Monday, May 24, 2010

Christianists' Needed Humility Lesson

In the wake of conservative evangelical Republican Mark Souder's career ending affair with a staffer, E.J. Dionne has a column in the Washington Post that looks at the hypocrisy which has become almost expected of the family values crowd. These people depict gays as a "threat to marriage" - or even western civilization itself - yet then are caught having affairs, cruising for for gay sex like Ed Schrock and Larry Craig, and engaging in any number of types conduct utterly inconsistent with the values the claim to honor and support. And yes, it is delicious watching the hypocrites crash and burn. Then, of course, they plead for the very forgiveness and understanding that they deny to others whom they vilify and denigrate on a daily basis. Would that these hubris filled windbags actually practiced what they preach. Here are highlights from Dionne's right on column:
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I want to shout as forcefully as I can to my conservative Christian friends: Enough!
Enough with dividing the world between moral, family-loving Christians and supposedly permissive, corrupt, family-destroying secularists.
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Enough with pretending that personal virtue is connected with political creeds. Enough with condemning your adversaries, sometimes viciously, and then insisting upon understanding after the failures of someone on your own side become known to the world. And enough with claiming that support for gay rights and gay marriage is synonymous with opposition to family values and sexual responsibility.
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Why does it even have to be said that a devotion to family has nothing to do with ideology?
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How can being pro-family possibly mean holding in contempt our homosexual relatives, neighbors and friends? How much sense does it make to preach fidelity and commitment and then deny marriage to those whose sexual orientation is different from our own? Rights for gays and lesbians don't wreck heterosexual families. Heterosexuals are doing a fine job of this on their own.
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"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." . . . it would be lovely if conservative Christians remembered Jesus's words not only when needing a lifeline but also when they are tempted to give speeches or send out mailers excoriating their political foes as permissive anti-family libertines. How many more scandals will it take for people who call themselves Christian to rediscover the virtues of humility and solidarity?

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