Pope Francis Warns of ‘Culture of Hate’ Targeting LGBT People

Pope Francis remains utterly inconsistent on the treatment of LGBT individuals.  He recently hatred directed at LGBT individuals and stated that that government leaders targeting LGBT people remind him of the Nazis.  Yet at the same time, the Roman Catholic Church's dogma that demonizes gays and refers to us as "intrinsically disordered."  I'm sorry, but Francis doesn't get to have it both ways especially when he, as Pope has the power to change the Church's position by pronouncing "ex cathedra" a new position on homosexuality by relying on Roman Catholic doctrine that a Pope speaking ex cathedra on issues of faith or morals is infallible.  The reality is that Christian missionaries (and Islamic fundamentalist) exported anti-gay hatred across the globe and until all religious leaders reject this agenda of hate, LGBT people will continue to suffer, sometimes losing their lives. A piece in The Advocate looks at Francis' welcomed statements and his failure to change the Church's condemnation of gays:

Pope Francis said on Friday that government leaders targeting LGBTQ people remind him of the Nazis.

In Rome, the pope warned members of the International Association of Penal Law, "I confess that when I hear some speeches by someone responsible for public order or a government, I am reminded of Hitler's speeches in 1934 and 1936,” according to CNN.

"They are typical actions of Nazism which with its persecutions of Jews, gypsies, people of homosexual orientation, represent a negative model 'par excellence' of a throwaway culture and a culture of hate,” he continued.

Francis did not refer to any specific governments, but LGBTQ people are subject to persecution all over the world. This month alone, five men in Malaysia were sentenced to caning and jail time for attempting gay sex. Ugandan police rounded up more than 100 people at an LGBTQ-friendly bar in Kampala. Activists went on trial after being arrested at a Pride march in Ankara. Marriage equality was overturned in the Cayman Islands. And trans women of color continue to face an epidemic of violence in the United States.

DignityUSA Executive Director Marianne Duddy-Burke . . . . said she hopes Francis’ remarks “are also understood to be applicable within the Church, and that Catholic leaders who say hateful, disparaging and dehumanizing things or act to limit the human rights of LGBTQ people and others immediately change their ways.” [M]any point out that the Catholic church’s teachings on LGBTQ issues have not changed. As The Advocate reported in April, Francis “has also said gay priests are not welcome in the church. He has met with gay and transgender people who described his manner as loving and supportive, yet he has said same-sex couples don’t meet the church’s definition of family and denounced gender-affirmation procedures. The church remains intractably opposed to same-sex relationships; Catholics with same-sex attractions should never act on them, according to church doctrine.”

Is Francis a hypocrite?  You decide, but I am inclined to say "yes."

Pete Buttigieg Continues to Prompt Evangelicals to Show Their True Hate-Filled Nature

The presidential candidacy of Pete Buttigieg - and the fact that he is running in third place currently - has evangelical Christians, or at least the "professional Christians" who make a living disseminating hatred and falsehoods under the guise of religious belief, to go into absolute apoplexy.  Constant shrieks and flying spittle are the norm, especially for a group that has labeled itself as the Gone2Far Movement which has a piece in Christian News Wire - a typically far right Christian "news" outlet.  

As blogger friend Joe Jervis noted - Joe and I have been tracking far right anti-gay "Christian" extremists for over two decades - Gone2Far is a relatively new coalition of long time anti-LGBT extremists Scott Lively, Peter LaBarbera, Brian Camenker, and alleged ex-gay Stephen Black, who Joe, I, and other LGBT activists have tracked for many years as they have peddled anti-gay lies and bogus science.  New to the group is what Jie describes as "a gaggle of hater nobodies you’ve never heard of"  who I suspect are motivated by a desire to get onboard the anti-gay financial gravy train among evangelical circles.   With luck, these hate merchants will finally be seen by the larger public for what they are - extremists who are leeches who prey on the ignorant and gullible while they line their pockets with money made from speaking circuits and books peddled to the sheeple.

On a related note, some say that I am far too hard on evangelicals and that some are decent people.  My problem with such people is that they are cut out of the same cloth as the "good Germans" who did nothing to stop the rise of Hitler or the Holocaust. Good, decent people cannot remain silent in the face of hate, deliberate lies and evil.  Yet the silence of the majority of evangelicals in confronting groups like Gone2Far is deafening.  By their silence, rightly or wrongly, they have tacitly allowed such hate merchants to define them.  If they have a problem with how I describe them, all they need do is speak up and condemn folks like those involved in Gone2Far.  

Meanwhile, here's a sampling of the lunacy and animus being spouted by Gone2Far as set forth in the Christian News Wire piece (note that per these lunatics Buttigieg's candidacy is part of a larger gay conspiracy):  

Mayor Pete Buttigieg is publicly challenging the definition of what a Christian is in the public square.

