a response he had sent to someone else with whom I had no connection. 

It said:

“Shalom!  Here are a list of influential bloggers with good-sized readership:”

Listed below that intriguing sentence was a list that included treppenwitz... as well as the email addresses of such august bloggers as Aussie Dave (Israellycool), Yaacov Kirschen (Dry Bones), and Ted Bellman (Israpundit). 

My initial reaction was to be quite chuffed.

But then I started wondering what had been in the earlier correspondence (none was attached or nested) to which this list of bloggers' email addresses would constitute an answer. 

So I responded politely:

“Thank you... I'll take that as a compliment.  Now if only I knew what the question had been.  :-)”

Within a few minutes I got the following reply:

“First, the staff of Arutz 7 and I are trying to do a media campaign to stop the gay-pride fiasco in J'lem. You are very respected David, and your help would be a major Kiddush Hashem [ed. note: sanctification of G-d's name]. This worries me more than the Hamas. Could you mention something on Treppenwitz?

Second, as long as I have you ear, If you'd agree, I'd be privileged to exchange links with you.”

[~blink~]

Clearly this person doesn't read me very often.

Well, the second request didn't require any thought on my part.  I never respond to such requests because if you are already reading me you should have me on your blogroll without the need for reciprocity.  And if I read you on a regular basis you wouldn't need to ask to be listed.

But I digress since it is the first paragraph that really raised my hackles. 

However, after a moment's thought I realized that the phrase ‘gay-pride fiasco in J'lem’ was just ambiguous enough that I wanted to make sure I wasn't jumping to an incorrect conclusion.  I mean, maybe he was calling the attempts to block the parade a fiasco, right?

So I responded:

“I admit I haven't been following the municipal news very carefully.  Can you clarify 'gay-pride fiasco'.  Is something happening that is different from the same posturing and name calling that has gone back and forth in years past? “

I didn't have long to wait, because within seconds (a response time that suggests a cut and pasted source) I received the following:

“They intend to bring 300,000 people to a happening in J'lem, Aug. 6. It's a super provocation. I don't call others names, and don't interfere with anyone's free choice.  But, when a person wants to flaunt his garbage in front of the eyes of our children and  in the Holy City, we have to mobilize.”

Well, that removed any ambiguity, no?

Now, I know better than most that one shouldn't fisk an email without thinking about it for a few minutes.   But the glaring contradiction between, ‘I don't call others names, and don't interfere with anyone's free choice’… and the sound of the other shoe dropping;  ‘But, when a person wants to flaunt his garbage’,  kinda challenges a reader's willing suspension of disbelief.

So now I was faced with a dilemma.  Do I respond and risk getting into a whole 'thing' with the guy... or do I just blow him off and hope he doesn't follow up? 

I tend to avoid confrontation so I opted to simply not respond.

But almost immediately it became apparent what that original email (the one listing all the blogger email addresses) had been about.  It was a widely distributed chain letter intended to try to shame bloggers who are perceived to be conservative/religious into using their on-line space to take up this anti-gay cause.

I found this out because I began getting emails like the following from people asking/begging me to use my influence to reverse the evil decree:

"Shalom!

I am writing to you as one of the most influential bloggers that have to do with Israel and love for their people.

Please post a protest of the scheduled World Gay Pride parade and week long festival that is due to take place in the Holy City of Jerusalem (and other places in Israel where they will be hanging out) this August 2006.

The GLBTQ Community (Gay-Lesbian-Bisexual-Transgender-Queer -their terminology, not mine )  has chosen Israel as its destination and will be having their parade on the streets of Jerusalem.

I am devastated at the thought, that in a few short weeks, there will be a HORRIBLE defilement of my sensitivities, a threat to my family's innocence and a desecration of the sanctity of the Holy City of Jerusalem.

Now, don't get me wrong, I believe that everyone is free to do what s/he thinks is right for them, within the confines of their own personal space, and certainly behind closed doors.

I am referring to the "International Gay Parade" that is soon to sully the atmosphere of Jerusalem.

From past experience we know that this is not just an innocent parade or conference. (I wouldn't be so vehemently against it).  We have seen the disgusting public display of their actions and their desire to receive acceptance and purification of their abominable perverted behavior.

This cannot be! I demand that my rights and the rights of my family be respected.

Now is the time to stand up for Jerusalem!

a concerned mom"

Yikes!

Well, I hate to say it, but the best way to make me publicly come out for something is to try to shame me into coming out against it.  I'm a contrarian that way.

