10 Snappy Comebacks to Your Crazy Fundamentalist Relatives

Summer is coming, which means you will probably be dragged out of the safe haven of your home and family, shoved onto an airplane, and forced to spend ten days "back home" in the Straight World.

Where, inevitably, one or more of your crazy fundamentalist relatives will spend the entire 10 days hitting you with a Bible and shrieking "God hates you!", presuming that you have never heard the message of hate before.

Or, if you are not out, walking around the house muttering "God hates gay people!"

When faced with such a relative, I suggest leaving.  Get out of the house.  Go to the gym or the park.  Maybe you'll see a cute guy lifting weights.

But if you can't get away, or you are tired of the homophobic diatribes, here are 10 facts guaranteed to have an impact.  Maybe not change their mind -- haters gonna hate -- but surprise them enough to shut them up.

1. "Gay people are more likely to be religious than straights." According to a recent survey, gay people are just as likely to be religious as heterosexuals.  In fact, gay men are more likely than straight men to think that going to church is "very important" in their lives.

2. "Most churches accept gay members."  About 40% of Protestants in the United States belong to denominations that accept LGBT members.

3. "There are some gay churches." There are five Protestant denominations with a mostly gay membership.  The largest, the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, has congregations in over 40 countries around the world.

4. "There are only five verses in the Bible used to claim that God is a bigot, and they aren't about gay people at all." 

5. "There was no word for gay people in ancient Hebrew or Greek."  The word "homosexual" in your Bible is a homophobic mistranslation of the Greek  arsenokoitai ("men who have sex"), and malakoi ("men who are soft").

6. " The Sodomites weren't gay." The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is about being inhospitable to strangers, a terrible sin in desert cultures.

7. "According to the Bible, eating shrimp is worse than being gay." That verse in Leviticus, "Thou shalt not lie with man as with woman," is a reference to temple prostitution, not a general prohibition.  Leviticus also states that anyone who eats shellfish, disobeys their parents, or engages in interracial marriage should be stoned to death.

8. "Most straight weddings have a celebration of a gay couple." The Bible verse often used in wedding ceremonies: "Where you go, I will go...your people will be my people," was spoken by Ruth to Naomi.  A same-sex couple.

9. "Jesus made a pro-gay statement." Jesus didn't mention gay people, but he did mention eunuchs, who often engaged in same-sex activity.  He liked them.

10.  "If God hates me so much, why didn't He say anything about it when I talked to Him this morning?"