A Gay Muslim Atheist Buys a Round of Drinks

I had an interesting experience this weekend as I sat eating a basket of chicken wings in a local pub, in a community that is mostly considered affluent and educated among the suburbs in the county it’s situated in.

This would be a conversation that would leave me humbled in an uncomfortable way, but even more resolved in my viewpoint.

A few weeks back I was in this same pub with a buddy, when a comment was made about us appearing “gay.” We both pretty much laughed it off and had fun with the joke. (My buddy is married to a wonderful woman; I’m divorced four years, with a beautiful daughter, and a girlfriend).

This past Saturday, there were about ten others in the bar, mostly men. My buddy had stopped in again and joined me for a quick beer before his evening of Halloween debauchery with his wife, and then promptly left.

After he was gone, I sat a bit for a while on my phone, mostly reading up on the news and perusing through Facebook. I really knew nobody else but the bartender, even though this place is not much more than five miles from my house. So, to engage in conversation with many of those who were loosely using racial slurs and showing their true uneducated view of the world, served no real motivation for me to join in. But as always, I was taking mental notes.

It would take only a few minutes before the “jokes” would start to come at me, from people that were complete strangers. “Ah, texting your boyfriend? Miss your fag love?” (I sat there in my Dolce-Gabbana glasses, a beanie-style hat, wearing a hoodie). Everyone laughed, including me. I have a rather sardonic sense of humor, and I’m comfortable enough with myself that I didn’t feel any need to defend my heterosexuality to a room full of ignorant cavemen. So, I played along with it.

(I knew, at least, that this entire conversation was either about to get me hit with a barstool or turn their brains so inside-out that their mouths would cease to function by the time we were done).

I figured it to be mostly joking at first, but as it continued, it became more and more abrasive. And while it wasn’t an affront to my personal life, it was an affront to people I care about and the values I hold that not one of us is better than another. I had to ponder how someone who was actually gay might feel sitting in there having to listen to such garbage.

This conversation would continue for a while until an older gentleman came in. They looked at him and then said to me, “I bet this old Marine would love to hear about your gay boyfriend. Maybe you could learn something from him.”

I looked at the older gentleman and said, proudly, “Semper Fi,” which is a common term of respect shared among Marines, current and former; and always. I took off the hoodie I had been wearing, revealing a Metallica t-shirt underneath, and my arms littered with tattoos, including several Marine Corps tattoos.

It brought two reactions that would generate two more intense discussion that would now begin simultaneously. At first I felt a bit overwhelmed, considering the environment, but I also felt very empowered, considering the fact that I’m not a stupid guy and speak from resource and intellectual perspective, not a hasty and belligerent, uneducated societal norm.

The first comment would come from the guys who had been alluding to me being a “fag” most of the night. “Why didn’t you just say you were a Marine?” To which my simple and rather blunt replay was, “Why should I have to? Why would I have any need to sit here and defend myself to a roomful of bigoted assholes? You’re the ones that looked foolish in your ridicule. A group of small minds, indeed.”

There was a pause, before the old Marine looked at me and disappointed me somewhat with his first statement, “Fuck, It’s good to know you’re a Marine. When I looked at you over there I thought you were a goddamn Muslim here to blow this place up.”

Another generalization in this country that has no place in solving any cultural divides. I responded to him simply, “Yes, sir, because a radical Islamist would break the will of the American people by blowing up ten racist rednecks in a tiny bar in the middle of nowhere, on the outskirts of a city that most Americans never even heard of until the Sikh Temple shooting one year ago. Makes complete sense why you’d worry. Seriously? What a stupid fucking thing to say. Where’s your integrity, Marine?”

He didn’t have much to say at this point, and to his defense, I’ll say that he sat and listened to the remainder of the conversation rather intently and with great interest.

Back to the other gentleman, who was still now “shocked” that I wasn’t gay. “Thank god you’re a good god-fearing Christian like the rest of us,” he says.

Now, I didn’t dive right into divulging my atheism, but rather I waited for that realization to naturally occur, mostly. Conservative Christians in America, by large, tether their politics to their religion. And, it wouldn’t take long for this to happen on its own.

“So, how do you feel about our Muslim president letting gays marry and fucking this country up with all of his spending ruining the fabric of god in our society?” (He was now joined by a very large man to his left, one who I kept my eye on the entire time. While I like to believe I have matured in my life to a point of using brains over brawn, I’m always prepared to defend myself, should that archaic need arise).

I responded to him with a statement I have borrowed and used before. “First off, our President drinks alcohol, eats pork, supports gay & women’s rights, practices Christianity, and approves an order for the Pentagon to have Osama bin Laden killed. By any sane definition, he’s the worst fucking Muslim ever.”

“Next, if you’re familiar with all three articles of the US Constitution, you clearly understand that it’s the US Congress, the legislative branch outlined in Article One (Sections 7 & 8), who has all fiscal responsibility for drafting and approving (before any presidential endorsement) the balancing and spending of our country’s tax-fueled economy. You understand that right?” – There was silence, just a blank stare.

