Right-Wing Evangelicals are Driving Americans to Atheism

"Christian" hate group leader Tony Perkins.

This blog frequently looks at the hypocrisy of evangelical Christians - and far right Catholics - and the manner in which they are driving younger generations in particular away from religion entirely. But hypocrisy is only part of the behavior of these self-anointed "godly folk" and their professional Christian leaders engage in that increasingly makes the case that religion is a net evil in the world (my own personal view) and that "godly Christians" are actually not very nice people. Evangelicals' support of Donald Trump has merely served to underscore these attributes of "conservative Christians."  A piece in Raw Story looks at the exodus from religion and the ways evangelicals are driving more and more Americans to atheism or agnosticism.  Here are excerpts (Note the reference to The Black Collar Crime Blotter which is a must read):

If the Catholic Bishops, their Evangelical Protestant allies, and other Right-wing fundamentalists had the sole objective of decimating religious belief, they couldn’t be doing a better job of it.

Testimonials at sites like ExChristian.net show that people leave religion for a number of reasons, many of which religious leaders have very little control over. Sometimes, for example, people take one too many science classes. Sometimes they find their faith shattered by the suffering in the world – either because of a devastating injury or loss in their own lives or because they experience the realities of another person’s pain in a new way. Sometimes a believer gets intrigued by archaeology or symbology or the study of religion itself. Sometimes a believer simply picks up a copy of the Bible or Koran and discovers faith-shaking contradictions or immoralities there.

But if you read ExChristian testimonials you will notice that quite often church leaders or members do things that either trigger the deconversion process or help it along. They may turn a doubter into a skeptic or a quiet skeptic into an outspoken anti-theist, or as one former Christian calls himself, a de-vangelist.

Here are some top ways Christians push people out the Church door or shove secret skeptics out of the closet. Looking at the list, you can’t help but wonder if the Catholic Bishops and their Evangelical allies are working for the devil.

Gay Baiting. Because of sheer demographics, most gay people are born into religious families. In this country almost half are born into Bible-believing families, many of whom see homosexuality as an abomination.  The condemnation (and self-condemnation) can be excruciating, as we all know from the suicide rate.  Some emotionally battered gays spend their lives fighting or denying who they are, but many eventually find their way to open and affirming congregations or non-religious communities.

Ignorant and mean-spirited attitudes about homosexuality don’t drive just gays out of the Church, they are a huge deconversion issue for straight friends and family members. . . . . Since most people Gen X and younger recognize equal rights for gays as a matter of common humanity, gay baiting is a wedge issue that wedges young people right out of the church. 

Prooftexting.   People who think of the Bible as the literally perfect word of God love to quote excerpts to argue their points.  . . . They then proceed to quote whatever authoritarian, anti-gay, or anti-woman verse makes their point . . .Suppose such a Christian gets confronted with a verse that says, for example, Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man (Numbers 31:17-18), or No man who has any defect may come near [to God in the temple]: no man who is blind or lame, disfigured or deformed;  no man with a crippled foot or hand,  or who is a hunchback or a dwarf, or who has any eye defect, . . . (Leviticus 21:17-23).  . . . Biblical literalists, on the other hand give someone like me an excuse to talk about sexual slavery or bias against handicapped people in the Bible – in front of an audience who have been taught that the good book is uniformly good.  For a wavering believer, the dissonance can be too much. 

Misogyny. For psychological and social reasons females are more inclined toward religious belief than males.  They are more likely to attend church services and to insist on raising their children in a faith community.

Women are the Church’s base constituency, but fortunately for atheists, this fact hasn’t caused conservative Christians to back off of sexism that is justified by – you got it – prooftexting from the Old and New Testaments. . . . . Between 1991 and 2011 the percent of women attending church in a typical week dropped by eleven points, from 55 to 44 percent. 

Hypocrisy.  . . . High profile hypocrites like Ted Haggard or Rush Limbaugh may be loved by their acolytes, but for people who are teetering, they help to build a gut aversion to whatever they espouse.   But often as not, the hypocrisies that pose a threat to faith are small and internal to a single Bible-study or youth group.   Backbiting and social shunning are part of the church-lady stereotype for a reason.   They also leave a bitter taste that makes some church members stop drinking the Kool-aid.

Disgusting and Immoral Behavior.   The priest abuse scandal did more for the New Atheist movement than outspoken anti-theists like Christopher Hitchens (God is Not Great), Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion), Sam Harris (The End of Faith) or Bill Maher (Religulous) ever could. To make matters worse—or better, depending on your point of view– Bill Donohue of the Catholic League seems to be doing everything possible to fan those flames:  On top of the abuse itself, followed by cover-ups, he is now insisting that the best defense of Church property is a good offense against the victims, and has vowed to fight them “one by one.”  The Freedom from Religion Foundation publishes a bi-monthly newspaper that includes a regular feature:  The Black Collar Crime Blotter.  It features fraud, drug abuse, sex crimes and more by Protestant as well as Catholic clergy.  The obvious purpose is to move readers from Religion isn’t true to Religion isn’t benign to Religion is abhorrent and needs fighting.  Moral outrage is a powerful emotion.

Science denial. . . . . science denial doesn’t just move believers to nonbelief.  It also rallies opposition ranging from cantankerous bloggers to legal advocates.   It provides fodder for comedians and critics: “If the world was created 6000 years ago, what’s fueling your car?” It may produce some of the most far reaching opposition to religious belief, because science advocates argue that faith, even socially benign faith, is a fundamentally flawed way of knowing.  The Catholic Church, perhaps still licking wounds about Galileo (they apologized finally in the 20^th Century), has managed to avoid embarrassing and easily disproven positions on evolutionary biology.  But one could argue that their atheism-fostering positions on conception and contraception similarly rely on ignorance about or denial of biological science –in this case embryology and the basic fact that most embryos never become persons.

Political meddling. . . . The Religious Right, and now the Catholic Bishops, have brought religion into politics in the ugliest possible way short of holy war, and people who care about the greater good have taken notice.  Lists of ugly Bible verses, articles about the psychology of religion, investigative exposes about Christian machinations in D.C. or rampant proselytizing in the military and public schools –all of these are popular among political progressives because it is impossible to drive progressive change without confronting religious fundamentalism.

Intrusion.  . . . Catholic and Evangelical conservatives have made a high stakes gamble that they can regain authoritarian control over their flocks and hold onto the next generation of believers (and tithers) by asserting orthodox dogmas, making Christian belief an all or nothing proposition.. . . .  the more they resort to strict authoritarianism, insularity and strict interpretation of Iron Age texts, the more people are wounded in the name of God and the more people are outraged.  By making Christian belief an all-or-nothing proposition – they force at least some would-be believers to choose “nothing.”  Anti-theists are all too glad to help.

