Baptist Press Batshitery on Public Accommodation laws

As growing public push back and court rulings are eroding the ability of Christofascists to impose their fear and hate based religious beliefs on society, the "godly folk" are having a complete conniption fit.  As is typical of these less than nice people, they view any restriction on the ability to trample of the constitutional rights of other citizens as an attack on "religious liberty."  In the Christofascist world view, it is they and they alone who are entitled to religious freedom.  Everyone else is supposed to knuckle under to them and forfeit their own rights.  A rant in the Baptist Press over the recent ruling against "Christian" photographers who refused to provide services to a same sex couple symbolizes this selfish and self-centered mindset.  Here are highlights:

ALBUQUERQUE (BP) -- An attack on religious liberty is evident in the New Mexico Supreme Court's ruling that two Christian photographers violated the state's Human Rights Act by refusing to photograph a same-sex "commitment ceremony," according to several Southern Baptist commentators.

"Anyone who still doubts that the normalization of homosexuality and the legalization of same-sex marriage will represent a seismic shift in the culture at large needs only to look to New Mexico to see that nothing less than religious liberty is now under threat -- and in a big way," R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote in an online column Aug. 26.

Russell D. Moore, president of the SBC Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said the Aug. 22 ruling "demonstrates, once again, that where we are headed is the state-established religion of sexual liberation, with the law used to steamroll every conscience in the way."

According to state Supreme Court Justice Richard Boson, the Constitution protects the rights of the Christian photographers to pray to the God of their choice and follow religious teachings, but he noted that belief and practice are not the same things. Religious liberty, Boson wrote, must be subordinated to the state's anti-discrimination laws, and that the photographers -- and by extension others -- are "compelled by law to compromise the very religious beliefs that inspire their lives."

"The Huguenins today can no more turn away customers on the basis of their sexual orientation -- photographing a same-sex marriage ceremony -- than they could refuse to photograph African-Americans or Muslims," Bosson wrote. "The Huguenins have to channel their conduct, not their beliefs, so as to leave space for other Americans who believe something different. That compromise is part of the glue that holds us together as a nation, the tolerance that lubricates the varied moving parts of us as a people."

"The New Mexico Supreme Court has now made clear that the price to be paid by many is the forfeiture of their religious liberty," Mohler wrote.
Kelly Boggs, director of public affairs for the Louisiana Baptist Convention and editor of the Baptist Message, wrote in his weekly column on Baptist Press Aug. 23 that the ruling is evidence that the push "to have homosexuality accepted as natural, normal and healthy in the United States knows no compromise. 

The "moment of truth is rapidly approaching" for Christians who believe homosexuality is "an immoral, aberrant behavior," he wrote.  "The choice will be whether to capitulate to a culture that asserts, without evidence, homosexuality is natural, normal and healthy, or to insist it is sinful and suffer consequences."

Gay Marriage Does NOT Squash Religious Freedom

The Baptist Press is disseminating more disingenuous untruths about the interplay between same-sex marriage and religious freedom. Not surprisingly, the ultra-homophobic Baptist Press claims that gay marriage would limit religious freedom. In point of fact, that is the exact opposite of the truth, but since the "conservative" takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention, the truth has seldom mattered to the SBC or its mouthpiece the Baptist Press. Also, as is all too typical, the Baptist Press claims to cite "legal experts" who in fact are generally anything but and in frequently went to whacked out, non-ABA accredited religious affiliated law schools (which means they cannot even sit for the bar exam in most states), work for Christianist groups where ideology trumps legal scholarship, and make their livelihood working to further an anti-gay jihad. The Baptist Press apparently believes that its readers are such ignorant morons that they will swallow the bogus preaching hook line and sinker.

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The truth of the matter is that it is restrictions and prohibitions against gay marriage that subvert religious freedom since such laws and constitutional provisions are based on one particular intolerant religious belief. The First Amendment provides in part:

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Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, . . .