The culmination of the culture wars has now turned to redefining Christianity. The LGBTQ community has used media, entertainment, and the law to codify their view of sexuality. They have convinced Americans that the homosexual lifestyle is normal and an acceptable practice in the public square. They have, in effect, successfully introduced a neo-morality into the culture. In fact, the LGBTQ community is claiming victory over the traditional values of evangelicals.

Mayor Pete represents the "kill shot" launch by the gay community to now re-define Christianity. This neo-Christianity is made out of their feelings into their image. Pete Buttigieg is the face of their new theology. Buttigieg claims that "God made me this way." An incredible claim in light of the fact the Bible teaches homosexuality is a sin. However, this claim is far more dangerous and sinister than it appears. This claim creates a contradiction and brings into question the coherency of truth claims in the Holy Word of God.

Also, the claim makes the God of scripture a hypocrite. Why would He make people homosexuals and then condemn them as sinners? Buttigieg is challenging underlying assumptions in the infallible word of God. I submit he is redefining Christianity. This attack has been brewing for a long time. The LGBTQ has been seeking ways to diminish the influence of the Bible's unswerving teaching against the gay lifestyle. 

Note the use of the term "gay lifestyle" is derogatory in itself and pushes the lie that sexual orientation is a choice and can be changed.  Never mind what medical and mental health experts say and never mind that the Old Testament to which these folks point to for their authority - the New Testament is silent on homosexuality - was authored by ignorant Bronze Age herders.  The real problem Buttigieg poses for these extremists is two-fold: (i) he shows that gays are normal, responsible people like so many others in society and not the drug addicts and alcoholics the Christofascists have depicted us as for decades, and (ii) he is putting a spotlight on the archaic and untrue myths the Christofascists have based their lives and exclusionary and divisive dogma on. They simply cannot tolerate anything or anyone that makes it clear to others that they have lived their lives based on lies.  They will lash out and try to destroy anyone who exposes their false beliefs.  Mayor Pete had best fasten his seat belt. Their hysteria and hate-filled attacks will likely only increase.

Colorado To Become 16th State To Ban Ex-Gay Torture

Christofascists in Colorado are on the eve of losing their effort to keep fraudulent and quackery filled so-called conversion therapy available to (i) torment and torture LGBT youths, and (ii) back the lie that sexual orientation is a "choice."  Even Republican in the Colorado legislature are voting to ban the practice which is condemned by all legitimate medical and mental health associations.  Sadly, here in Virginia, Republicans in the House of Delegates cared more about the demands of the hate merchants at The Family Foundation and kissing Victoria Cobb's ring (Cobb is the head of the hate group group) than solid medical and mental health knowledge. Thankfully, regulatory changes will soon be the death knell to the practice in Virginia, although a legislative ban would have been far better.  A piece in Denverite looks at the looming Christofascist defeat in Colorado.  Here are excerpts:

A bill banning conversion therapy across Colorado is a step closer to becoming law after the Senate on Monday voted to pass the bill, which would ban licensed professional from the discredited practice of attempting to “cure” LGBTQ youth.

The bill is headed back to House, which already approved it in February, for approval after the bill was amended in the Senate. It’s expected to pass in that chamber before ending up on the desk of Gov. Jared Polis, who said during his gubernatorial campaign that he would seek to abolish the practice statewide. Polis is the country’s first out gay man elected governor.

The bill passed by a 21-13 vote in the Senate on Monday and had bipartisan support, including from Republican state Sens. Don Coram of Montrose, Kevin Priola of Henderson and Jack Tate of Centennial.

Republican support was critical, and similar bills failed in previous sessions after GOP lawmakers voted against it. Fenberg noted in a release from the LGBTQ advocacy group One Colorado that conversion therapy is not backed by science and is harmful to LGBTQ youth.

“There is nothing to ‘fix,'” Fenberg said in the release. “They should not feel ashamed of who they are. After working for years to pass this bill, I am proud that we are finally going to protect our LGBT youth and ban the dangerous practice of conversion once in for all in Colorado.”

The Denver City Council in January unanimously approved a ban on conversion therapy, though officials aren’t aware of practitioners of this so-called therapy operating in the city and county.

Evangelical Mega-Donors Are Rethinking Who Deserves Their Money

Mega Donors Howard and Roberta Ahmanson.

