Oprah on Gay Bathhouses - What the Welcoming Churches Were Defending

On Saturday night, a group from IFI scheduled a press conference to draw attention to Steamworks as a sponsor of the Gay Games. In response, a sizeable group from the Chicago Coalition of Welcoming Churches showed up with banners, literally screaming profanity at the IFI group. (How can anyone who assumes the name "Christian" justify screaming the vilest profanity at anyone? Consider the behavior a clue to whether they are truly Christian or not.)

Today (a rerun I think) Oprah (who is not known for espousing conservative Christianity) interviewed Jay Dagenhart, a homosexual man (under 30 yrs old and now HIV+ if I heard correctly) and former methamphetamine addict. Here's what he has to say about "gay" bath houses:

Experts say crystal meth erases inhibitions, increases sexual appetites, and gives addicts the energy to have sex for days. To satisfy his meth-induced sexual cravings, Jay would frequent all-male bathhouses.

"These bathhouses are dark, cavernous, multi-level facilities. There are small rooms with doors. There are group rooms with monitors, constantly with every porn movie you could imagine. There are basements; there are steam rooms with showers. They have larger dark rooms with just platforms and benches and chairs where you can't really see who you're having sex with. You're groping and grabbing and fondling one another in the dark."

Whether in bathhouses or hotel rooms, Jay says his only concern was finding drugs and sex.

"The whole idea behind sex parties is extended periods of time in someone's home, a hotel room, and you're walking around naked, lots of drugs, lots of lubricant, and lots of porn.

"I would be so high it would be nothing for me to be with 15, 20, 25 men in a night. It was never part of my agenda to practice safe sex. It was always about barebacking, sex without condoms. That was the norm. Wearing condoms is the rare thing when you're high on crystal meth."

Immediately after rehab, he went on a meth binge, spent 24 straight hours in a bathhouse, came out hallucinating, dehydrated, malnourished, severely depressed, and attempted suicide. Thank God, he failed to kill himself.

Jay explicitly described barebacking as anal sex without a condom (the instinctual look of uncomfortable disgust on Oprah's face was telling - one's natural conscience recognizes homosexual acts as unnatural and repugnant) and recalled bug-chasing - deliberately selecting a wasting, sick-looking man to have sex with, hoping to catch AIDS.

Jay said that methamphetimine is "killing my community" and urged his homosexual friends to go into the bathhouses and pull their brothers out, to "start loving one another."

With or without crystal meth, "gay" bathhouses facilitate the spread of deadly disease - STD's, hepatitis, AIDS, depression, suicide. (Not so gay...)

That was the IFI message on Sat night. If the "Welcoming Church" really loved their neighbors, wouldn't they agree with Pete LaBarbera?