20 Things Conservatives Have Compared Homosexuality To

Social conservatives like to say that the fight against marriage equality is more about protecting the sanctity of marriage than discriminating against gay people. But their words belie their true motivations.

Over the past few years, these crusaders have unfavorably compared homosexuality to things like bestiality, termites, alcoholism, the iceberg that sunk the Titanic, killer snails, even ice cream. It’s like the most bizarre SAT test ever taken. After this latest odd analogy — Troy, Michigan’s darling mayor comparing homosexuality to smoking cigarettes — we thought we’d round up some of the more bizarre associations in one place.

• Cigarette smoking: Troy Mayor Janice Daniels told a Detroit radio host this week, “I said that I would bring a doctor into a meeting that would say that the homosexual lifestyle is dangerous … Had I been with a group of smokers I might have said I would like to bring a doctor into this meeting to say that smoking is dangerous.”

• Ice cream: The Sun-Sentinel quoted Rep. Allen West as saying that sexuality is a behavior and ‘people can change their sexual behavior.’ When asked if gays should change theirs, he replied, “No. I like chocolate chip ice cream and I will continue to like chocolate chip ice cream. So there’s no worry about me changing to vanilla.”

• Alcoholism: “Even if an alcoholic is powerless over alcohol once it enters his body, he still makes a choice to drink,” said Rick Perry in his first book On My Honor. “And, even if someone is attracted to a person of the same sex, he or she still makes a choice to engage in sexual activity with someone of the same gender.” That’s one way to run away from the rumors.

• Slavery: If same-sex marriage were to be legalized, it would be on the same level as legalizing slavery in the eyes of Britain’s most senior Catholic, Cardinal Keith O’Brien.

• The iceberg that sunk the Titanic: Truth in Action Ministries produced a whole film around this central theme: “The moral iceberg is ripping a hole through structure of America and we’re taking on water.”

• Terrorism: Republican State Rep. Sally Kern said homosexuality is actually *more* dangerous than terrorism: “Studies show that no society that has totally embraced homosexuality has lasted more than, you know, a few decades. So it’s the death knell of this country. I honestly think it’s the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam, which I think is a big threat.”

• Killer snails: Danish politician Birthe Rønn Hornbech explained, “Apart from the killer snail and a few other species, the world consists of males and females, and that is why the world still exists.” Interestingly, Denmark was the first country in the world to legalize same-sex unions in 1989.

• Sexual abuse: Bryan Fischer, subject of a New Yorker profile this week, said allowing gay couples to adopt would be a form of sexual abuse.

• The Ku Klux Klan: Everybody loves a parade? Not Chicago’s Cardinal Francis George. He compared the gay pride parade to the KKK, saying “One such organization is the Ku Klux Klan which, well into the 1940s, paraded through American cities not only to interfere with Catholic worship but also to demonstrate that Catholics stand outside of the American consensus.”

• Hitler: As in defeating the gays is like defeating the craziest sociopath sonofabitch ever, argued Brad Dacus, an official Prop 8 spokesperson at a rally in support of the California ban in 2008.

We’re just getting warmed up. We’ve got elephants, termites, cancer and a whole bunch more — join us on the next page here.