As regular readers know, I generally view evangelical Christianity - at least in its present form - to be a cancer on American society and, indeed the world.  Hate, exclusion and division are  its principal hallmarks combined with a shocking level of hypocrisy.  The results of this reality are many, including the flight of 40% of Millennials from organized religion as a whole, a growing exodus of young evangelicals from their churches, and per a piece in The Atlantic wealthy evangelicals who are beginning to shift their donations away from "Christian" organizations obsessed with abandoning the Gospel message while waging a culture war in the quest for political power and self-enrichment (e.g., think Tony Perkins, Franklin Graham, and Jerry Falwell, Jr.).  Whether or not these shifts will save Christianity from the death spiral evangelicals have set it on.  Here are highlights from The Atlantic on the shifting largess of wealthy evangelicals:

In 2005, Time magazine crowned Howard and Roberta Ahmanson the most powerful evangelical financiers in America. As an heir to the assets of Home Savings and Loan, a mortgage and insurance empire, Howard Ahmanson became an influential philanthropist, backing projects in Bible translation, art, and—perhaps most notably—politics. The Ahmansons poured millions of dollars into ballot initiatives and Republican campaigns in California; in 2008, they gave more than $1 million to support Proposition 8, which successfully banned same-sex marriage in the state. The couple back the Discovery Institute, a think tank that promotes intelligent design, and the Claremont Institute, which promotes limited government.

This history makes Howard Ahmanson’s recent transformation all the more remarkable: One of the most stalwart backers of religious-right causes has become disenchanted with the GOP and many of its associated institutions.

“The Republican Party is a white-ethnic party. And I don’t want to be identified with that,” Ahmanson told me recently. He dislikes that white evangelicals are largely supportive of Donald Trump—“Whatever this is, it’s not the Gospel,” he said—and has stopped giving to groups such as the Family Research Council, . . . . “God is using this time, and Donald Trump, to purge the church,” he told me. “Are you about Christ and the Gospel first, or is your church just a Sunday extension of your political team?”

To say the least, Howard Ahmanson is not representative of American Christian philanthropists of any generation. His religious journey has been distinctive, and he has eclectic taste in causes. Moreover, several of the influential evangelicals who were Ahmanson’s peers on Time’s 2005 power-player list have redoubled their pursuit of national political influence: Franklin Graham, the evangelist and son of the late Billy Graham, spent his summer on a political speaking tour across California, and Jay Sekulow, who runs the American Center for Law and Justice, is one of Trump’s lawyers. Evangelical influence reaches all the way to the White House: Vice President Mike Pence has been a fixture at Christian-right events over the past two years, and political operatives such as Tony Perkins and Ralph Reed are enjoying greater influence under Trump than they’ve had in years.

Yet the question Ahmanson posed—about the right way for Christians to live out their faith in public, and how to put money behind that vision—is something that a number of people in evangelical philanthropy circles seem to be asking. In large part, Trump’s presidency is not the context for this question. Evangelicalism, writ large, is going through intense cultural and structural shifts that are also shaping how wealthy Christians use their money. The rise of the so-called religious right “was driven by a lot of anxiety, and a sense of urgency: If we don’t act, the country will be taken away from us,” he explained. While a lot of money poured into this movement, from both wealthy backers and grassroots supporters, “it was always a smaller proportion of evangelical charitable dollars than you might think,” Crouch said.

In the late 1980s and into the ’90s, a new organization, the Gathering, was established to help guide wealthy individuals and families who wanted to give to Christian causes—the vast majority of them in nonpolitical ways.

One of the clearest shifts among Christian mega-donors is demographic. Gen Xers and early Millennials are just starting to take the reins of legacy family foundations or come into their giving potential, and their sensibilities differ from their parents’. “For a long time, especially with Baby Boomers, there was so much wealth created so quickly,” Bruce said. “People just started giving where it was comfortable, which was usually local, with causes … they become familiar with … through their local church or network.” By contrast, her generation wants giving away money to be part of who they are, she said: The causes they support, whether it’s developing health clinics in Africa or mentoring kids in Houston, are central to their sense of identity. This overlaps with another trend in the evangelical-donor class: Over time, it may become more diverse.

Kwan described a community of second- and third-generation Asian American Christians in Silicon Valley who “aren’t necessarily beholden to the culture wars of the past,” he said. The causes that have come to be associated with evangelicalism—issues such as gay marriage, abortion, and religious liberty—don’t necessarily resonate outside a specific, white-evangelical milieu.All of these trends have shaped the way Christian dollars are spent. In a 2018 study, Giving USA and Indiana University’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy found a sharp decrease in religious giving over the past four decades, declining from well over half of all giving in the late ’70s through the early ’90s to roughly a third as recently as 2017. This does not necessarily mean evangelicals are giving away less money, said David King, the director of the university’s Lake Institute on Faith and Giving.

