Right-wing conservative commentator and Donald Trump supporter Everett Piper — a man who compares LGBTQ+ people to Islamic terrorists — is asking Christians to stop referring to people as “gay” because it shows support for defining people by their sexual desires. In his column, he calls homosexuality a “sin” and compares the sexual orientation to that of dogs.

“Don’t you realize that by doing so, you are parroting the lie that our desires define us and that people can be pigeonholed into categories of appetites, proclivities, drives and desires?” Piper, who once served as the president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University (OKWU), wrote in a recent column in The Washington Times.

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“Don’t you see that your labels consign your neighbors to little more than the status of animals who are driven insatiably by their inclinations and instincts?” he continues. “You are stating that if someone wants to do something, ‘that’s just who they are,’ and they can’t do anything about it. “

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His line about doing “anything about it” suggests his possible support of conversion therapy, the widely debunked and pseudoscientific practice of trying to change one’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

The methods of so-called conversion therapists include encouraging queer people not to masturbate, redirecting their sexual energy into exercise, “covert aversion” (a fancy name for imagining possible negative consequences of being queer), Bible study, directing same-sex sexual desire onto opposite-sex partners, inflicting pain and humiliation anytime LGBTQ+ feelings arise, and forcing people to act out stereotypical gender roles in behavior and personal appearance.

A 2013 survey showed that 84% of former patients who tried ex-gay therapy said it inflicted lasting shame and emotional harm. Additionally, a March 2022 peer-reviewed study from The Trevor Project showed that 13% of LGBTQ+ youth nationwide had reported being subjected to conversion therapy. Of those, 83% were subjected to it before reaching the age of 18.

Nevertheless, Piper continues by stating that there’s nothing more insulting than implying that someone’s personhood “is nothing more than the sum total of their proclivities and passions.” It’s unclear who he thinks actually believes that; LGBTQ+ people themselves generally know that it’s only one aspect of their identities and that even identity is only one aspect of a person’s life.

“Believers in Christ, of all people, should know that people are made in the image of God,” he writes. “We are not dogs. We are human beings. We have free will in choosing our behaviors (sexual or otherwise), and thus, we are defined by our Lord, not our libido.”

“Have we actually come to the point where we think it is edifying to define people by their sins? … If we want to cheat, does that make us a cheater? If I want to lie, does that make me a liar? If you want to steal, does that make you a thief? Can’t we all choose to do otherwise and, in doing so, avoid the label and the judgment?” he adds.

“No one needs to admit the defeat of just being ‘born that way.’ Your neighbors are not animals. They are human beings,” he concludes.

Unsurprisingly, Piper has expressed numerous far-right anti-LGBTQ+ views on his X account, including support for the so-called “parents’ rights” group Moms for Liberty — which was named as an anti-LGBTQ+ extremist group by the Southern Poverty Law Center — and their claim that all LGBTQ+-inclusive children’s books are “pornography.”

During Pride month 2023, Piper shared an X post referring to the LGBTQ+ community as the “rainbow sex-cult” which claimed that queer people use social media to indoctrinate children.

“Any nation that devotes an entire month to glorifying pride is one teetering on the edge of disaster. We now stand divided rather than united because of our arrogance and pride,” Piper wrote during Pride Month 2024.

He has also declared women’s sports as “dead” due to “LGBTQ+ misogyny,” by which he means the inclusion of transgender athletes.

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