“Furthermore, why are you, a conservative, an ideological population that has led two of the most progressive movements in our country, so resolved to blocking the liberties and equalities of others? Liberty you scream of in our Constitution? How does that negatively impact your life? Has a law been passed requiring you to become gay?”

He would tell me, of course, to explain that to him. Just exactly when conservatives passed progressive reform in the United States.

Why? Because people who speak this ignorant choose to ignore our history, or never took the time to learn it in the first place. They hold onto the grip of delusion that is found among like-minded drinking buddies in a bar full of hatred that is truly nothing more than fear of what they do not understand.

I’d very briefly review for him the Civil Rights act of 1866, drafted and passed by a congress (the 39^th congress) that held a conservative majority in both houses, progressively ending slavery (antithetical to the bible) in the US. And, the 19^th Amendment to our Constitution, drafted and passed by a congress (the 66^th congress) that held a conservative majority in both houses, progressively giving women more rights in this country (antithetical to the bible).

(They held tight, the entire time, to their false assertion that our country is based on and should be solely based on the Christian religion and teachings. So much for freedom from religious persecution, right? Another part of our history they skipped class on).

He proceeded to tell me that homosexuality was different than those, and the bible says it's wrong. His buddy immediately called out my atheism and started the usual uneducated tripe about that.

I’ll start there. “So, your religion believes that all other religions are full of hate, but you’re here hating Christians.” I almost threw up. “First, what have I said in hate toward your belief? At all? Nothing. And second, no, that’s not what atheism is; and atheism is not a religion.” He proceeded to tell me I was wrong, of course. Telling me that If he believed in god and I didn’t, my beliefs, although opposite, were still a religion.

As I asked him what the textbook definition of a religion was, he couldn’t do it. This became increasingly frustrating for me to listen to. After all, if you are going to base your entire life on a belief system, and you don’t even know the definition of a belief system, let alone your particular one, you have forfeited all intellectual ability and are not much more than a walking pile of willful ignorance.

“How is something that is not, the same as something that is? How is something that is the opposite, the same as something that is?” – He couldn’t answer those questions, except to say, “It just is.”

If something is opposite, it is not the same. “How is the gas pedal the same as the brake pedal?” – “I don’t know how to answer that.” – It was mostly blank stares, and each time I asked a simple, non-hostile question about religion, I received a response that was not an answer, but a hostile attack on my skepticism.

“Atheism is nothing more than a stance of skeptics that no deity exists; not one of the more than 3,000 gods recorded to have ever been worshiped going all the way back to the Sumerians.” The gentleman next to me would laugh. “3,000 gods? What fairy tales have you been reading?” Ironic, isn’t it.

“Those other gods weren’t real.” Really? Why? Because you were geographically born into the one you were taught? And, have taken no time to learn of any other religion? What if you were born in Iraq? You’d be a Muslim, and believe that people like you, as a Christian, are wrong.

“The Muslims are all wrong. Their god tells them to go out and kill people who are not Muslims!”

Their god tells them? What does your god tell you? Have you heard from him? “No, but it doesn’t say in the bible to go and kill people.” So, you believe that their god actually talks to them? Wouldn’t that make him a more believable god? “No, it says in the Quran that they should.” Have you actually read the Quran? Do you know that for nearly every verse in the Quran I can show you an equivocal point of scripture in the bible? And, your bible does instruct these same things.

“I’m just saying their god is not god, he’s evil.”

Do you realize that “their god” the Muslim god, is the Abrahamic god? The same god of your bible, and the same god that the Jewish follow as well? Do you realize that all three religions worship the very same god, and it’s mostly just their prophetic differences in the interpretation of that god’s word that causes the difference in belief?

He would insist I was wrong, even as I pulled up verse after verse of the Old Testament that screamed the same type of hate professed in the parts of the Quran that he was assuming (accurately), but that he admittedly hadn’t read.

What was frightening to me is that he had almost no knowledge of his own religion. But, it’s an unfortunate reality that exists among the extreme Christian base in America. Cherry-picking. Take out the parts you don’t want to believe, because although infallible, god’s word is somehow also subjective.

My hands were in the air, truly. And my beer was getting warm. Shame on me.

He predictably then dismissed the Old Testament and left me with the next line of defense that atheists often encounter. “The Old Testament is not god’s word. Christianity is about Christ.”  - But I thought god, the father, the son and the spirit were all one? How can he all at once nullify himself, but stand for himself? How, if through his spirit he came to be Christ, born of a virgin, are his commands no longer valid? Was he never omnipotent to begin with?

Without trying to sound like too much of an ass, this was clearly becoming too complex of a conversation for him. But, their ignorance kicked my brain online, and it’s hard for me to pull it back once that happen, particularly where this sort of behavior is happening.

I forced myself to read from Matthew for him. I really loathe having to go back to scripture, particularly when my entire presence there was only to enjoy a hard cider beer and a few chicken wings. As I read from Matthew, and the assumed words of Christ that he was not there to abolish the old laws and prophets, but to uphold them, and continued to also offer New Testament scripture that absolutely pontificated hate and judgment, he had no answer, but only chose to attack me for my atheism.