Instead, they may be donating to organizations and causes that aren’t explicitly associated with church and parachurch organizations.“If you look at the current perception of the American church now, compared to historic witness of the church, there is a gap,” said Joshua Crossman, one of the board members of the Pinetops Foundation, a relatively small, new family foundation. He pointed to data from the Pew Research Center showing a sharp decline in the percentage of Americans who believe houses of worship contribute a “great deal” to solving social problems. In 2016, only 38 percent of religiously unaffiliated people said that was the case. “It would behoove all Christians to think about that gap and to figure out what we can do to best be a witness for Christ in our communities,” he said.

While Trump has rocked evangelical politics, this era of American evangelical history had already taken shape before he came on the scene: “The church may be moving toward a time of the church in exile rather than the church as the dominant cultural institution,” as Kwan put it.

In previous years, evangelicals responded to a sense of declining cultural power with anxiety—that is what yielded the age of “ferment” that Crouch described. But at least among this subset of next-generation evangelical mega-donors, there doesn’t seem to be much of a desire to fight the culture. Their hope, instead, is that they will be known by their fruits.

Texas Pastors Group Sues Demanding License to Discriminate Against Gays

Between backing Republican policies which are the antithesis of what the Christ's Gospel message calls one to do and demanding the right to discriminate against others, conservative "Christians" - I use quotation marks because by their actions they prove they are not - provide an never ending example of why one might consider shunning the Christian label.  Instead of being known for their love toward their fellow man, these modern day Pharisees are best defined by their hatred of others and hypocrisy.  A case in point is the self-styled "U.S. Pastors Council" - comprised of twenty some Houston area churches - which is suing City of Austin, Austin Mayor Steve Adler, and Sareta Davis, chair of the Austin Human Rights Commission to block Austin's non-discrimination ordinance that includes LGBT protections.  A perusal of the group's website reveals that feeding the hungry, housing the homeless and caring for the sick is nowhere in its agenda.  Rather, its sole focus is demanding special rights for Christofascists and inflicting member churches' Bronze Age beliefs on all citizens.   KUT-TV looks at the lawsuit and the hate and batshitery that passes for Christian "values."  Here are excerpts:

A Houston-based religious nonprofit behind the so-called bathroom bill is suing the City of Austin over its anti-discrimination hiring ordinance. The U.S. Pastor Council filed suit in a federal district court late last week, alleging the city rule's lack of exemptions for churches or other religiously affiliated groups violates state and federal law.

The suit asks the court to block the enforcement of the ordinance on behalf of its 25 member churches in the Austin area "because these member churches rely on the Bible rather than modern-day cultural fads for religious and moral guidance, they will not hire practicing homosexuals or transgendered people as clergy."

In a June letter to the Austin City Council, Executive Director David Welch reasoned that the ordinance didn't provide wide enough berth for religious exemption 

In a written statement today, the city defended its anti-discrimination ordinance.

"The ordinance reflects our values and culture respecting the dignity and rights of every individual," said city spokesperson David Green. "We are prepared to vigorously defend the City against this challenge to the City’s civil rights protections."

First founded in 2003, the U.S. Pastor Council was the driving force behind a bill that aimed to require transgender Texans to use restrooms that correspond to their gender at birth – not their gender identity. That bill failed to pass the Texas House in 2017, though Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and other lawmakers may revisit the issue in the next legislative session.

 As LGBTQ Nation notes:

Federal law already allows churches to follow their religion when making hiring decisions if the position is religiously-related. For example, Catholic churches are not required to ordain priests.

The Austin ordinance includes similar religious exemptions already.

Franklin Graham Is Destroying His Father's Brand

While there was much to dislike about the late Billy Graham (a previous post looked at some of these), compared to his son Franklin, Billy Graham looks most attractive.  In his thirst for political power - and I suspect wealth along with it, Franklin Graham is helping to kill the evangelical brand in America. Rather than being known for thoughtful adherence to scripture, Franklin Graham is making evangelical Christianity best know for its hypocrisy and hatred of others.  Gay and Muslims being the favored targets for hate.  A piece in Politico looks at how Franklin Graham (along with Jerry Falwell, Jr.) is destroying his father's brand, if you will, and likely accelerating the demise of evangelical Christianity - and Christianity in general - in America.  Here are article highlights:

[A]lmost two decades ago, [Billy] Graham handed over the keys of the empire to his son, Franklin. And if you want to chart the troubled recent course of American evangelicalism—its powerful rise after World War II and its surprisingly quick demise in recent years—you need look no further than this father-and-son duo of Billy and Franklin Graham. His son is—not to put too fine a point on it—a political hack, one who is rapidly rebranding evangelicalism as a belief system marked not by faith, hope, and love but by fear of Muslims and homophobia.

