Scientology hates the gays! Well…except for Tom Cruise*

As if by magic, the list of religious institutions that endorsed Prop. 8 disappeared from the protectmarriage.com website last week (no doubt fearing the wrath of those damn uppity gays… sheesh). However, said list was up long enough to get picked up by a number of websites and blogs, along with lists of organizations, elected officials and individuals who supported the measure.

One name that stuck in my mind was the San Diego Church of Scientology, which joined the likes of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in financially supporting the campaign. The local branch of the church is not the biggest by far—dwarfed in comparison by its L.A. counterpart (where the church is headquartered). However, the San Diego branch was the one that ponied up the dough.

Earlier this year, while researching a story, I had a chance to talk with Dan Wittermann, one of the church ministers, who assured me then that they are “tolerant and respectful” of gays and lesbians and were not out to “cure or convert” anyone, unless said individuals thought that their homosexuality was part of some sort of previous psychological trauma.

Then I did a little research. Scientology is based on L. Ron Hubbard’s 1950 book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. Book 2, Chapter 5, Page 120 of Dianetics says, in part:

“The sexual pervert (and by this term Dianetics, to be brief, includes any and all forms of deviation in dynamic two such as homosexuality, lesbianism, sexual sadism, etc., and all down the catalog of Ellis and Krafft-Ebing) is actually quite ill physically.“

According to religioustolerance.org, the term “dynamic two“ refers to the human urge to procreate. Ellis and Krafft-Ebing were two early researchers into human sexuality.

A year later, Hubbard published Science of Survival: Prediction of Human Behavior. On the subject of homosexuality, pages 89-90 of that book say:

“Such people should be taken from the society as rapidly as possible and uniformly institutionalized; for here is the level of the contagion of immorality, and the destruction of ethics… No social order will survive which does not remove these people from its midst.“

His solution?

“The only answers would seem to be the permanent quarantine of such persons from society to avoid the contagion of their insanities and the general turbulence which they bring to any order, thus forcing it lower on the scale, or processing such persons until they have attained a level on the tone scale which gives them value.”

One thing’s for sure: that would be the most fabulously decorated concentration camp. No doubt, prisoners would be wearing exuberant Bob Mackie-designed uniforms (in vertically striped fabric of course, for the slimming effect).

Could it be that I had been the victim of deception in hopes of being recruited? Say it ain’t so, Xenu. The Church of Scientology San Diego’s homepage includes this welcome message: “With its thriving economy, beautiful climate and its reputation as one of the safest cities in the United States, San Diego is an ideal place to live and work. It is the intention of the Church of Scientology of San Diego to provide real help to this diverse community and bring greater spiritual awareness to each person in it.” What a way of supporting the “diverse community,” right?

* Dear Scientology lawyers: We have no evidence of Tom Cruise being into the following activities: Full-swap bj, man-on-man wrap around handies, dl felching or the like. Here at CityBeat we believe that Mr. Cruise is the epitome of virility and the world’s best example of a heterosexual macho pin-up. In fact, we will go as far as stating that he is to man/woman relationships what Farrah Fawcett was to feathered hair.