Tennessee Preacher-Cop calls for Execution of LGBT People

Being gay in America remains dangerous - a reality lost on gay Republicans, many of whom falsely believe their white skin and social status will protect them from the raging homophobia being fanned by the Republican Party (the 2016 GOP platform opposes same sex marriage) and the Trump/Pence regime in particular.   The unleashing, indeed encouragement, of homophobia by the current White House regime is emboldening "Christian" extremists.  Just days after the 3rd anniversary of the Pulse nightclub massacre, a group of anti-gay extremist pastors, some exhorting the execution of LGBT individuals, gathered in Orlando, Florida.  Now, media reports have revealed that one Tennessee police officer who doubles as a pastor of an extremist church, likewise wants gays executed.  One can only imagine the fate a gay stooped by this officer might suffer.  Thankfully, the local District Attorney is reviewing all cases involving this hate monger.   Here are excerpts from a CNN article:

Authorities in Tennessee are reviewing all pending cases involving a Knox County Sheriff's Office detective after he gave a sermon at his church that called for the government to execute members of the LGBTQ community.

"They are worthy of death," Grayson Fritts said in a June 2 sermon at All Scripture Baptist Church, a small church in Knoxville that he leads.

The church posted the sermon online and then removed it, according to The Washington Post. The video was picked up by the Tennessee Holler, an independent liberal news outlet, and edited into a six-minute clip.

"God has instilled the power of civil government to send the police in 2019 out to the LGBT freaks and arrest them and have a trial for them, and if they are convicted, then they are to be put to death," he said in the clip.

Fritts said it would be easy to find people to arrest at events such as gay pride parades."We have a bunch of them we're going to get convicted because they have all their pride junk on, and they're professing what they are, that they're a filthy animal," he said.

Speaking to journalists before giving a sermon last Wednesday, Fritts said his anti-LGBTQ beliefs have not interfered with his work as a law enforcement officer.

Charme Allen, the Knox County district attorney general, issued a statement calling Fritts' comments "personally offensive and reprehensible. Allen said she would review all of Fritts' pending cases and an assistant district attorney will review any complaints about closed cases involving Fritts.

"When any potential witness in a criminal proceeding expresses an opinion of hatred and/or bias towards a class of citizens, I am ethically bound to explore that witness' credibility," Allen said. "Accordingly, I am reviewing all pending cases involving Mr. Fritts to scrutinize them for any potential bias. Although my office has never received a complaint regarding Mr. Fritts prior to this incident, I have assigned an assistant district attorney to receive complaints regarding closed cases, and I will act on those complaints as justice dictates." Knox County Sheriff Tom Spangler said . . . . "I want to be very clear that it is my responsibility to ensure equal protection to ALL citizens of Knox County, Tennessee under the law, my oath and the United States Constitution without discrimination or hesitation. Rest assured that I have and will continue to do so," Spangler said in a statement, according to WATE.

The All Scripture Baptist Church website says it is "an independent, fundamental, King James Bible only, soul-winning church. Don't expect anything liberal, watered down, or contemporary here." The website is clear about the church's stance on the gay community:

"We believe that sodomy (homosexuality) is a sin that is against nature. A person will only burn in their lust toward the same gender if they have been given over to a reprobate or rejected mind. God said homosexuality should be punished with the death penalty, as set forth in Leviticus 20:13. No homosexual will be allowed to attend or join All Scripture Baptist Church." Two Knoxville public officials criticized Fritts' comments.

"I am outraged at the statements by Knox County Sheriff's Detective Grayson Fritts," Knoxville Mayor Madeline Rogero said in a statement posted on the city's website. "Fritts' statements raise concerns locally and nationally about protecting LGBTQ+ rights and equality. Fritts' statements have cast a negative light on our community making it imperative to share my personal position and the position of the City of Knoxville."

Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs also criticized Fritts, according to the Knoxville News Sentinel.

"Mr. Fritts is not my employee so I can only give my personal thoughts on the issue," Jacobs said. "I find his comments to be extremely vile and reprehensible and I strongly condemn threats of or calls for violence."

Some would argue that Fritts is an outlier, yet the Republicans in the Tennessee legislature have continued to push extreme anti-gay legislation. If your are LGBT, Tennessee is likely NOT a place to live.  Just as disturbing is the reality that leaders of extreme "Christian" groups have Trump's ear and are pushing him to implement their agenda, including the appointment of anti-gay judges.

Hate is Alive and Well: 28 Year Old Gay Man Gunned Down Amidst Homophobic Slurs

Ronald Peters - murdered last week for being  gay.

Hate crimes are up sharply since Donald Trump's election in 2016 (226% the last time I looked).  Gays are among the favored targets of hate crimes given Trump's fanning of the lie that Christians are being persecuted and that gays are the oppressors.   Straight friends likely cannot comprehend the fear one experiences when one hears homophobic slurs directed at them along with threats of violence. I've had that experience and it is beyond disturbing.  (I also was forced from a law firm for being gay and suffered deliberate anti-gay harassment by Norfolk police officers a decade plus ago).  The murder this week of  old Ronald “Trey” Peters who was merely walking to work from a public transit station in Decatur, Georgia, underscores the reality that gays continue to be targets of homophobic violence and that one's social status does not guarantee safety (something lost on my gay Republican "friends"). The Advocate looks at Peter's senseless murder.  Here are excepts:

Atlanta police are investigating if the death of a 28-year-old who was fatally shot on Tuesday in an Atlanta suburb as attackers hurled homophobic slurs was motivated by him being gay. 

Ronald “Trey” Peters was walking to work from a public transit station in Decatur when two men in a car demanded he give them his backpack. One got out of the car and confronted him.

“When Trey jerked away from him and said, ‘It’s my bag, you’re not getting it,’ the driver got out with a louder voice yelling, ‘Give him the fucking bag, fag,” witness Kevin Pickering told Atlanta TV station WGCL. “The passenger walked back toward the vehicle and the driver got out and started firing.” The young man was reportedly shot twice.

Police have classified the shooting as hate-motivated, and no arrests have been made connected to the incident, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. However, Georgia has no hate-crimes laws that cover violence motivated by sexual orientation. 

“Unfortunately, this deadly attack is not a rare or isolated event. Rather, this is the latest in a long string of hate-motivated incidents,” Allison Padilla-Goodman, the Southeast regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, said in a statement.

Peters’s death comes in the wake of at least nine trans women being murdered so far this year alone, and just days after Detroit police announced that a recent triple homicide was motivated by anti-LGBTQ sentiment.