Franklin Graham is a very different sort of man, better known today for his right-wing political pronouncements than for his evangelism. Shortly after 9/11, Franklin Graham provided the sound bite of today’s culture wars when he denounced Islam as “a very wicked and evil religion.” He later became the standard bearer for the view that Islam is, in his words “a religion of hatred . . . a religion of war.”

In addition to purveying the birther nonsense that helped to propel Donald Trump to political prominence, Franklin Graham suggested that President Barack Obama was not a Christian and might in fact be a secret Muslim. Along with Jerry Falwell’s son, Jerry Falwell Jr., he helped to elect Trump president by swinging 80 percent of white evangelical voters to his side. And then when Trump was elected he attributed his victory not to a surge of White Christian support or to swing states in the Midwest but to divine providence.

Franklin Graham seems blissfully unaware of the possibility that there might be even the slimmest of gaps between the words that come out of his mouth and the words written down in scripture. More damningly, he demonstrates no awareness of the ways in which his political pronouncements are breaking down the evangelical witness his father devoted so much energy to building up.

During the 1940s and 1950s, the United States persisted in its religiosity as European countries secularized. In fact, the Americans witnessed a powerful religious revival after the war, thanks in part to Billy Graham. That revival is over. Religion is now declining in the United States, and evangelicalism with it. In fact, over the last decade, the portion of white evangelical Protestants in the United States declined from 23 percent to 17 percent. . . . .The most significant development in American religion in recent years is the shocking rise of the religiously unaffiliated (otherwise known as “nones”), who now account for roughly one quarter of all Americans. This increasing distance from religious institutions is accompanied by increasing distance from religious beliefs and practices.

There are many reasons for this decline in religious believing and belonging. But the most important in my view is the increasing identification of the Christian churches with right-wing politics. If you are among the 26 percent of eligible voters who voted for Trump, you likely applaud this development. But what about the other 74 percent?

The qualities of temper and judgment that made Billy Graham so singularly successful are almost entirely lacking in his son, who now imperils his father’s legacy. Thanks to Franklin Graham and his cronies on the Religious Right, American evangelicalism has now become first and foremost a political rather than a spiritual enterprise. The life of Billy Graham helped build it up. And his death may well have ensured its demise.

The author is a professor of religion at Boston University.

Evangelicals are Killing LGBT Youth from the Inside Out — Soul First

I am very hard on evangelical Christians who I view as a toxic element in American society.  They blather endlessly about personal responsibility yet they close their eyes to the deliberate harm they cause to others by clinging to what one blogger friend describes as relying on Bronze Age anonymities versus knowledge and scientific data.  Why?  First because they have been brainwashed since childhood. Second, because it is easier for them to cling to lies fed to them as children than it is to think for themselves.  Thinking for these folks is a terrifying prospect. With the Internet, knowledge is at one's finger tips unlike during the years I grew up closeted and thinking I was some lone, sinful freak.  The worst among the evangelicals are their often self-anointed leaders who not only cling to ignorance, but do so to retain power over their though free followers but also to line their pockets with money. These "leaders" - who I refer to scamvangelists - care nothing about the harm their cult of ignorance and Bronze Age beliefs  wreak on the country.  Among the favorite victims of the posion they disseminate are LGBT individuals. Surprisingly, a piece at Baptist News makes the argument of why science and data should have greater influence over society's thinking.  Here are excerpts:

This week, a group of the country’s most prominent evangelical figures released a document condemning lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and those who affirm them in what they called the Nashville Statement. Read the list of signatories and you’ll recognize the names — presidents of some of the country’s largest seminaries and pastors of burgeoning evangelical churches.

I spent three years writing a Ph.D. dissertation on the religious and spiritual dimensions of suicide among LGBTQ people, and aside from the interesting nuances of the research and the elegance of the theory that developed from that work, there’s one cruel fact that became clear: this type of theology is brutalizing the bodies and berating the souls of LGBTQ youth. In fact, it is literally killing many of us.

Take a look at a few recent statistics:

• In 2015, GLSEN surveyed 10,528 students and found that 57.6 percent of LGBT students studied felt unsafe at school because of their sexual orientation, 43.3 percent felt unsafe because of their gender expression (an increase from 2013).

• 82.5 percent experienced verbal harassment at school because of their sexual orientation or gender expression (another increase from 2013).

• 57.6 percent of LGBTQ students who were harassed or physically assaulted at school didn’t tell a staff member because they thought it would not help or would even make the situation worse.

• LGBT youth represent about 5 percent to 7 percent of the total youth population, but comprise up to 45 percent of homeless youth in the U.S. (Seeking Shelter report)

• The Surgeon General reports that around 30 percent of LGBT adolescents report attempts at suicide compared with 8 percent to 10 percent of all adolescents. And the National Transgender Discrimination Survey shows a 41 percent suicide attempt rate for trans people.

