Gays Should Wear Warning Labels?

Rev. Bill Banuchi, executive director of the New York Christian Coalition, has suggested that gays should have to wear "warning labels," raising disturbing parallels with how the Nazis forced "undesirables" like communists, Jews, and homosexuals, to wear colored badges in concentration camps. Banuchi denies that this is what he meant.

365Gay.com (via Pam's House Blend) reports:

"We put warning labels on cigarette packs because we know that smoking takes one to two years off the average life span, yet we 'celebrate' a lifestyle that we know spreads every kind of sexually transmitted disease and takes at least 20 years off the average life span according to the 2005 issue of the revered scientific journal Psychological Reports," Rev. Bill Banuchi, executive director of the New York Christian Coalition told the Mid Hudson News.

It certainly sounds like he would prefer that homosexuality be treated like cigarettes. At the very least, if he doesn't think that gay people should be labeled, his analogy suggests that gay-themed things (books, music, events) carry warning labels like those on cigarettes. I have a suggestion:

WARNING: This item may contain material which will send conservative evangelical Christians into paroxysms of homophobic bigotry. If you are concerned that you may be exhibit such symptoms, do not use or view this item unless in the presence of trained professionals in the field of psychiatry.

Despite using the analogy of cigarette labels, Banuchi tells 365Gay.com that he is not advocating gays specifically be labeled.

Banuchi also alleges that he has received hate mail since his remarks were published.

Well, when you say something that suggests that gay people carry warning labels, something that they had to do in Nazi Germany, of course you're going to receive hate mail.

Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon asks "Can we please call them fascists yet?" Sounds like a reasonable question because one of the features of fascism has always been a obsession with masculinity and maintaining strict divisions between men's and women's social roles, something which the presence of gays threatens to undermine.

The Disenchanted Forest writes:

I demand a warning label tatooed on the forehead of every member/supported of the Christian Coalition, FoF, FRC, etc. that indicates anything the bearer says/thinks/does may be considered patently offensive to any right-minded individual and that rational people may want to step away to avoid engagement (especially in Florida, where you're allowed to shoot someone you feel is a threat to you).

Well, that's not such a bad idea, either.

Read More:

• Gay Rights, Gay Marriage
• Evangelical Christianity & Homosexuality
• Catholicism & Homosexuality