A GoFundMe page has been set up to cover the costs of Peters’s memorial.

“[Trey] was taken from this earth in act of violence, but we will not let hate win!” the page reads. “Trey was always giving so much to others, sharing his talents and energy with those around him. He always was willing to help people and had a huge heart. Now it is our turn to give back in honor of him.”

Ultimately, justification for murdering gays traces back to the Bible, a book that is responsible for unspeakable horrors over the centuries - all done in the name of god or justified by the myths handed down from ignorant Bronze Age herders.  Peters' murder is unspeakable, but so too is the fact that so many are clinging to ignorance and and hate based on carefully selected passages from a book with unknown authors who lacked even a shred of scientific and accurate medical knowledge. 

My condolences to Peters' partner, family and friends.  As for his killers and those who fan the flames of homophobia, I hope they burn in Hell.  And yes, that includes the likes of Franklin Graham who is living proof why one might want to leave Christianity. 

Missouri Synod High School Bars Gay Valedictorian From Giving Graduation Address

Nat Werth.

Hate is alive and well at Sheboygan Lutheran High School, a private secondary school in Sheboygan, Wisconsin near the University of Wisconsin–Sheboygan campus.  The school is operated by the Lutheran High School Association of the Greater Sheboygan Area, Inc., an association of Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod congregations in the Sheboygan area.  Not to be confused with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America ("ELCA") - the good Lutherans, if you will - to which I belong, the Missouri Synod churches seek to out do the Southern Baptist Convention when it comes to embracing ignorance and directing hatred toward those who do not subscribe to the denomination's Bronze Age version of scripture.  Thus, it is no surprise that the "godly folk" at Sheboygan Lutheran High School would not allow the school's 2019 valedictorian to give the graduation address because he is gay and, heavens forbid, acknowledged that he is gay. A piece in LGBTQ Nation looks at the bigotry that sadly is the norm in the Missouri Synod and its affiliated institutions.  Here are excerpts:

A school in Wisconsin has been accused of preventing their valedictorian from delivering his speech at commencement because he’s gay.

Nat Werth graduated first in his class at Sheboygan Lutheran High School. He was going to deliver the valedictorian’s speech, until school administrators read a draft.

“On my own journey to self-acceptance, I have trekked through the depths of depression, found that God’s love is endless, and embraced the fact that I’m gay,” Werth planned to say in his speech.

“Absolutely no one should have to go through what I have gone through simply to come to the conclusion that homosexuality is not a sin. God created everyone just the way they are and never intended for the church to disenfranchise an entire group of people.”

The speech went on to say that homophobic readings of the Bible are “outdated, mistranslated, or misinterpreted in their respectively Biblical, cultural, and historical contexts.”

“The Bible mentions ‘love’ over 500 times,” Werth’s speech continued. “I sincerely believe that the next generation of Christians will eradicate homophobia in the church and proclaim God’s love to the LGBT community.”

Werth said that when he handed in the draft he “wanted to work together” with the administration to make a speech that they would approve of, but they said that they didn’t “trust” him to deliver anything they could agree to.

So he had to watch the salutatorian deliver a speech in his stead.

This isn’t the first time Werth has faced discrimination at his school. He said that he was banned from joining the dance team because he’s a boy and that teachers said on multiple occasions that homosexuality is an “abomination.”

The school’s executive director, Paul Gnan, did not comment on this situation but said that the school’s policies are based on biblical principles.

“It’s degrading and it makes a person feel terrible about themselves,” Werth told WISN.
He said that he took his story to the media because “I don’t want anyone to have to go through what I went through again in the future.”

As the school executive director stated, hate, bigotry and discrimination are "biblical values" at Sheboygan Lutheran High School.  It is a shame that Werth's parents sent him to such a reprehensible school that seems fixated on turning out closed minded bigots for graduates.  Anyone seeking to share their outrage with the school can use this contact information:  Sheboygan Lutheran High School, 3323 University Drive, Sheboygan, WI 53081; (920) 452-3323

Fax (920) 452-1310.

Methodist Vote Reminds Us of the Bigotry of "Conservative" Christianity

Click image to enlarge.

Nowadays, I often believe that two books have created more misery and horrors throughout history than all others.  In first place is the Bible.  It's main challenger, the Koran.  Both have been utilized to justify the mistreatment and murder of others and the subjugation of women and the marginalization of minorities. Rather than supporting love towards others and unity, they engender hatred and division. The recent vote of the United Methodist Church general conference re-enforced this reality as the forces of hatred and bigotry prevailed. Fortunately, in the USA, Canada and much of Europe, the younger generations are walking away from organized religion and, with luck, Christianity - especially the "conservative" variety - will become a religion observed by a shrinking minority of the population and lose its ability to promote evil.  A piece in The Advocate reminds us that we must continue to oppose the hate and misogyny that conservative Christianity promotes.  Here are excerpts:

Movements of resistance have always recognized that our individual and collective power is a deeply spiritual reality. In the midst of fighting to overturn oppression, queer and trans people have known how to find joy and create pleasure and build connections that sustain even in times of crises and death. We have not lost sight of the holy in our flesh or the sacred in our stories. We have withstood incredible violence and fostered love in its midst. When so much power in marginalized communities is born from these spiritual capacities, it’s no wonder religion is so often co-opted by dominant forces and turned against us.

Ironically enough, in the United Methodist Church, we take vows to “resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.” For many LGBTQIA people, this has long and necessarily included holding the church accountable for its own forms of violence, including but certainly not limited to anti-LGBTQ practices and policies.

I have committed myself, along with others, to the work of unlearning, unteaching, and resisting the kinds of words and ideas about faith that destroy lives and communities. Over the last few decades, the movement to create positive change for LGBTQIA people in the church has grown considerably. Currently in the UMC, despite the prohibitions against our love and leadership, we have almost 300 openly LGBTQ clergy people and nearly 1,000 communities and congregations that have pledged their support and solidarity.

[M]any people were hoping, even expecting, that the United Methodist Church would follow the trend of other Protestant denominations and loosen restrictions against full inclusion of queer and trans people. But as much as we might love the idea that time is progress, the denomination’s global decision-making body met last month in St. Louis and reminded all of us that sometimes #ItGetsWorse.

At this special global gathering called specifically to find “a way forward” on the church’s conflict over its discriminatory policies, the body voted to pass the “Traditional Plan” in favor of tightening sanctions on LGBTQIA clergy and those who officiate or host same-sex weddings. Further, none of the theological teachings of the church were made less harmful, much less overturned, sending a deeply painful message to the queer and trans people hoping to hear the church turn toward love.