But those are cold statistics, facts on a page, representable in a flat pie chart or bar graph. I spent hours upon hours sitting face-to-face with LGBTQ people who have attempted suicide in their past and survived — people for whom suicide became a thinkable option largely because of theologies that suggested that living as LGBTQ people in their churches and families and communities was impossible.

The signatories of the Nashville Statement see this as a fight for the soul of evangelicalism. But in reality, this is a struggle for the souls of our LGBTQ family and friends and neighbors. The souls of LGBTQ people have been assailed for far too long by the largest and loudest Christian leaders in the U.S. while so many progressive churches with scads of LGBTQ people in the pews have contented themselves to affirm LGBTQ people but “not make a big deal about it” — debating whether to display a rainbow flag on their sign or state their affirmation on their website or consigning their celebration of LGBTQ lives to one week in June.

The statistics and the voices of LGBTQ people are enough to convince me that the Evangelicals are still succeeding in killing LGBTQ from the inside out — soul first. If those of us who stand in contradiction to the theology represented in the Nashville Statement are going to make any lasting different, we must stop being content to affirm in subtlety and silence or with once-a-year celebrations.

It is not enough to denounce the theology represented in this heinous statement on social media, convincing ourselves that “most people know this doesn’t represented mainline Christianity,” or contenting ourselves with the small, affirming bubble we’ve created. Churches that seek to cultivate the abundance of life for LGBTQ people have work to do, and that work will be lifesaving.

The reluctance of non-hate-filled Christians to challenge the hatred of others disseminated daily is why I fault "good Christians."   Their silence and/or deference to the Tony Perkins, James Dobsons, and Franklin Graham - not to mention the entire Southern Baptist Convention leadership - allows the denigration and assaults on LGBT lives to continue.  I grew up Roman Catholic rather than Southern Baptist, but the damage done to me was very similar.  No child or teen should grow up hating themselves and believing that suicide is the only option to them.  As a teen and young adult, I thought of suicide almost daily as I tried desperately to "pray away the gay."  When I came out, it literally took years of therapy to undo the psychological and emotional damage my religious upbringing had done to me. Indeed, there were two serious suicide attempts along the way during my coming out journey.  Lives continue to be ruined and/or loss because of evangelical's fear of thinking for themselves and letting go of writings of ignorant Bronze Age anonymities that fly in the face of modern knowledge and science.   Being LGBT is not sinful and there is no more choice in the matter than being born black, Hispanic or Middle Eastern.  Decent people need to condemn both the "Nashville Statement" and each and every one of its signatories.  Indeed, go a step further and stop giving them money and stop attending their denominations. 

Pro-Trump Evangelical Leaders Release Anti-LGBT Statement

As Donald Trump, a/k/a, Der Trumpenführer, continues his anti-LGBT policies, a core group of evangelical Christians who have supported Trump with few exceptions have worked to ratchet up anti-LGBT hysteria, including by pushing for so-called bathroom bills to target transgender students.  Now, these same hate merchants have released an anti-LGBT manifesto that seeks to further malign and denigrate LGBT individuals.  I'm sure one side motivation is to use this latest assault on LGBT citizens to raise money, the true god of these individuals, by further hyping the treat that LGBT individuals pose to the safety of women and children and "religious liberty" which translates as the right to abuse whomever one desires. A piece in Huffington Post looks at this latest message of hatred.  Here are story excerpts:

A coalition of over 150 evangelical leaders released a manifesto on Tuesday reiterating their belief that marriage should be between a man and a woman.

Titled the “Nashville Statement,” the document also asserts that God created two distinct sexes, that sex should only occur within the bounds of heterosexual marriage, and that “it is sinful to approve of homosexual immorality or transgenderism.”

The statement emerged out of a meeting convened by the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood on Friday at the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission’s annual conference in Nashville. It consists of 14 statements of affirmation and denial relating to human sexuality.

For instance, Article 7 of the statement reads:

WE AFFIRM that self-conception as male or female should be defined by God’s holy purposes in creation and redemption as revealed in Scripture.  WE DENY that adopting a homosexual or transgender self-conception is consistent with God’s holy purposes in creation and redemption.

Nashville mayor Megan Barry tweeted Tuesday criticizing the coalition for using her city’s name in a statement of exclusion.