So, let me just say the following for the record:

I am not pro- or anti-Gay any more than I am pro- or anti-woman, black or left-handed.  These things simply 'are' and to publicly demand a stance against any of them is to fly in the face of the Creator who made people with any and all of these attributes. 

100 years ago women weren't much more than property.  200 years ago blacks actually were property.  To this day, if you are left-handed you are probably resigned to stumbling around awkwardly in a society constructed exclusively for right-handed people. 

All of these things changed (well, we're still working on the whole left-handed thing) because society was grabbed by it's collective lapels and forcibly shaken until it had no choice but to confront a new reality in its midst.  The Gay Parades that periodically arrive in our cities are intended to shake us up.  Perhaps after seeing a 260lb. bearded drag queen kissing a body builder wearing nothing but chaps, the sight of a two guys wearing khakis and oxfords holding hands in the corner coffee shop won't seem so, well,  shocking.

If you want to lure me into a discussion on immigration, abortion, smoking, drugs, government oversight, etc., bring it on.  You see, all of these things are within man's control and require an active choice for them to happen.

But being gay is not a choice any more than, say, being a black left handed woman is a choice. Some people simply 'are'.   We don't need to keep the queers hidden away from polite society.  Your little dears aren't going to catch the whole gay thing like the flu.

Just as with women, minorities and yes, even lefties... historically there has been the equivalent of a swift kick in the pants (in the form of protests, public activism and often even violence/war) before the necessary accommodations are made for people who don't fit into the existing cookie-cutter mold society naturally wants to create for it's members.

As for me (and here's my real response to the emails) I won't be drawn into a discussion of wrong and right when it comes to any of G-d's creations.  I don't have that say... and in the absence of a theocracy and the reintroduction of divine prophecy, neither does anyone else!

You don't consider it 'a HORRIBLE defilement of my sensitivities, a threat to my family's innocence and a desecration of the sanctity of the Holy City of Jerusalem' when Hassidim in Mea Sha'arim throw rocks at fellow Jews or are led away in handcuffs for child\spousal abuse and fraud.  Yet these are all acts of choice that take place in the holy city by purported guardians of all that is holy and sanctified. 

So, where are all the pious letters to bloggers protesting all of that?

Are these miscreants representative of the Hassidic/Haredi world?  Of course not.  But they are a Chilul Hashem (a public desecration of G-d's name) to which you seem perfectly willing to turn a blind eye.   The big difference though, is that these black-hatted coreligionists are perpetrating acts of choice... not simply walking around as nature/G-d created them. 

The truth is, I'll admit I find the various Gay Pride Parades around the globe to be a bit off-putting. But that is probably their goal.  I am a fairly conservative guy who finds the idea of two men kissing to be mildly revolting.  I'm hard-wired that way.  The outrageous drag queens and public groping shock my traditional sensibilities.  But that's what they are supposed to do.  Any small semblance of rights/ equality that gays currently enjoy under the law is entirely due to these very public acts of ostentatiousness that force people to become acclimated to something outside their normal range of personal experiences.

Sure, I'm a bit intrigued/titillated by the whole idea of lesbianism... but that's probably only because I can appreciate the object of their desires.  But I admit that I would be disappointed if my daughter announced one day that she was 'batting for the other team'.  Not because I am anti-gay... but because I would naturally want her to experience the same male-female intimacy I have with her mother.  But her announcing to me that this was not possible would not indicate to me that she had rejected my way of life, but rather that she had been created by G-d according to a different blueprint.

In my humble opinion, the worst sort of hypocrisy is to 'magnanimously' proclaim that you support a person's right to live however they choose... yet demand that they not do so where you can see them. 

In Biblical times there was the concept of forcing people with diseases, deformities and forbidden lifestyles to live outside the company of mainstream society. 

But until you can demonstrate to me that we have returned to such a state of divine intimacy with our Maker and He has directed you to speak on His behalf... kindly shut your cake hole and spend a little more time becoming a shining (but silent) personal example of how we should all be living our lives.

Note:  There are two reason I have deliberately avoided mentioning this blogger's name here (and why I would appreciate other's following my lead in this regard). 

1.  After watching my daughter spend half a year studying 'Shmirat HaLoshon' (the laws of guarding one's speech), and then seeing how diligently she has incorporated these important guidelines into her everyday life... I am trying to follow her example so as to possibly secure a less-toasty seat for myself in hell.

2.  Even though he seems to have sent my email address to every moonbat on the planet, the blogger in question does a lot of very important/very good community work.  I would hate to provoke a flame war with him that might result in anyone's opinion of him being lowered.