Last month, a long history of white supremacy, colonialism, patriarchy, and cisheterosexism was neither confronted nor transformed in the United Methodist Church. The climax to a 46-year “disagreement” on LGBTQ inclusion was the obvious unfolding of inadequately unaddressed legacies of power -- the same ones that undergird all of the major institutions in this country.

Queer and trans people within and outside of the church will feel the costs. Many will leave or be forced to leave their places of spiritual belonging. Others will still stay and continue to fight for their lives and the lives of those who came before and will come after. And even more who rightfully want nothing to do with any church will still be unjustly affected, knowingly and not.

The United Methodist Church and its renewed commitment to the exclusion of LGBTQIA people is both harrowing and unexceptional in its impact. Whether we are within or without, religious or not, it beckons all of us to simply remember the real work before us that belongs to all of us: confronting Christian and white supremacy, overturning misogyny, building possibilities of gender and sexual liberation.

United Methodist Church on Edge of Breakup Over Gays

Demonstrators at UMC General Conference.

First it was the Episcopal Church, then it was the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America , a/k/a the ELCA (to which I remain a member), and now it is the United Methodist Church which is about to tear itself apart over the issue of gays, sames sex marriage and LGBT clergy.  In the case of the first two denominations, those who chose to cling to the Bronze Age myths and legends found in selected passages of the Old Testament left their denomination. Here in Virginia Episcopalians found themselves caught in legal battles with elements aligning with African Anglican archbishops (some of whom seemingly authorized anti-Muslim massacres) over ownership of church properties (the break away elements lost) and large ELCA parishes aligned themselves with the Southern Baptist want to be Lutheran Missouri Synod. Fox News looks at the impending schism which is more personal to me since a college and law school classmate is one of the pro-gay delegates at the United Methodist Church General Conference in St. Louis.  Here are article highlights (note how the "conservatives" are aligned with African segments of the UMC which, like the Anglicans rely on ignorance and lack of education of the populace to cling to power and control):

The United Methodist Church teetered on the brink of breakup Monday after more than half the delegates at an international conference voted to maintain bans on same-sex weddings and ordination of gay clergy.

Their favored plan, if formally approved, could drive supporters of LGBT inclusion to leave America's second-largest Protestant denomination.

A final vote on rival plans for the church's future won't come until Tuesday's closing session, and the outcome remains uncertain. But the preliminary vote Monday showed that the Traditional Plan, which calls for keeping the LGBT bans and enforcing them more strictly, had the support of 56 percent of the more than 800 delegates attending the three-day conference in St. Louis.

The primary alternative proposal, called the One Church Plan, was rebuffed in a separate preliminary vote, getting only 47 percent support. Backed by a majority of the church's Council of Bishops in hopes of avoiding a schism, it would leave decisions about same-sex marriage and ordination of LGBT clergy up to regional bodies and would remove language from the church's law book asserting that "the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching."

Monday's voting did not kill the One Church Plan but makes its prospects on Tuesday far more difficult.

As evidence of the deep divisions within the faith, delegates Monday approved plans that would allow disaffected churches to leave the denomination while keeping their property.

Formed in a merger in 1968, the United Methodist Church claims about 12.6 million members worldwide, including nearly 7 million in the U.S. While other mainline Protestant denominations, such as the Episcopal and Presbyterian (U.S.A.) churches, have embraced the two gay-friendly practices, the Methodist church still officially bans them, even though acts of defiance by pro-LGBT clergy have multiplied and talk of a possible breakup has intensified.

The strong showing for the Traditional Plan reflects the fact that the UMC, unlike other mainstream Protestant churches in the U.S., is a global denomination. About 43 percent of the delegates in St. Louis are from abroad, mostly from Africa, and overwhelmingly support the LGBT bans.

"We Africans are not children in need of Western enlightenment when it comes to the church's sexual ethics," the Rev. Jerry Kulah, dean at a Methodist theology school in Liberia, said in a speech over the weekend. "We stand with the global church, not a culturally liberal church elite in the U.S."

Like the Roman Catholic Church, long term, the UMC seems bent on becoming a smaller, Africa based church. With anti-gay positions being the largest driver of Millennials from organized religion, expect the conservative remants of the UMC to shrink even more over time.

Gays Can't Be "Converted" - Exposing the "Ex-Gay" Lie

This weekend the movie "Boy Erased" opens in a few Hampton Roads theaters.  Based on a true story and with the star power of Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe, I sincerely hope that some who most need to see this movie but are most likely not to see it will open their minds enough to buy a ticket and see the movie (find tickets here).  Trying to change the unchangeable inflicts severe emotional and psychological harm and can lead to suicide attempts since death is the only way to end something that cannot be changed.  Growing up with "my secret" I cannot count the number of times that I contemplated suicide. On two occasions, I acted on the thoughts, one incident putting me in Norfolk General after taking a bottle of Xanax tablets.  No one should feel driven to that point, yet that is what the "ex-gay" lie has driven many to feel.  Indeed, estimates that some 700,000 individuals have been the victims of ex-gay "conversion therapy" which needs to be illegal.  A piece in The Advocate recounts the experiences of a victim of this fraudulent and dangerous practice who, like myself, found that part of the solution to find inner peace was distancing himself from religion.  Here are highlights:

Growing up religious, it was this new experience for me to come out as gay. After I did, I left religion behind. I felt that I had to choose one or the other. I was just living my life. I had a partner. We bought a house together at 18 years old. But then we broke up. This is the time just before the big recession. Of course, I was sad and depressed. I end up losing my job. Things weren't going well. I then started to think maybe it's because I have strayed away from my religion. I'm experiencing all this because I've turned away from God. I ended up talking with a roommate, who was a very religious person and actually wasn't fully comfortable living with two gay people. But she and I started just talking more and reading our Bibles. Then I finally decided I was going to this conference.

I was living in Kansas City, but I went to a “Pray the Gay Away” conference in Nebraska. After that, I was completely messed up. Everything they talked about was exactly what I experienced. I need to be straight again, I thought. I decided to start the process. I lived the straight life for about three to four years.

The conference was affiliated with Exodus International. It was at a really large church in Omaha. I remember seeing protesters, which I thought was interesting at the time. That must have been part of an LGBTQ rights group trying to sway people from going. The conference itself was very morose. It was almost this sadness that existed in the air, that everyone was there either because they were inflicted with this sin or to try to help someone overcome this sickness.

Everything was stereotypes. They focused on how your dad wasn't a prominent figure in your life, and your mother really was. You've taken on that idea of just being matronly and you therefore think that you want to be with a guy. At the time that made sense. That was the one that I related with the most; this absent, non-prominent father figure.