Among the signers were many prominent and influential evangelical leaders, including Steve Gaines, president of The Southern Baptist Convention, Russell Moore, president of the SBC’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, Albert Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council. Perkins was also reportedly one of the architect’s behind President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender service members. Though several Christian denominations, including the Episcopal Church and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), have affirmed same-sex marriage in recent years, the Southern Baptist Convention has been squarely and unwaveringly opposed to anything other than heterosexual marriage. [C]ritics in the Christian community noted the bizarre and even “callous” timing of the document’s release and warned that it would do more harm than good:
 "To release it in the direct aftermath of Charlottesville, in the throes of Harvey, is a gross example of pastoral & leadership malpractice." “I am confident that future generations will look back at this resolution and see it as despicable as we do former Southern Baptist statements promoting slavery and segregation.”  

Meanwhile, Ann Coulter - who looks like an anorexic drag queen - used using Twitter to insinuate that “Houston electing a lesbian mayor” is a more likely explanation for Hurricane Harvey than climate change.

The Southern Baptist Convention has a long and ugly history.  Its treatment of LGBT people is in many ways a continuation of its support for slavery and then the Jim Crow laws.  If one isn't a white, heterosexual evangelical Christian, you aren't entitled to civil rights or deemed human.  It's a horrible denomination and, thankfully, its membership is falling.  

Is America Headed for a New Kind of Civil War?

As the previous post noted, America offers two different worlds for LGBT Americans.  But increasingly, that division of America into two strongly differing worlds extends far beyond how LGBT citizens are treated - or perhaps more on point, mistreated.  One the one side there are the world of the racists, white supremacists and Christofascists (who from my experience are usually racists as well) and those who want to revive a mythical world where whites were supreme. Opposing them are those welcoming to modernity and a world of diversity and tolerance and equality for all. Yes, the division has perhaps always existed in some form, but it seems to be intensifying.  The divisions seem to be worsening and sadly we have an unfit occupant of the White House who is only too happy to intensify divisions if in his warped, self-centered world it maintains the loyalty of his base, a base that Hillary Clinton rightly described as a basket of delporables.  Where will it lead? That's anyone's guess.  A piece in the New Yorker looks at this near cultural civil war.  Here are excerpts:

A day after the brawling and racist brutality and deaths in Virginia, Governor Terry McAuliffe asked, “How did we get to this place?” The more relevant question after Charlottesville—and other deadly episodes in Ferguson, Charleston, Dallas, St. Paul, Baltimore, Baton Rouge, and Alexandria—is where the United States is headed. How fragile is the Union, our republic, and a country that has long been considered the world’s most stable democracy? The dangers are now bigger than the collective episodes of violence. “The radical right was more successful in entering the political mainstream last year than in half a century,” the Southern Poverty Law Center reported in February. The organization documents more than nine hundred active (and growing) hate groups in the United States.

America’s stability is increasingly an undercurrent in political discourse. Earlier this year, I began a conversation with Keith Mines about America’s turmoil. Mines has spent his career—in the U.S. Army Special Forces, the United Nations, and now the State Department—navigating civil wars in other countries, including Afghanistan, Colombia, El Salvador, Iraq, Somalia, and Sudan. He returned to Washington after sixteen years to find conditions that he had seen nurture conflict abroad now visible at home. It haunts him. In March, Mines was one of several national-security experts whom Foreign Policy asked to evaluate the risks of a second civil war—with percentages. Mines concluded that the United States faces a sixty-per-cent chance of civil war over the next ten to fifteen years.

Other experts’ predictions ranged from five per cent to ninety-five per cent. The sobering consensus was thirty-five per cent. And that was five months before Charlottesville.

“We keep saying, ‘It can’t happen here,’ but then, holy smokes, it can,” Mines told me after we talked, on Sunday, about Charlottesville. The pattern of civil strife has evolved worldwide over the past sixty years. Today, few civil wars involve pitched battles from trenches along neat geographic front lines. Many are low-intensity conflicts with episodic violence in constantly moving locales. Mines’s definition of a civil war is large-scale violence that includes a rejection of traditional political authority and requires the National Guard to deal with it. On Saturday, McAuliffe put the National Guard on alert and declared a state of emergency.

To test Mines’s conjecture, I reached out to five prominent Civil War historians this weekend. “When you look at the map of red and blue states and overlap on top of it the map of the Civil War—and who was allied with who in the Civil War—not much has changed,” Judith Giesberg, the editor of the Journal of the Civil War Era and a historian at Villanova University, told me. “We never agreed on the outcome of the Civil War and the direction the country should go in. The postwar amendments were highly contentious—especially the Fourteenth Amendment, which provides equal protection under the law—and they still are today. What does it mean to deliver voting rights to people of color? We still don’t know.”

She added, “Does that make us vulnerable to a repeat of the past? I don’t see a repeat of those specific circumstances. But that doesn’t mean we are not entering something similar in the way of a culture war. We are vulnerable to racism, tribalism, and conflicting visions of the way forward for our nation.”