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I and many others, including some religious denominations such as the Unitarians believe that freedom of religion includes the right to marry the person of one's choice regardless of that person's gender. Under the First Amendment, my right includes not being bound by the religious views of others or some denomination to which I do not belong. None of the laws and Court rulings that have granted gay marriage or same sex civil unions require anyone to get married or enter a union not of their choice. On the other hand anti-gay marriage laws - including Virginia's "Marriage Amendment" enacted in 2006 - deprive me of my free exercise of my religious beliefs on marriage and bar me from having a CIVIL law marriage. The real agenda of the Baptist Press and other Christianist organizations and publications is to inflict THEIR intolerant religious views on all. In short, their propaganda is a lie. Here's a sample of the deliberately untrue bullshit the Baptist Press is circulating (NOTE: Matt Staver - the dean of the late Jerry Falwell's Liberty University Law School - is an extreme homophobe and has made a career for nearly two decades out of attacking gays and seeking to limit our legal civil rights):

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The goal of homosexual activists, Staver said, is to transform society so much that it views opponents of "gay marriage" in the same light it views racists."That's the agenda. It's always been the agenda," Staver said. "There is no question that if same-sex marriage becomes legal, that churches eventually will have their tax-exempt status threatened -- no question whatsoever. If churches today discriminate against race, they would not be able to have tax-exempt status today. If churches discriminate on the basis of same-sex marriage -- if it became legal -- then same-sex marriage becomes the equivalent of race, and churches would not be able to have tax-exempt status if they oppose same-sex marriage."

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Remember, we are talking about CIVIL marriage rights for gays. Thus, none of what Staver says is true. Unfortunately, neither he nor the Baptist Press care that it's untrue. It is after all , all about their rights trumping everyone else's rights. It always has been.

Wingnuts Continue to Lie About True Science and Homosexuality

As I have noted numerous times, the professional gay-haters of the "Christian" Right have a real problem when it comes to telling the truth. Especially when it comes to distorting legitimate scientific research that undermines their quest to maintain the "choice myth" as I call it. And once one Christianist organization tells the lie, others jump on the band wagon and parrot the untruth over and over again, hoping, apparently, that if the lie is repeated enough times it will some how become true.

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A case in point is the manner in which wingnuts who are crazed by gospel singer Ray Boltz's coming out are misquoting - I dare say intentionally - statements by noted geneticist Francis S. Collins. For example, both the Baptist Press in Bob Stith's monthly column on homosexuality and the even less reliable OneNewsNow, a "news" arm of the American Family Association have engaged in the dissemination of patently untrue information. Here are highlights of what Ex-Gay Watch (to which I have contributed in the past) reported on these lies:

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Working with the New Jersey Family Policy Counsel and speaking to the American Family Association’s (AFA) One News Now, ex-gay Greg Quinlan made statements on behalf of noted geneticist Francis S. Collins that were untrue — specifically that his work on the human genome project had led to the “fact” that homosexuality was 100% nurture, with absolutely no genetic component.

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As noted in that previous post, we contacted Dr. Collins last May and printed, with permission, his correction of what was falsely being credited to him by NARTH. In this latest challenge, Quinlan has accused XGW of fraud, claiming that quote was not accurate. While this accusation is absurd at best — XGW has never been seriously accused of fraudulently posting anything, let alone has this ever been shown to be the case — it seemed prudent to seek public validation of the quote’s veracity.

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Collins has now confirmed this to Warren Throckmorton, who has posted about it on his own blog. For the record, here is a message I received from Collins yesterday, after making him aware of the challenge to what we had quoted:

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Dear David, Thanks for the heads up. I am truly sorry to hear that there is a continuing effort by Mr. Quinlan and others to distort this information about genetic factors in homosexuality. The facts have not changed since the e-mail message I sent you on May 20, 2007.
Regards, Francis Collins

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The dishonesty of these self-styled "Godly Christians" never ceases to amaze me. They act as if the Commandment against false witness and lying did not exist. It demonstrates their actual contempt for the Bible they claim to worship.