After that, I surrounded myself with other strong-minded individuals that felt this could also happen. I was connecting more with my roommate’s family. I ended up moving from Kansas City down to Birmingham, Ala., to literally put myself in a community where I would be confronted.

Then I went to a private Baptist college. I had done my associate's degree in Kansas City and then transferred to Samford University. That helped me too, because I would talk with the counselors about my gay experience and trying to be straight. They would help me try to fight off temptations and continue to remind me to be strong and pray. I started going to church very regularly.

But I did have these times when I would fall. I would watch porn and lust over another guy. There were a couple times that I would engage in activity with another guy. We didn't get too far in our escapades. But we would always feel awful and sick; both of us. I was with another person who was also going through the same thing. I remember with that person that happened one more time and he's like, we can't see each other anymore — this has to stop because we're awful people.

It wasn't until starting to leave Samford when I was finishing up my senior year that something switched. I've been praying and praying and praying for years to change, and I've changed my whole life around from what it was. I should be in God's good graces. I didn't get it; it didn't make sense that I'm still feeling this way. I still have these feelings when I've asked God to take them away from me.

Then I started wrestling with those thoughts and finally telling others about them. I heard there are several men going through this exact same thing here on campus. What? I literally thought I was the only one on campus dealing with this. I started scouting them out. I learned of someone — he lived in the hall across from me and was an active member of my church who I really respected. He was who I looked up to, as far as being the ultimate heterosexual who's found this amazing alignment with God and his religion. His whole life seemed peaceful. I learned he was struggling with being gay and I was baffled. That turned my life upside down.

After leaving Samford, I didn't come out again as gay for seven months. It took a lot of people around me just telling me "you're gay" to be okay enough with life to accept it again. It's like you retrace your steps. You've had these thoughts for a long time. You've really felt this way. At one point it seemed fine — just being around other gay people helped, because I completely isolated myself from anything LGBTQ-friendly. I made them the enemy. Then I let that back in to my life and was seeing how it's okay; it's normal.

Now, I would just consider myself non-religious. 

I know today we have unity churches and different sects of churches that didn't even exist back then. I know that those places are out there and accepting of LGBTQ people, but I don't see myself becoming a Christian again.

Telling my mom I was gay was awful. And then when I told her that I was straight, she had just gotten used to the fact that I was gay and started to embrace it. Then when I told her I was gay again, she was like, "Oh, thank God. I’m so glad you finally realize." She saw I was not being myself. So now even my mom and dad are supportive.

What is so sad to me is that the entire right wing Christian insistence that being gay is wrong tracks directly to their fear of admitting that a few fragmentary passages in the Old Testament - passages that literally originated with uneducated herders - are wrong.  They will go to any lengths and and inflict all kinds of harm on others rather than admit that their belief system is based on unproven myths and legends. Thankfully, the author of the piece did the right thing and walked away for a toxic and malignant force. 

Fox News and the Growing Ugliness of Evangelical Christianity

Two pieces look at the growing ugliness of Evangelical Christianity. One is a column at NBC News by a Christian author and the other is in the New York Times.  Both in their own way point a finger at one of the causes of the seemingly mushrooming hate and hypocrisy that define evangelical Christianity in America.  Both also note evangelical support of Roy Moore a symptom of the malignancy evangelicals have become in the political area where the gospel's social directives have been thrown on the trash heap despite the feigned piety and religiosity of far too many evangelicals.  The NBC News column states in part as follows:

This is not Christianity. Rather, it is an extreme Republican religionism that stands by party and regressive policy no matter what. It's not the gospel of Christ, but a gospel of greed. It is the religion of racism and lies, not the religion of redemption and love.

[E]ven before these allegations [of Moore's sexual assaults] made national headlines, it was clear that Moore’s policy agenda endangered the children of Alabama and this nation. This man, who wants to be Alabama’s next Senator, wants to repeal Obamacare, making it health care inaccessible for millions, in Alabama and elsewhere. He has said Islam is a "false religion" homosexual conduct "should be illegal." and curtail equal protection under the law for gay and transgender people. Moore supports a tax plan that would hurt the poor and working poor.

In short, Moore’s political agenda presents a credible threat to millions of vulnerable people in America. Yet Moore claims to be the moral and Christian candidate, using religion as U.S. slave masters did before him to justify actions which fly in the face of Christ's teachings. Like segregationists, Moore imagines the struggle for equality in America as a story of loss. At a revival meeting earlier this week, Moore complained that he was being persecuted. He also lamented the fact that the courts took prayer out of schools in 1962 and made a cryptic and confusing reference to “new rights” created in 1965, the year the Voting Rights Act was signed. Some members of the congregation responded, “Amen!”

As well as he knows his Bible, Roy Moore never quotes from the more than 2,000 verses that exhort us to care for the poor, the sick, and the stranger in our midst. He has apparently overlooked the prophet Isaiah, who said to men like Moore in his own day: “Doom to you who legislate evil, who make laws that make victims — laws that make misery for the poor, that rob the destitute of their dignity, exploiting defenseless widows, taking advantage of homeless children” (Is.10:1-4).

So who is preaching this Republican religionism that the author condemns?  Fox News, Breitbart, Rush Limbaugh and a host of other right wing "news" outlets. To watch Fox News is to witness an alternate reality that has no regard for those who do not worship at the Republican/Christofascist altar. The column in the New York Times does so far as to describe Fox News viewing as the new form of worship for many evangelicals.  Here are excerpts:

Kaitlyn Schiess has a sterling evangelical pedigree. She grew up in evangelical churches in Colorado and Virginia and graduated from Liberty University before entering Dallas Theological Seminary last year to prepare for a career in the church. But lately she has been frustrated by evangelicals’ failure to challenge the prejudice and predation in their midst.

To Ms. Schiess, this [evangelicals' defense of Roy Moore] is one more sign that a new ritual has superseded Sunday worship and weeknight Bible studies: a profane devotional practice, with immense power to shape evangelicals’ beliefs. This “liturgy” is the nightly consumption of conservative cable news. Liberals love to complain about conservatives’ steady diet of misinformation through partisan media, but Ms. Schiess’s complaint is more profound: Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson aren’t just purveyors of distorted news, but high priests of a false religion.

“The reason Fox News is so formative is that it’s this repetitive, almost ritualistic thing that people do every night,” Ms. Schiess told me. “It forms in them particular fears and desires, an idea of America. This is convincing on a less than logical level, and the church is not communicating to them in that same way.”

