PG Friends: I'm sitting in on a meeting of Gay Bashers for Jesus Anonymous with — unknown to the bashers gathered here — my pocket-size recorder, surreptitiously "taking notes."
I'm calling my self Big Bruiser Bruce. (Yeah, sure you are, Mary!)
I'm disguised as a GB4J: sporting a pair of $350 Gucci sunglasses (sorry, I can't resist a touch of glamour), wearing polyester aqua-blue slacks with a forest green God Hates Fags wife-beater T-shirt. Holy hot stuff!
Oh, yes: sandals with red-white-blue argyle socks. I'm probably the best dressed GB4J bashee here. I hope it doesn't blow my cool. Or, hee hee, blow anything.
(Note: For readers who don't know about Fundygelical outreach programs, GB4JA is designed: 1) to alleviate guilt of those who, by word, deed, or half-thought, have been caught red-handed "casting the first stone," and 2) to reorient such red-faced holy hurlers in more effective ways — less antithetical to passive/aggressive evangelism — to win homospecials-by-choice to the redeeming message of heterosuperiors-by-circumstance faith.)
We're sitting in the basement of the Greater New Faith Temple-Church-Cathedral-Tabernacle of God's Last Days Rapture. There are 60 heterosuperiors huddled at ten tables, decorated with lilies of the valley, Scofield Bibles with Holy Land Gift Shop picture maps, bowls of chocolate-covered Grabass-A-Gay Goobers, and gilt-framed pictures of Donald Trump.
Nearly all participants are butch guys. (Occasionally deep-kneeing me to my immediate right is Spud). Among the biblical beer-breath dudes there are two roller derby "big namer" bimbos at the Step Four Table. Rollers Rita. Ella M. Hotwheels.
If I may vouchsafe an opinion to the tape recorder: I estimate the collective intelligence at each table is in the ballpark figure of, bottom-of-the-ninth, IQ 83.5. My participant-observer presence as Studly, at Step One Table, ups that count by 30 points. Private transcription . . .
SPUD: "I knew I had a problem when I became aware that the first thing I wanted to do after church was beat up a fag. The urge just took over my whole life. I found myself spending all my evenings going to gay bars, all my days going to steam baths. I had one thing on my mind.
"Are you ready for the Second Coming? I'd ask. I wouldn't take no for an answer. I twisted a few arms to get what I wanted. But, it was too damn time consuming. Honestly, I suppose I'm getting too old for bar ministry."
BIG RED: "I hate to admit it, but six of my seven kids are, well, gay. The seventh is a married cross dresser. I gay bashed by kicking them all out onto the street; which, now that the cost of suburban living has skyrocketed. Turns out it was a big theological mistake.
"With my reduced income I can't tithe 10K to my mega-church like I used to. My better half tells me to call our kickouts back home. What in hell does she know? She's a gosh-darned, unsaved, feminist Wiccan. Oh, well. Live and learn."
BRUNO: "I loved the sinner and hated the sin in a very special way. I organized block-party gay-bash stonings. Just a few guys after brewskis. No big rocks. Just pebbles, marbles, vegetables, day-old hot-cross buns. At first it was alota laughs.
"We 'stoned' about a — hahahahaha — 'baker's dozen' of fruit-loopers. Unfortunately — and that's why I'm here — we pelted a pastor's son by mistake. God, who would have thought? You know!
"Come on, who knows they're gay at 14? He was, well, cute. Too damned cute for his own bubble-butt good, i'd say."
ZEL DIPSON: "I swear I'll never, NEVER Gay Bash again! Criss-cross my heart. I made the mistake of pinching a drag queen in the unisex john at Men's Country. She was a holy terror in high heels.
"See, I got two black eyes. What's worse, my Viagra ain't workin'. No siree, guys. Those bitches cain't fight fair. No how. I've had it. Amen! GB4JA! Over and out for Jesus!"
