This past Monday, I had the unpleasure of “debating” one of the worst internet personalities on the planet: Mr. Andrew Wilson himself. The guy who asks, “what’s wrong with a 40-something year-old man dating an 18-year-old girl?” The guy who doesn’t believe a married man can r*pe his wife because marriage = eternal consent. The guy who mocks and ridicules and derides anyone who doesn’t fall in line like the cis-hetero bigoted patriarchal clones that follow him in the comments section.

And I say “debated” because while it was advertised as a “good faith debate,” it was hardly that. Over the course of three and a half hours—yes, you read that right!—Andrew interrupted me well over 100 times, which is frankly impressive given he also wouldn’t shut the hell up and actually, oh, I don’t know, listen.

But when do men like this listen? I mean actually listen?

Never. The answer is never.

Instead, in spite of the fact that the main rule of Socratic questioning is to cooperate on drawing out the best arguments (which indeed includes pointing out holes in one’s logic), Andrew’s goal was to dominate me (and thus all opponents). He says as much in the opening paragraph of his debate “university” course.

But alas, here I was, debating this sorry excuse for a “traditional man.”

Early on, it was clear that sophistry was going to rule the day. He cleverly and deceptively would lay out logical-sounding ideas but would infuse subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) logical fallacies throughout, only to then interrupt or obfuscate whenever called out on them.

For example, when discussing the correlation between queer youth and self-harm, Andrew confronted me with this zinger (I’ll paraphrase): If you agree that in the 40s and 50s there was both more stigma surrounding the LGBTQ community and lower suicide rates, but now that there are less societal stigmas yet higher suicide rates, why aren’t you arguing for us to go back to having more stigma? Are you for higher suicide rates among queer youth?

Oh my God, you got me Andrew!

In case anyone was wondering, this is a false cause fallacy whereby Andrew conflates correlation and causation. Not to mention that just because there is overall less stigma surrounding queerness doesn’t mean that the individual families and churches of these queer kids aren’t causing great harm when their children actually come out of the closet (something they weren’t doing as much of back in the day).

Andrew wanted to hear none of it because he lacks basic human empathy and it doesn’t fit his agenda.

Another zinger from Andrew is that there is no unfairness toward queer folks in the church because the rules are the same for all. Andrew says that he (an alleged straight man) can marry a woman, and a gay man can marry a woman. And because Andrew can’t marry a man, a gay man can’t marry a man. Because fairness.

FFS, Andrew, this is really, really stupid. It is like having two children, whereby child A vomits whenever they eat broccoli, while child B loves the taste of broccoli, and in spite of the fact that child A has asked for alternatives, you say to them: It’s not unfair because you can’t have anything else, and your brother can’t have anything else. He is going to eat broccoli, and you can eat your broccoli.

Because again, fairness.

To my mind—and this is just my opinion, devoid of any external evidence—this makes Andrew seem like a closeted gay man. It’s basically, “I can’t enjoy men even though I’m attracted to them, so no one gets to. And if I am going to be married to a woman, in order to marry, you are going to have to marry a woman!”

I’m sorry, but these men can’t help but tell on themselves.

The worst part of the debate, however, wasn’t the interruptions or the holes in his logic, it was the fact that if Andrew Wilson is what it means to be an “orthodox Christian,” then we should all become atheists. Or, at least that we should reject Christianity entirely for the sole reason that he doesn’t even apply the same standards to his own life.

Not to judge or anything, but this is a man who is married to a twice-divorced woman in spite of the fact that the New Testament—Mark and Luke in particular—label folks “adulterers” if they remarry after divorce. Of course, being the good progressive that I am, I don’t see things like this, and in fact was raised by two divorced people. But he claims to follow the Bible, because it is the “Word of Gawd.”

Or how about the fact that he takes no issue with calling his opponents “fucking bitches” whenever they piss him off in spite of the fact that the New Testament is clear that we are to have no unwholesome talk.

And lastly, when did the Temple of God—that is, the physical body—allow for chain smoking cigarettes? I don’t remember hearing that from the pulpit.

Again, there is no judgment from me here, only the reminder that by the measure you judge others—i.e., queer folks—you will be judged. If Andrew Wilson and all the other bigoted (and often closeted) Christian men want to judge queer folks for living their best queer lives, then we are going to turn it around on them and call them out for their public sins and refusal to repent, just like Paul did in Romans 2:1.

At the end of the day, what I learned is that talking with clowns like Andrew Wilson is a gigantic waste of time. Let them have their self-induced male loneliness epidemic. Let them trade actual masturbation for mental masturbation. Let them be chronically online while the rest of us create actual quality products like books, and baked goods, and farms, and music. Take it from me and don’t get sucked into the toxicity vortex of small-minded and small-(fill in the blank) men who offer nothing to the overall conversation of life.

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