Social scientists have documented our tendency to reject reliable evidence if it challenges our beliefs. Hours of tearful victims’ testimony will not deter evangelicals who see Roy Moore as the latest Christian martyr persecuted by the liberal establishment. “Their loyalties are much more strongly formed by conservative media than their churches,” Ms. Schiess said.
 [T]he church is not doing its job. Humans thrive on ritual and collective acts of devotion. And the way we worship has political consequences. It shapes our response to evil and our reaction to people different from ourselves.
 Some evangelicals have grown so frustrated with their tradition’s captivity to a particular brand of politics — and the idolatries of white supremacy and the free market — that they have proposed a radical withdrawal from both Moral Majority-style activism and modern consumer culture. Worship, after all, is not just something that happens in church.
 When the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. observed that 11 o’clock on a Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America, he was acknowledging the special power that ritual and community have to stoke or weaken both love and hatred. There is no substitute for sharing the bread and wine — the climax of the Christian liturgy — with people unlike yourself, Ms. Schiess said. She called for fighting false idols with right worship: “Fox News forms a fear, a caricature of other people; if communion were done in churches with diverse populations, it would counteract that fear.”
 [W]orship should be an act of humility, not hubris. It should be a discomfiting experience, not a doubling down on what’s easy and familiar. The battle for the soul of evangelicalism, the struggle to disentangle it from white supremacy, from misogyny — and from the instinct to defend politicians like Roy Moore — demands sound arguments grounded in evidence.

I for one think that Christianity is moribund in America and that evangelicals and fundamentalists will be the factions of Christianity that kill it in the eyes of decent, moral people who perhaps unwittingly follow the gospel message more consistently than most Christians, especially evangelicals. 

North Carolina’s Bait-and-Switch on HB2

Faced with continued economic hemorrhaging, and an ultimatum by the NCAA, North Carolina has passed a supposed repeal of HB2, a toxic anti-transgender law that also attacked many other civil rights of minorities in that state.  The problem is that what was passed and signed into law is not a full repeal of HB2.  It's not even close to a full repeal.  North Carolina Republics still put appeasing one of the foulest elements of society - so-called "Conservative Christians" - ahead of the best interests of the state as a whole.  Hopefully, the NCAA and others will see that the new legislation is a farce and will continue the boycott of North Carolina and openly rebuke the state for continuing to legalize discrimination.  Religion has absolutely no place in public laws or public policy, especially when the beliefs fostered are based on fear and hatred of others.  Time will tell if this legislative attempt is seen for what it it is: a disingenuous attempt to dupe the NCAA and others.  Here are highlights from a New York Times main editorial that trashes this false repeal effort:

Facing a deadline to do away with a law that turned North Carolina into a national pariah by denying the right of transgender people to use public restrooms of their choice, state lawmakers rashly settled on a terrible compromise.

On Thursday, they repealed the law in name but not in substance, hoping to assuage organizations and employers that have boycotted the state to protest its discriminatory law. The National Collegiate Athletic Association had given state politicians until Thursday to get rid of the law before it would resume holding championship games in the state.

All those who have taken a principled stance against the law, known as H.B. 2, should stand firm. The law’s revision would deprive North Carolinians of protection from discrimination for years, and retains the odious notion that transgender people are inherently dangerous.

“We can never compromise on fundamental civil rights,” William Barber II, the president of the state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said in a call with journalists Thursday morning. “It was never just a bathroom bill. It’s a bill that discriminates against so many people in so many ways.”

The original. . . . law mandated that transgender people use restrooms that matched the gender marker listed on their birth certificate, and barred localities from enacting laws to protect gays, lesbians and transgender people from discrimination.

It’s mystifying that Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat whose narrow election in November was seen as something of a referendum on H.B. 2, would regard the amended law as a suitable compromise. The repeal law did away with the birth certificate requirement, which was unenforceable all along because it would have turned law enforcement officials into genital inspectors. But it bars schools and other government entities from adopting policies allowing transgender people to use the restroom of their choice. And it still prohibits anti-discrimination ordinances until 2020.

He and other Democrats who supported the compromise said they concluded that a modest step toward undoing the law was the best they could hope for while Republicans have veto-proof majorities in the legislature. That is misguided. The deal was struck days after The Associated Press reported that the backlash against the law would cost North Carolina at least $3.7 billion in business over 12 years.

Getting employers and organizations to steer business and jobs to North Carolina should require more than window dressing. State officials must address the underlying problem: a law that enshrines discrimination against minorities and perpetuates harmful stereotypes about transgender people. Until they do, business as usual will represent an endorsement of bigotry and intolerance.

 The husband and I will continue our avoidance of visiting or spending money in North Carolina.  The embrace of bigotry has to made to bear a heavy price. 

Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship USA to Purge Gay-Friendly Staff

We hear the Christofascists constantly rail against Islam and, of course, ISIS.  Yet, but for the level of violence they employ, these same "godly Christians"are just as intolerant and driven by contempt of those who believe differently as are Islamic extremists.  Hatred of others and discrimination against "non-believers" are a common theme and characteristic.  A case in point is Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship USA which has announced that it will purge all staff who do not adhere to the organization's virulent opposition to gay rights and, same sex marriage in particular. Since the organization has chapters on some 667 college campuses, one can only hope that its discriminatory views will lead to loss of university funding and/or qualification for use of college/university facilities.  Time magazine looks at the new jihad against those who support same sex CIVIL marriage.  Here are highlights:

One of the largest evangelical organizations on college campuses nationwide has told its 1,300 staff members they will be fired if they personally support gay marriage or otherwise disagree with its newly detailed positions on sexuality starting on Nov. 11.

InterVarsity Christian Fellowship USA says that it will start a process for “involuntary terminations” for any staffer who comes forward to disagree with its positions on human sexuality, which holds that any sexual activity outside of a husband and wife is immoral.

“We internally categorize these as involuntary terminations due to misalignment with InterVarsity ministry principles, which is a category we use for people who leave for theological and philosophy of ministry disagreements,” Greg Jao, an InterVarsity vice president and director of campus engagement, told TIME in an email.

InterVarsity has also said that staffers should only share views publicly that are consistent with its positions, though it’s unclear if that means someone could be fired for posting on Facebook, for example. Outlined in an internal 20-page paper, the positions include injunctions against divorce and sex before marriage, though critics say the biggest effect will be among younger staffers who support gay marriage—in essence, making it something of a theological purge.

Bianca Louie, 26, led the InterVarsity campus fellowship at Mills College, a women’s liberal arts school in Oakland and her alma mater. When it became clear several months ago that the policy would go into effect, Louie realized she had to leave, after four years of working with the group. She is not sure what will happen to the outreach she and others worked to create at Mills. “I don’t know how InterVarsity can do ministry on campus with integrity anymore,” she says. “Mills is a women’s college with inclusive trans policies, and higher ed is overall making more efforts to be inclusive and safe for LGBTQ students. … I could see us getting kicked off campus because of this.”

