TorturedPolygon

Hahaha! Void, I can't believe you took the time to look up all those quotes. Maybe you should join me in a new game instead of this tired ol' blady game, it doesn't get updated enough.

__________________
Seriously. . .poking and prodding just makes a bitch even bitchier. ~Maelstrom Eyre

Tracer Graves

and the PvP turns into a grind way too quick. Not enough replay value.

__________________

Void

I literally just hit search entered blady's name and selected all the recent ones and tossed out a few.... it was (un)surprisingly, fast and easy.

ETA:
I'm always up for new games, revisiting old classics is only fun for a minute to check that you still have "da skillz", and always ends in an easy win. What'd ya have in mind?

__________________
- These eyes can do more than see

Jolene Benoir

He already had a national platform because he wrote about the Chick Fil-A situation in the Atlantic. He would have continued to denounce homosexuality whether or not he was outed. The people that denounce homosexuality would have and will continue to do so, as well.

What happened with the outing is that he was proven to be a hypocrite. Merritt is in for a hard internal row down the road, in terms of the inconsistency between his sexual identity and his outward behavior being a puppet of people who might use him as proof that you can pray the gay away. He is nothing but a tool to them to justify their continued hatred.

The self loathing that he has will no doubt cause him suffering as he ages. One might hope that he sees that using his public pulpit to denounce gays has been very harmful to young people grappling with their own identity, and made it even harder for people like himself to come out.

I'm not sure that it hurts or helps the gay cause. It just shows that yet another bible thumping anti-gay person is secretly that which he denounces.

Tracer Graves

Here's the thing for me. As much as we might say that he will be able to use this in his favor, there is a sizable portion of Evangelicals who use Christianity to justify their personal distaste for The Gay. They will likely distance themselves from him to a greater degree and the fact that he's just the next in a long line of their anti-gay leaders that have been exposed having secretive gay encounters won't win him any favors.

This is based on the pocket of religious conservatism that I grew up in, so your mileage may vary. That and my mom being a borderline white supremacist former catholic turned evangelical republican...

bladyblue

I searched Merrit's twitter stream to see if he was being honest about his outing. I'm just assuming his book publishers hired a publicist to protect their investment.


The link takes you to Amazon to buy one of his books.


Not a care in the world.

__________________
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time... like tears in the rain...Time to die.-Roy Batty

Jopsy Pendragon

"Ousting" Really? *snort*

'Ousting' is more like what evangelicals do to remove 'outed gays' from their well-insulated echo-chamber.

Jolene Benoir

I see your point.

I think a lot will depend upon what he does. He already lost his chance to stand up for his own identity.

If he panders to the religious right, as in saying, "I made a CHOICE to have a gay encounter and I want to pray it away" they might take him under their wing.

Not out of any fondness for him, but to use him to further their agenda.

If he quietly drops out of sight, they'll just write him as another homosexual in their midst, and vilify.

The sad thing is that he had the chance once the outing became public to do the right thing, and chose not to. Like I said earlier, I think this is going to be something that hurts him (personally) in the long run.

You can't go against your own being, especially publically, and not have it harm you. Denial is strong, but underneath it's still there.

Jolene Benoir

What he says to the world and what he feels internally might well be two separate things.

He's already gone this long denying his own identity , and going so far in denial that he has made a direct chiose to vilify it, that I'm not surprised at all that he can continue it.

I predict it WILL eat away at him, privately.

Jopsy Pendragon

I'm sure Merritt will be just fine. I'm sure his peers don't hate him for being a sinner... as long as he plays by their rules, with being 'contrite' etc.

I think the underlying problem that the Evangelical, Mormon, and Catholic churches have with gays isn't that we are sinners. It's that we've publicly challenged church authority by saying that homosexuality is NOT inherently sinful at all. (at least no more so than heterosexuality).

Church leaders don't cotton to having their authority ignored. It's bad for business.

So, in Merritt's case... he's a sinner, but he admits it. He'll still be welcomed by them. The rest of us, they view as a threat to their existence.

Beebo Brink

I consider it a useful PSA for the gay community. May he have trouble getting laid from this day forth.

__________________
Noob: "okay.... im in a house with cages and people in gags and the door just locked and i cant get out :c"

Jopsy Pendragon

He's certainly earned it... but I'm sure if he proclaims how sorry he is about 'sinning' he'll find a few sympathetic ears "really? I'm having trouble with that too... we should 'talk' about it."

I half-heartedly believe that most obnoxious fake-anti-gay right-wingers are that way just so they can find each other more easily for hook-ups.

Dickie Swansong

Haven't they heard of bath houses? *

__________________

Jopsy Pendragon

Yeah, and they've heard of cellphone cameras too.

Polo

Time will tell, I guess; I just searched "Jonathan Merritt" to see if any new opinions from established voices on the right have been posted. But the most recent hit on the first page is twenty days old.

The thing is, Merritt seems not to be saying 'I sinned; forgive me' but instead 'I was damaged by a monster.' He really doesn't admit to having chosen to have a gay encounter as an adult--instead, he says he and the blogger "had physical contact that went beyond the bounds of friendship."

Notice, too, that in the edstetzer.com link that bladyblue posted (post quoted below), Merritt doesn't admit to ANY other volitional homosexual activity---in his entire life. According to him, he was violated by a monster, agonized over it for years, posted some 'inappropriate' emails and texts to the blogger, met the blogger and 'had physical contact'....and that's IT.

The emphasis is definitely on his "brokenness" due to having been molested by the monster.

It would appear that the conclusion he hopes his fans and followers will reach is that he's a Regular Heterosexual Guy who became Broken after a monster attacked him, and who then had some little bits of Brokenness manifest in his life (some Inappropriate emails and some Physical Contact...with ONE man only!)....and so he really is not a sinner. At all.

It would appear, further, that the conclusion Merritt hopes his fans and followers will reach, is that the Monsters need to be eradicated.



I still think the blogger was absolutely correct to out Merritt. The blogger claims that Merritt's text messages were "explicit"...which, if they can be produced, would make this NOT a 'he said/he said' case, but instead would fully reveal Merritt's hypocrisy.

I hope that happens. It would be horrible if this incident served to gin up even more hatred; if Merritt's tactic---to shift the blame for all his actions to Monstrous Gay Men Who Break Good Hetero Boys---succeeds.





Quoting this for convenience of those who want to revisit the blogger's account: