My wife and I have recently moved back to AZ. My parents were supposed to retire in California and leave us their mortgage to manage their home for them. (rent). We took over payment and everything was fine. My parents decided to come back and renew drivers licenses and get eye surgery done. It was to be 8 weeks. 8 weeks of sleeping on the floor with an air mattress can do serious harm to ones marriage! Anyway they are not leaving.
My Dad noticed my wife's Volvo and my own both have the human rights sticker on the back windows. He asked me about it. I told him, oh boy here we go! I thought. "What is your stand on Gays and lesbians getting married?" He said, "Hell no why should we let them get married?" I said, "Dad you taught me when young to never discriminate and that people were different, and here I am today married to a dark woman and 3 beautiful children. I have been surrounded by hate filled churches in Georgia bashing and trash talking gays and lesbians for the last 3 years and I took one look at the issue and decided to join their struggles." He was shocked. " I want you to remove those stickers!" He yelled at me. I asked him why he thought gays and lesbians getting married was a threat to his own marriage. "They threaten everyone's marriage because they wont be able to have kids and its unnatural!" He yelled. He yells now about everything. " Gays and lesbians haven't attacked anyone." Oh yes they have!" "When?" I asked. He told me when he was a teenager he went with his buddy to a bar and snuck in. A gay man grabbed his friends butt, so he and his friend followed this man out into the alley and beat him unconscious almost dead. " That's horrible, he did not even attack you!" "Yeah he did he grabbed my friends ass!" "That's it that's all it took and you were going to beat this man to death?" He said "your damn right". Now my dads 71 years old and watches fox news like nobody's business. He cant get enough of it. And he used to be a caring person, fighting injustice wherever it was. Now he is discriminatory and hateful and anti gay and republican and just plain mean.
He still has not explained why he thinks gays and lesbians are a danger to his marriage. he just does. He keeps bringing up stuff from the bible and I keep telling him what Jesus himself says about gays and lesbians and he keeps quoting Paul. He doesn't get it that Jesus words are the red ones and Paul wrote the new testament almost entirely. So many of my Christian friends are the same they just do not know what is contained in their own book. Its like stupid = Christianity, for the most part.
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Wow. Just wow.
There's a quote for you father's case, "Homophobia is the fear that another man will treat you like a woman."
I absolutely cannot understand what goes through some of these people's heads.
Are you looking for solutions, or arguments you may give him, or just venting?
Yea, i know the feeling of like talking to a wall that can spout nonsense back.
My usual approach is to stay away from such people.
Christianity makes people stupid.
This was one of my topics here on the forum.
It attacks logic and makes people create a different universe then the real one, where what people claim is more valid then logic.
Fox News... Oh boy...
It's a brainwashing technic. It's your house and in your house you respect gays and lesbians and human rights, and if it is really to much to handle he really doesn't have to look at the bumperstickers. I Think this might sound harsh but I find when my right wing conservative cousins stayed at my house I would often explain they didn't have to believe it but if it bothered them they could ignore it or leave ... But my cousins are 20-30's so... That's kinda different
Good luck !
My father too is the "old world, Freemason, ex-military, Fox News fanatic' type. My mother, well my mother is the sweetest, most patient, saint-like person I have met. She was raised Protestant and is still religious, but she supports my Atheism fully. My father on the other hand, he is blatantly ignorant and openly rejecting of my views. It has caused a great rift in our relationship. Instead of agreeing to disagree, like many of my family members have, he chooses to be degrading, openly engaging me in debates on a continuous basis, to which he never wins, but often is left flustered, irritated, and cursing at me. Almost every one of our 'debates' ends in him yelling and telling me he'll 'pray for my soul as it is ripped apart in hell.' Well, I don't have to tell any one of you how asinine that type of argument is to an Atheist. Point being, I understand your situation. I experience this type of bigoted, homophobic, close-minded ignorance from my family members routinely. It would make things so much easier for everyone if my religious family members would be as respectful of my lack of religious views as I am respectful of their undying worship to their sky stalker. I have come to realize that my brainwashed Christian family members live in a world riddled with delusion and it is impossible to get them to see a view point different than their own. I feel very fortunate to have such an open-minded mother that has always encouraged me to be a free-thinker, but she is the only one in my family that is able to look past my Atheism and love me for me. With my father, I have now reached a point with him that I ruffle his feathers every time I see him - spouting about the most recent discoveries in science that add to the fact that his religion is deplorable; pointing out contradictions in his Bible (which i tend to know much more about than he), being outright blasphemous; it goes on and on. I have been an Atheist for about 15 years now and am in my early 30s, so my father should have accepted my lack of faith years ago, but instead of being accepting and having a constructive relationship, he has chosen to wage a war of wits with me - Religion vs. Reality. I accept his challenge; it has been going on for years and I enjoy the debate. But I especially love to watch him get red in the face when he is backed into a corner. I remain respectful of other's views well beyond the point that I should and even further when it is my family. But after incessant attempts to convert me, degrade me, or insult me - well a person can only take so much and that is the point I have reached with me father. I often remind him that he is the reason our relationship is the way it is, to which he often replies "No, it is your fault. You accept Jesus and everything can return to normal." My response: I don't need the relationship if you choose to place conditions on it. And I don't. I am not interested in a relationship with anyone who is unable to realistic.
I can understand your situation with your father JadeB. I had an Uncle that was exactly like your father. When he died I was encouraged to visit him on his death bed. I declined, I refused to allow him a position of power to admonish me in front of my family. After his death, I also declined to attend his funeral. I refused to be subjected to any indoctrination attempts by my cousins after the service was over.