Louie and about ten other InterVarsity staff formed an anonymous Queer Collective earlier this year to organize on behalf of staff, students, and alumni who felt unsafe under the new policy.

InterVarsity has more than 1,000 chapters on 667 college campuses around the country. More than 41,000 students and faculty were actively involved in organization in the last school year, and donations topped $80 million last fiscal year.

In its description of sexual attraction, identity, and behavior, the paper states, “Scripture is very clear that God’s intention for sexual expression is to be between a husband and wife in marriage. Every other sexual practice is outside of God’s plan and therefore is a distortion of God’s loving design for humanity.”

The position paper also outlined theological positions against divorce, sex before marriage, pornography, cohabitation and sexual abuse, but the practical application of the study focused on implications for the LGBTQ community. The July letter states: “We expect that all staff will ‘believe and behave in a manner consonant with our “Theological Summary of Human Sexuality” paper,’ as described by the Code of Conduct.

InterVarsity’s decision reaches beyond just its campus ministry. InterVarsity Press, a division of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, is a prominent evangelical publisher that has published bestsellers like J.I. Packer’s Knowing God, John Stott’s Basic Christianity, and many theological commentaries and biblical reference books used at evangelical colleges. “InterVarsity employment policies are for all employees, including employees of InterVarsity Press,” . . .

Evangelicals are increasingly divided over gay marriage, and support is rising, especially in the younger generations. One in four white evangelicals support gay marriage, according to the Pew Research Center, more than double the support from ten years ago, and nearly half of millennial evangelicals favor or strongly favor gay marriage.

The move is also another sign of a trend in evangelical circles for stricter orthodoxy.

For Ginny Prince, 32, the consequences of the new policy are very difficult to discuss. Until last week, she was an assistant area director near Oakland, and had worked for InterVarsity for seven years. She is an LGBTQ ally—and she has a transgender child. Already, she says, her husband has walked away from the faith largely because of how the church has dealt with the LGBTQ community. She knew she had to tell her supervisor she did not support the new policy. “This was very painful for everybody,” Prince says. “I got fired … I sent an email and said, I cannot align, and I think that this policy is discriminatory, and I cannot align. That was it. We cried, we cried really hard my last day.”

As noted, I hope the organization finds itself kicked off of many campuses.  The other irony is that among the under 30 generations, young adults are leaving religion in droves with anti-LGBT bigotry being a commonly cited reason for walking away from Christianity.  This bigoted move will likely accelerate this trend an, with luck, will hasten the death of conservative Christianity in America. 

Quote of the Day: Americans Are Growing Hostile to Religious Bullies

To hear the professional Christian set and the scamvangelists one would think that open war has been declared against Christians in America.  The shrieks and claims of victim hood and persecution are ridiculous for many reasons, not the least of which is that a large majority of Americans continue to identify as Christian.  The other reason, of course, is that nothing has been done to limit Christians' ability to worship as they desire and to believe what they wish without having to support an official state religion - the actual true intention of the Founding Fathers.  What has changed is that no longer are Americans willing to give undeserved deference to hateful religious views and to allow the Pharisee-like "godly folk" to ride rough shod over the rights and lives of others.  A piece in Patheos sums up the situation well:

No one is trying to stop you from being a Christian. The country is not growing hostile towards Christians. It’s just growing hostile towards extremist, religious bullies, who are trying to hijack the nation and force everyone to live under their own set of morals and ethics.

Growing hostile towards that kind of nonsense is not the same thing as growing hostile towards Christianity. It’s not even close.

Perhaps the most amusing aspect of this quest for “religious rights” is the sheer hypocrisy of it all. When the LGBTQ rights movement first got underway, religious conservatives sounded the alarm bells saying, “They don’t want equal rights, they want special rights!” When those on the religious right realized that we have neighbors who are– gasp– Muslim, they say, “Fine, let them have a mosque in certain places we approve, but we have to fight against them trying to make us all live under their religious laws.”

And then, they turn from those discussions and do the very thing they condemned just moments before– they demand special rights, and demand that their religious code influence the laws that everyone else is governed by.

This is precisely the kind of thing that made Jesus throw up his hands and shout, “You hypocrites! You blind guides!” over and over again in the Gospels.

If our friends on the religious right think we’re growing hostile, it’s because it’s true. But no, it’s not because we’re growing hostile towards the practice of our own religion, or hostile towards religious liberty.

We’re just growing hostile towards hypocrites and religious bullies who aren’t content to just live their lives the way they please, but who instead seek to impose their extremist beliefs on the rest of us.

As I have said countless times, it is the Christofascist who are demanding special rights, not the LGBT community. 

Botswana Deports Anti-LGBT American Pastor

Sadly, here in America, religion gets huge amounts of undeserved deference.  Hate is allowed to parade in public and "men of god" are free to encourage violence against others.  Equally disturbing is the manner in which politicians, especially Republicans, prostitute themselves to hate merchants standing behind a pulpit and by default normalize the misogyny they advocate.  Thankfully, in deporting anti-LGBT U.S. pastor Steven Anderson the government of Botswana demonstrated how such foul individuals should be treated. No deference, no respect, and no platform to poison others with their hatred of others. The Washington Blade looks at Anderson's deportation.  Here are excerpts:

The government of Botswana announced on Tuesday it has deported an anti-LGBT U.S. pastor from the country.

Steven Anderson told a Botswana radio station during an interview on Tuesday that the government should kill gays and lesbians. He also described the victims of the Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando, Fla., as “disgusting homosexuals who the Bible says were worthy of death.”

Botswana immigration officers were with Anderson when he left the radio station.

Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals of Botswana said it received a report that Anderson assaulted someone who attended his church service on Monday. The advocacy group wrote on its blog that Anderson called the person “a fag, a homosexual and with a mouth full of AIDS” before he was forcibly removed.

Anderson, who is a pastor at the Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Ariz., arrived in Botswana on Sept. 15. The government of neighboring South Africa announced earlier this month that it had banned him from entering the country.

A State Department official referred the Washington Blade to the Botswana government for comment “on their policy regarding individuals affiliated with the Faithful World Baptist Church.”

Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals of Botswana criticized the government from allowing Anderson into the country. The group nevertheless applauded the decision to deport him and “in the process defended its citizens.” "We applaud the people of Botswana who have stood with us to protect, defend and promote human rights in our country,” said Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals of Botswana.

Note that South Africa banned Anderson from entering that nation.   Perhaps one of the biggest ironies is the way Christofacists condemn the Koran and say it's a message of hate, yet then cite the Old Testament of Bible - also a message of hate - to justify similar bigotry and violence.

