What are fundies?

Sounds like a kind of underwear, doesn't it? Well, this is one of the things that I learned today - apparently fundies is a nickname for fundamentalists. While it is kind of a silly name, it is a term used on a somewhat frightening (and sad) website. The website is FSTDT, which stands for Fundies Say The Darndest Things.

At first, reading through their Top 100, I thought it was all made up and someone's idea of a joke. Then I started looking around. The Top 100 page is a collection of comments and opinions written by fundamentalists and collected on this web. All of the comments have an accompanying link to the source, a link to comments by those who read the FSTDT website and a date. (The source information made me have an appreciation for the site - they are willing to list their source and show that they are not putting words in someone else's mouth or paraphrasing.)

Some of the comments are stupid or misinformed, but at least one is unbelievably sad. The third item from the top of the page is from a mother whose son came out to her and she, in her infinite stupidity, tried to make him straight (yes, this is a simplification - to know all the details, go here). At the bottom of the post, you find out that her son eventually killed himself. There is a link to a forum where she is asking her 'friends' if perhaps something she did (like getting rid of his therapist who understood how difficult it was to come out to his mother and told to not be gay) might have contributed to his decision to take his life. Every bloody person on the forum tells that nothing she did was wrong. That she did the right thing trying to 'make him straight' and even asks if he tried to kill himself every time she told him something he did was wrong - trivializing the influence she had when he tried to open up to his mother. In my opinion, all of those people don't deserve to have children, or to breed. All of them contributed to this young man's death - and I wish someday they realize the full weight of that. Sadly, I doubt they will.

Why am I posting this? Because knowledge of what is out there will hopefully make us all stronger - and more willing to speak out against that which we believe to be wrong.

Update: On a personal note, we are going to the wedding of two very, very good friends of ours this weekend, who also happen to be lesbians. I am so very happy to live in a country to that allows people to express their love for each other - a right, not a privilege - everyone should have.