Friday, May 24, 2013

Hate Is A Learned Phenomenon; Will Southern Baptists Again Choose Bigotry?

Allison Mackey of Hanover, Pennsylvania, with her five sons - one an Eagle Scout, three now active in scouting and an 8-year-old who had planned to join. All the sons said they were willing to abandon the Boy Scouts if openly gay members were allowed.

An earlier post today noted the hysteric and spittle eruptions coming from the  Christofascists in the wake of the Boy Scouts of America's half measure to allow openly gay scouts although still institutionalizing bigotry against gays over the age of 18.  But a revisit was needed given the continue displays of hate and hypocrisy coming from the "godly Christian" crowd which is neither godly or, I would argue, even remotely Christian.  What I find most disgusting is the adults who are eager to teach children and youth hate.  Pictured above is one such foul individual who is indoctrinating her sons with her own sick, hate filled bigotry.  I suspect her descendants will be less than proud of her legacy of hate.  I can't help but also wonder whether Ms. Mackey refers to blacks by way of the "N word."  

Its also note worthy that many members of the Southern Baptist Convention ("SBC") - a denomination that came into being because of a desire to continue slavery and the treatment of other humans as chattel property - are now threatening to launch an alternate organization to the Boy Scouts.  One a racist and a bigotry, apparently always a racist and a bigot. Here are highlights on reactions from bigots from the New York Times:

Leaders of the conservative faction predicted that lawsuits would soon force the Boy Scouts to allow openly gay leaders, and they accused the top leaders of ignoring the beliefs of their members. 

“The fallout from this is going to be tremendous,” said Robert Schwarzwalder, a senior vice president of the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian group, and a father of two scouts in Northern Virginia. “I think there will be a loss of hundreds of thousands of boys and parents.”
“This great institution is going to be vitiated by the intrusion of a political agenda,” he said. 

After the decision was announced Thursday, John Stemberger, an evangelical leader from Florida who organized a campaign to block the change, said that like-minded groups and parents would meet next month in Louisville, Ky., to discuss creating what he called a new “character development organization for boys,” an alternative to scouting.
Bob Felton at Civil Commotion elaborates on the SBC's foul history:
Founded in 1845 because northern Baptists refused to appoint missionaries from slaveholding states, the Southern Baptists are now leading the charge to break from the Boy Scouts over gay membership and create an alternative organization.
 Leader hopes to bring coalition together to discuss creating a new youth organization centered on biblical values
Why Louisville? Because it is the home of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, headed by Albert Mohler.

“Politics,” Otto Von Bismarck once said, “is the art of the possible.” For a private, widely-watched, quintessentially American organization to reverse a longstanding policy on such a contentious issue by a greater than 60% margin, leaving gays’ chief antagonists in disarray, and in a way that makes leadership roles for gays a not-far-off inevitability, is a huge win.

The SBC, by the way, finally apologized for its racist origins in 1995 — but it doesn’t appear that they actually learned much from the experience.
Christianity is in decline in the developed world largely because of the hate and bigotry that best define the godly folk.  Thankfully, a large majority of the younger generations are walking away from organized religion and Al Mohler, Tony Perkins, the Catholic Church hierarchy and many others are hastening Christianity's much deserved decline.

P.S., The SBC doesn't have a monopoly on anti-gay bigotry.  As the Washington Post reports, Bishop Paul Loverde, the leader of the Catholic Diocese of Arlington, issued a statement saying the vote would likely force the diocese to reconsider sponsoring troops in about 50 of its parishes.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

No loss. Eventually, the BSA will fix its stupid policy and also allow fit gay leaders, too. And it will eventually emerge as a stronger, more respected organization. And the loss of families such as the one you pictured simply means that their sons will never gain the benefits that scouting can offer all boys, and soon (I hope) all leaders.

Peace <3
Jay