Confronting Religion, The Source of Anti-LGBT Animus

I continue to feel a general malaise since the massacre at Pulse in Orlando, which has been followed by new assaults on LGBT Americans through the GOP's adoption of the most anti-LGBT platform EVER.  Now, this evening we have seen our own possibly American version of Hitler or Stalin accept the nomination as the Republican presidential nominee.   It is a frightening time to be an American.  It is perhaps even a more frightening time to be an LGBT American despite the strides that have been made in recent years.  Indeed, LGBT people will never be safe and fully equal until we and our allies confront the root cause of homophobia and anti-LGBT animus: religion, especially fundamentalist religions.  My August column in VEER Magazine - which is longer than usual - looks at this issue and what needs to be done.  Pick up a copy on local Hampton Roads newsstands.  For those who are not locals, the following are some excerpts from the column:

Like so many in the LGBT community, I have found myself profoundly shaken by the massacre last month at Pulse, a gay dance club in Orlando, Florida.  When my husband and I travel, we often enjoy going to local gay dance clubs in the cities that we are visiting, be it New York City, Key West, Ft. Lauderdale, or last year, a club called Raidd in Paris, France.  Though worlds apart in some ways such clubs have a common trait: they offer a refuge in a still too homophobic world.  They offer a place to dance, talk with friends and to have fun. While I had never visited Pulse, we know a number of people who had visited.  We also have a friend who lost someone he knew in the carnage that took place during the early hours of June 12, 2016.
 What happened at Pulse sadly could have happened at any gay club, including clubs here in Hampton Roads.  And, if one looks at history, over the years at least twenty five (25) attacks have taken place against gay clubs, although not on the scale of the Pulse massacre.  The most notable was in 1973 at the Upstairs Lounge in New Orleans where 32 individuals lost their lives. Closer to home, in 2000 an attack on the Backstreet Cafe in Roanoke, Virginia, one person died and six were wound.  The shooter's motivation in the Roanoke attack?  To kill some "faggots" - seemingly the same as that of the shooter in Orlando.   All of these incidents stand as a reminder that if one is LGBT, hatred toward you is always lurking in the hearts of those who would happily commit violence.   Conveniently for Republican politicians and those I call Christofascists, America's homegrown answer to the Taliban, to whom these Republican politicians regularly prostitute themselves, the shooter at Pulse pledged allegiance to ISIS.  This allowed them to quickly blame Islam and "radical Islamic extremists" and to ignore the root cause of homophobia and anti-LGBT animus in America: religion, especially fundamentalist Christianity. Numerous pastors and “professional Christians” like Pat Robertson and anti-gay hate group leaders Tony Perkins and James Dobson stepped forward to make this religious based animus all too visible following the Orlando tragedy.  Some of them implied that the gays and their allies who died at Pulse "deserved" what happened to them.  Others went further and even bemoaned the fact that there had been any survivors at all.  And some advocated for the government to execute LGBT citizens. Some statements even repeated the deliberate lie that most gays are pedophiles - in truth the vast majority of those who molest children are heterosexual males - and suggested the world was now safer for children.  At the same time that some American Christians were making their animus to LGBT people shockingly obvious, others engaged in strenuous efforts to avoid condemnation of Bible based anti-gay hatred even as they condemned that found in Islam.  . . . . . Nowhere does it mention the fact that Leviticus predated the Quran by roughly 2100 years.  The Quran and hadiths were not authored in a vacuum and, sadly, the misogyny of the Bible and in more recent centuries, Christian missionaries and colonial regimes found their way into Islam. Another effort to apologize for religious based hatred can be found in Pope Francis' comment to journalists that Christians and the Roman Catholic Church needed to "apologize to gays and should seek forgiveness from homosexuals for the way they have treated them."  The problem with Francis' nice words is that when he has had the opportunity to dramatically change Catholic dogma and doctrine on gays he has done nothing and backed down in a cowardly fashion to the ugliest homophobes in the Church hierarchy.  Likewise, Francis ignored his own past attacks against gays, equating gay marriage and adoption by gay couples with the work of the Devil, and declaring that gay marriage was a “destructive attack on God’s plan.” 

 We cannot allow these subterfuges and insincere apologies to succeed.  I hope the Orlando massacre has set the stage for a long overdue discussion about the role of Christianity in anti-gay animus.  Likewise, those I call the "good Christians" - i.e., akin the "good Germans" at the time of Hitler's rise to power – must face the complicity they bear in keeping anti-gay animus alive and well and socially acceptable.  I call this Christians "good Christians" because, like their German counterparts of roughly 85 years ago, they stand by silently as their churches and pastors preach anti-gay hatred even as they themselves claim to not agree with the anti-gay diatribes. Despite such protestations - almost always made in private conversations - these Christians continue to financially support the very same churches and "family values" organizations that daily promote hatred and reject modern knowledge while clinging to a few passages written roughly 3400-3500 years ago by unknown Bronze Age authors who would be deemed utterly ignorant by today's standards of knowledge.  

In my opinion, it is long past time that these "good Christians" cease being given a pass for their complicity in funding and supporting homophobic denominations, church hierarchies, and pastors.  They need to either become part of the solution or they need to be confronted for their role in keeping hate and homophobia alive.  Will these people like the confrontation?  Most assuredly not.  Like most of us, they will not like to be forced to candidly analyze their beliefs and/or cease their sheep like following of church leaders. The favored phrase of "love the sinner, hate the sin" needs to be challenged head on for the disingenuous lie that it is.  The implicit support of hate and homophobia must be challenged.  

However, "good Christians" are not the only ones who need to be held accountable.  The Republican Party needs to be held accountable for its role in cynically keeping anti-gay hatred alive and well and politically acceptable.  Over the last year, roughly two hundred (200) anti-gay bills have been introduced in states across America in reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court's same sex marriage ruling in 2015.  All of these bills have been almost unanimously backed by Republican elected officials only too happy to seek political favor at the expense of the lives and dignity of LGBT Americans. 

If you find yourself falling into the "good Christian" category, perhaps it's time to cease your silence.  Consider (i) speaking out against homophobes, (ii) confronting anti-LGBT clergy, and/or (iii) ceasing your financial contributions until your church ends its homophobic teachings (make sure the church leadership knows why you are taking the action).  If need be, find a new church that does not espouse homophobia and the marginalization of LGBT lives. Such actions may be scary and uncomfortable, but unless you take them, you will be complicit in the hatred and violence based on slavish adherence to a handful of Bible passages - even as the balance of Leviticus, including dictates against wearing clothes of two different fabrics, planting multiple crops, eating "unclean" foods and other supposed "abominations," are utterly ignored by Christian denominations.