“You’re just hateful. Atheists worship the devil and that’s a religion. You’ll burn to death someday.”

It’s sad, really. The misunderstanding. But, if he couldn’t even grasp the ideals of what his religion was, or even another actual religion was, I couldn’t possibly get him to grab the idea of what atheism is. Just simple non-belief. And, although I increasingly find myself anti-theistic, atheism as its most simple isn’t even that.

“You’re a religion, just accept it. You made your choice to pick a religion that has no morals.” (Again, an ironic statement coming from someone who sat there in complete judgment of me, going against scripture in all four of the gospels he professes to follow).

I tried to explain it very remedially to him. - We (atheists) have no organized places of “worship.” We pay no tithe to any atheist cause. There are no atheistic rituals. There’s no book of atheism that contains (subjective) moral absolutism (but that doesn't mean we're absent a moral core). There’s no atheist figurehead. There’s no tax-exempt status. – All of that fell on deaf (or ignorant) ears.

I chose not to attack Christianity, but explain it to a group of people who certainly should have already understood it based upon their bold support of it. In fact, I spent a great deal of time explaining how I was raised Catholic, and it wasn’t until I was around 35 years old (I’m now nearly 41) that I started to seriously question not just Catholicism, but the existence of god; and not just the Christian god, but the plausible existence of any god.

With empathy, even, I explained that I had certainly developed some of my moral core from that religious time in my life. That, there are certainly good things about who I am that came from some of those Christian teachings. But, the duplicity found in religion, the hypocrisy that can be harnessed by it to subjectively hate, drove me from it and opened my mind to seek answers for myself, not just follow what I was told. That the laws of our society (such as slave-owning), change as a society reasons with humanity and don’t remain shackled to an ideology that is said to be unwavering but taught to be up to individual interpretation.

I expected his next question. “How do you have morals today then, without keeping god in your life?”

Well, are you telling me that you have no control over yourself? That if you suddenly found out, for yourself and with absolute truth that there was no god, you would be out in the street burning peoples’ houses, robbing stores, murdering strangers, maybe even me, and committing socially unacceptable acts?

“No, of course I wouldn’t.” Well. Am I doing those things right now? Are we both not doing the same thing, sitting in a bar enjoying conversation? You with your belief and me without the same? Am I torching the streets, burning puppies, or outside chanting gibberish to a satan that it just so happens I don’t believe in either?

“No, you’re not, but that doesn’t mean you’re not going to hell.”

Of course. Hell. You know who else is going to your assumed hell? More than 5 billion people on this planet who don’t believe in your particular version of god. Indigenous tribes people on remote islands who have never heard of Christianity. Doctors, Engineers, and CEO’s of the world’s largest technology firms. Philanthropists who do not believe in a deity. Scientists all over the world, who believe not in god, but in their ability to cure disease through medicine. All of them are going to hell by your benchmark.

But on the flip side, more than 90% of our prison population, rapists, murderers, child molesters, thieves, arsonists, mass-murderers; the people in our society with the loosest and worst “morals,” they’ve repented and will share your glory with you someday; according to your viewpoint.

Does this sound absurd yet?

“I can’t speak for them, I can only speak for what I know.”

What he knew was virtually nothing. I spent most of the time (while my dinner was getting cold) defending that I wasn’t a bad person and without a moral core just because I didn’t believe in god. I spent most of my time at the receiving end of ridicule. First that I was a “fag,” next that I was a “Muslim terrorist,” and finally that I was a “satan-worshipping atheist."

All of this while extensively outnumbered in viewpoint and watching that a fist didn't come swinging at the back of my head. Perhaps that's my own issue with presupposition.

The rest of the time I spent offering a brief US History lesson, and then attempting to teach these gentlemen about their own religion.

Although I wanted to open even the slightest bit of mindset into the greater contradictions that exist within religion, and how much sinister hate has actually occurred over the last 2,000-plus years by virtue of many, many religions, I didn’t bother. It wasn’t about that at this point. It was simply about diluting their misconceptions and exposing their ignorance.

In the end, I would buy them all a round of drinks (a couple even returned the favor) and take the time to shake hands with each of them, exchange names, and thank them for the great conversation and perspective. They were kind enough to oblige a return on that sentiment, and a few, including a retired history teacher who was the only one to sit there and remain quiet the entire time, would approach me and thank me for valuing an education. That was a gratifying and humbling moment. Indeed, there is something learned even in the worst of ignorant thought.

The conversation would end without heat, and everyone laughing. I’d like to believe that’s because I tried very deliberately to keep the tone non-hostile and continually tried to bring the conversation back to a point, even though I was being skewered from all sides at once. To give them fair credit, many would approach me and thank me for my thoughts, as well. I wish that happened more often.

Perhaps it was only the round of drinks that made them more amicable toward me. But in all, the evening’s discussion would only further my perception that we have a very long way to go in this county with regards to our presuppositions. There’s a distinct difference between those who have made a commitment to humanity (atheists and theists alike), and those who have narrowed their perceptions to absolute stereotypes.

At the least, pick up a book. More than just one.