Young and Gay in the Bible Belt: 'My Mom Came at Me With a Butcher Knife!'

By Bernadette C. Barton , AlterNet. Posted April 15, 2009.

After traveling around parts of the Bible Belt collecting the stories of lesbians and gay men, I believe that gay children and adolescents are the victims of institutionally sanctioned child abuse.

The Centers for Disease Control, with the Department of Health and Human Services, distinguishes between "acts of commission and omission" in defining child abuse. Acts of commission include physical, psychological (emotional and mental) and sexual abuse, specifically language and actions that cause harm, potential harm or the threat of harm to a child. Acts of omission refer to all forms of child neglect: a "failure to provide" for the physical, emotional, medical and educational well-being of a child.

Some gay children and adolescents suffer these dimensions of abuse not simply because their individual families are dysfunctional and violent, but because cultural institutions -- like schools and churches -- support the abuse of gay kids for being gay.

People in the Bible Belt, gay and heterosexual, learn that homosexuals are bad, diseased, perverse, other and inferior within a number of social institutions. Like a creepy, mirrored fun house, abusive language about and threatening actions toward homosexuals on the playground, from the pulpit, in the bar, at work and during family dinner amplify and reinforce one another.

Thus, parents who exclude gay youth and family members who ostracize gay relatives are only mimicking behaviors modeled in churches, schools and the military. Not only then do local officials and local institutions fail to protect gay children and adolescents from maltreatment, in their worst manifestations they teach homophobic families how to abuse their gay children.

As a nation, we need institutional support for gay relationships to serve as models for both the gay youth among us and the heterosexual family members steeped in toxic homophobic attitudes about homosexuality. Bible Belt families need some tools to help them support their gay children, not more ways to hurt them.

Legal recognition of same-sex civil union or marriage is one such powerful tool -- "If the general assembly supports same-sex unions, maybe I can learn to live with the fact that Tommy is gay."

Maybe not. But at least it's a step in the direction of reducing needless suffering, not increasing it. Kudos to Iowa and Vermont this week! Your gay youth are a little safer.

I too am a Bible Belt gay -- I've lived in Kentucky for 17 years. Yes, I care deeply about gay rights. Yes, I am personally invested. But I've been cushioned from the worst manifestations of homophobia.

Originally from Massachusetts, I've been spared the destructive, spirit-crushing upbringing most Bible Belt gays endure. To me, it's just common sense: Of course gay people are OK and good and wonderful. Of course we should be treated well, loved and appreciated. Of course we are not monsters.

I didn't realize that standing up and saying this publicly would be such a radical act.

*Names have been changed to protect privacy.

See more stories tagged with: religion, south, hate, homosexuality, homophobia

Bernadette Barton (Ph.D. University of Kentucky 2000) is associate professor of sociology and women’s studies at Morehead State University. She is the author of Stripped: Inside the Lives of Exotic Dancers (2006, New York University Press), and numerous articles on sexuality studies. Barton’s current research project examines the experiences of gay men and lesbians, and is the focus of an upcoming book, Pray the Gay Away: Religion and Homosexuality in the Bible Belt.

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