Explosion of Hate Mocks Christian Values

Since the Iowa Supreme Court ruling a week ago which was soon followed by the legislative triumphs for gay marriage in Vermont and Washington, D.C., the explosion of hate from Christianists and the dehumanizing and untruthful things that they are disseminating about LGBT individuals in my view are a travesty and make a mockery of Christ's message. After all, Christ said that the two great Commandments were to love God and to love thy neighbor as they self. Moreover, the Gospels repeatedly show Christ as condemning the self-righteous and sanctimonious who smugly judged and condemned others in contravention to the command to love thy neighbor. The Christianists claim to believe the Bible is inerrant and must be followed verbatim as "the word of God." Why then do they pick and choose what they want to follow as if the Bible were an al carte menu?

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Let's be candid, from the National Organization for Marriage and it's bogus ad with paid actors pretending to be real ordinary citizens to commentaries in National Review and statements by Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention what we have seen is unbridled hatred for other humans merely because we do not subscribe to a particular set of religious beliefs. The statements are truly hate filled and - in my view - will provide another basis for more citizens to look at the Christian message and walk away shaking their heads in disgust. Andrew Sullivan has it right when he says that these folks hold gay lives in contempt. Here are some highlights of the "love" being disseminated by professed Christians. I begin with the National Review comment:

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Few social goods will come from recognizing same-sex couples as married. Some practical benefits may accrue to the couples, but most of them could easily be realized without changing marriage laws. Same-sex couples will also receive the symbolic affirmation of being treated by the state as equivalent to a traditional married couple — but this spurious equality is a cost of the new laws, not a benefit. One still sometimes hears people make the allegedly “conservative” case for same-sex marriage that it will reduce promiscuity and encourage commitment among homosexuals. This prospect seems improbable, and in any case these do not strike us as important governmental goals.

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Then we have Richard Land at the SBC who is rapidly becoming as extreme a homophobe as Peter LaBarbera and Fred Phelps making Southern Baptists as a whole appear to be a most unloving crowd. Land's official title is "president of The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, the Southern Baptist Convention's official entity assigned to address social, moral, and ethical concerns, with particular attention to their impact on American families and their faith." Here are Land's incendiary statements:

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Once again, it was the judiciary branch of state government rending the nation’s moral fabric, bent on rewriting our country’s social construct. With no residency requirements, the [Iowa] court’s opinion means at the end of April when the order goes into effect, same-sex couples will be free to travel from other states to exchange “vows” in the Iowa Heartland.

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This ruling turns Iowa into a destination for same-sex “marriages.” No doubt there are weekend travel packages already being planned. Iowa will soon be the Las Vegas of same-sex “marriage” for America. And you know those folks won’t be resettling in the Hawkeye State, but will be heading back home–perhaps to your state.

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The Iowa Supreme Court couldn’t have ruled that an amendment to the constitution is “unconstitutional.” If they had done that, then a government “of the people, by the people, for the people” would be imperiled. If the California Supreme Court does this in the case they are currently considering, then we’d have to say that our entire system of government is coming to a tragic end.

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Another comes from the Baptist Press where Eric Schumacher pastor of Northbrook Baptist Church in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, maintains that gay marriage is more catastrophic than a 500 year flood and will"eternal damage" that cannot be repaired and which will "erode" civilization. Here are some highlights:

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On April 3, the Iowa Supreme Court unanimously ruled that a state law limiting marriage to one man and one woman violates the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution. Licenses will be issued to homosexual couples April 27. It is not hyperbole to say that this ruling has the potential to be the worst disaster to strike the state of Iowa.

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Flood waters destroy houses, ruin offices buildings and displace families. Yet, recovery happens. Houses are rebuilt. Businesses relocate. Families eventually find housing. Legalized "homosexual marriage," on the other hand, does far more pervasive and irrecoverable damage. Civilization itself is eroded as marriage, the central building block of culture and society, is redefined. Soon, our sons and daughters are confused about what it means to be male and female, as "homosexual marriage" gains both legal status and visibility in neighborhoods and the classroom.

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Flood waters erode the soil. "Gay marriage" erodes the soul. A flood impacts for a decade. "Same-sex marriage" destroys generations. A flood draws a community together. "Homosexual marriage" tears the family apart. Communities recover from floods. The promotion of un-natural unions has an eternal consequence.

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As I have said in prior posts over the nearly two years I have been actively blogging, messages like these are akin to how the Nazi regime dehumanized and denigrated Jews in the run up to the Holocaust. How many people will hear these messages and feel totally justified in violence against LGBT citizens. It is bigotry and religious based discrimination of the worst order.