Atheists As Homophobic As Your Average Religious Bigot

"The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity."

André Gide

When I railed against the discrimination of homosexual people in the past, the villains which drew my ire were always the hubristic people who claim to speak for God - and almost all of them are either Christians or Muslims, the two biggest groups of people on the entire planet which think that their belief systems are better than everyone else's. Homophobia is a rather rare trait for atheists to have, and most atheists I know advocate gay rights even though being an atheist simply means that one does not believe in the existence of divine powers (and does not require one to be humanistic as well). Simply said, being atheistic doesn't automatically preclude bigotry and irrationality. When I speak against homophobia, I speak as a believer of human rights and not as an atheist.

So, when homophobia does erupt within the atheist community, I would attack it just as passionately as if it emerged from religious circles (something which non-homophobic believers in God should emulate because otherwise, you are simply abetting such hateful behaviour). Quite recently, homophobia did in fact erupt within the atheist community, and it erupted on a tasteless, string-budgeted, atheist talk show on the Atlanta's Inspirational Network hosted by the Black Atheists of Atlanta.

This is the first part of three; watch only if you have a strong stomach.

Here are some of the highlights,

• At 5:53, KD (right) says that homosexuality is not a traditional African custom but is in actuality a "European Graeco-Roman social custom" which was brought to the continent by white settlers. KD is a liar. Homosexuality had been documented in every single civilisation that ever existed, including pre-colonial Africa. Also, homosexuality is in no way a "custom" and what was in fact customary among ancient Greeks and Romans was their acceptance of it. In those civilisations, sex is sex and love is love, regardless of what gender the participants are.
• At 7:03, Blackson Bau (left) says that homosexuality is "selfish" and it's about "me me me".
• At 7:53, Blackson says that homosexuality is unscientific because it violates the "Law of Reproduction". That is just something pulled out right out of his ass. There is no such law in biology. In fact, non-reproductive sex is well-documented in nature and homosexuality is found in nearly ALL animal species. This means that exclusively heterosexual species are actually oddities of nature.

In the latter parts of the episode, someone called in to inform them that scientists have discovered biological bases for homosexuality (though his characterisation of homosexual gene(s) is a gross oversimplification of the phenomenon), but check out how KD responded,

KD: "Those scientists were white, weren’t they?"

Caller: "Why does that matter?"

KD: "It matters to me because I’m black… if you’re not careful, even science can be racist."

What the fuuuuuck? They claim to follow the dictates of science, but all they do is cite bullshit science laws they completely made up to support their homophobia. And when someone tells them that science actually disagrees with their position, they simply dismiss whatever inconvenient scientific fact that contradicts them as being racist against ethnic Africans. That must be the most egregious race card ever played! These atheists have no right to criticise religious people for being unscientific or irrational because they are all those things as well.

Even more baffling was this statement from KD: "For Africans to embrace European social customs is GENOCIDE." 

After I gathered up the pieces of my exploded head, I watched till the end in the vain hope that it was all a terribly unfunny joke, but no such luck. They were dead serious about everything they said.

The main fish they are frying is that they think homosexuals are hiding behind the banner atheism to justify their sexual orientation, and they want none of it in their black atheist community. So in short, homosexuality is okay by them so long as you're not a black person. As evidence of their tolerance, they say that they won't go out and hit gay people over the head with baseball bats. How sweet. I wonder how tolerated they'd feel when I inform them that I'm okay with them being black and that I'm not going to crack their craniums open with sport implements.

I hereby denounce them as a pair of fucking ignorant, homophobic, ethnocentric assholes. The two of them are a disgrace to atheists human beings everywhere. Would someone take away their rational badges, please? Thank you.



To read more, go to Hemant Mehta's Friendly Atheist blog, where I picked up this story from.

P.S. A related story is the self-styled "atheist rapper" Charlie Check'm who is also an unapologetic homophobe. Here is Debbie Goddard's post at the Center for Inquiry website about him (and you can also see the rapper in question defending his views in the comments section). I first found out about Charlie Check'm when he performed his song Bad Ass Angel in a porn film, and I e-mailed him to ask if I can get an MP3 copy of that track (he was generous enough to oblige). I didn't know he was an atheist then.

P.P.S. No, I'm not missing the point of porn. I notice these things because I care about production values, okay.

Atheistic and rational,

k0k s3n w4i