Before Charlottesville, David Blight, a Yale historian, was already planning a conference in November on “American Disunion, Then and Now.” “Parallels and analogies are always risky, but we do have weakened institutions and not just polarized parties but parties that are risking disintegration, which is what happened in the eighteen-fifties,” he told me. “Slavery tore apart, over fifteen years, both major political parties. It destroyed the Whig Party, which was replaced by the Republican Party, and divided the Democratic Party into northern and southern parts.”

“So,” he said, “watch the parties” as an indicator of America’s health.  In the eighteen-fifties, Blight told me, Americans were not good at foreseeing or absorbing the “shock of events,” including the Fugitive Slave Act, the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision, the John Brown raid, and even the Mexican-American War. “No one predicted them. They forced people to reposition themselves,” Blight said. “We’re going through one of those repositionings now. Trump’s election is one of them, and we’re still trying to figure it out. But it’s not new. It dates to Obama’s election. We thought that would lead culture in the other direction, but it didn’t,” he said. “There was a tremendous resistance from the right, then these episodes of police violence, and all these things [from the past] exploded again. It’s not only a racial polarization but a seizure about identity.”

In the wake of Charlottesville, the chorus of condemnation from politicians across the political spectrum has been encouraging, but it is not necessarily reassuring or an indicator about the future, Gregory Downs, a historian at the University of California at Davis, told me. During the Civil War, even Southern politicians who denounced or were wary of secession for years—including Jefferson Davis—ended up as leaders of the Confederacy. “If the source of conflict is deeply embedded in cultural or social forces, then politicians are not inherently able to restrain them with calls for reason,” Downs said. He called the noxious white supremacists and neo-Nazis the “messengers,” rather than the “architects,” of the Republic’s potential collapse. But, he warned, “We take our stability for granted.”

He dug out for me a quote from the journalist Murat Halstead’s book “The War Claims of the South,” published in 1867. “The lesson of the war that should never depart from us,” Halstead wrote, “is that the American people have no exemption from the ordinary fate of humankind. If we sin, we must suffer for our sins, like the Empires that are tottering and the Nations that have perished.”

“Obviously, we have some pretty deep divisions along multiple lines—racial, ideological, rural versus urban,” he told me. “Whether they will lead to civil war, I doubt. We have strong gravitational forces that counteract what we’re seeing today.” He pointed out that “the spark in Charlottesville—taking down a statue of Robert E. Lee—doesn’t have to do with civil war. People are not debating the Civil War. They’re debating American society and race today.”

Given these divisions, decent, moral people cannot be complacent or refuse to take sides. Throughout history, bad things happen when good people do nothing and fail to act until it is too late. With a would be autocrat in the White House who seems to revel in cruelty and division, one must get involved and act now.  One of the easiest ways to act is to get out and vote against those who market hate and division.  Sadly, these hate merchants are usually Republicans. 

Trump Punts on Anti-Gay "Religious Freedom" Executive Order

While the news of the House of Representatives vote on Trumpcare yesterday was depressing.  On a more positive note, the "religious freedom" executive order signed by Der Trumpenführer, while troubling, failed to include the license to discriminate demanded by Christofascists and their political prostitutes in Congress.  To say that the Christofascists and professional Christian class (who live well by peddling hate and division - think Tony Perkins and Brian brown as but two examples) are livid livid is an understatement.    Here's a taste of Brian Brown's shrieking:

This is the second time that President Trump has backed away from signing a comprehensive order protecting religious liberty after LGBT groups complained about the proposed actions. We cannot accept this capitulation on such a critical issue and must fight back. Will you help us insist that President Trump fulfill his repeated promises to protect the religious liberty of people of faith?

By "help us" Brown means send money so that he can continue to make over $500,000 a year. Brown was far from alone in his wailing and lamentations over Trump's failure to exempt Christofascists from non-discrimination laws and ordinances.  American Family Association hate monger Bryan Fischer was equally peeved and blamed Ivanka Trump and her Jewish husband for Der Trumpenführer's betrayal:

These are essentially hollow promises on the president’s part. No church has ever been deprived of its tax exempt status using the Johnson Amendment. . . . the gravest concern is aroused by what the president did not say. The draft of this executive order that was leaked to the liberal media in February contained robust protections for Christians engaged in business from being compelled by government to violate their own values and consciences in showdowns with the radical, vitriolic, and virulently aggressive LGBT lobby.  This morning’s empty and symbolic action on the president’s part most likely betrays the hidden hand of the president’s uber-liberal daughter, Ivanka, who likely leaked the February draft to a liberal rag (The Nation) in order to stir up enough intense outrage from the LGBT community to strangle this baby in the cradle. It worked. Ivanka wore out her red pencil eviscerating the original order, leaving us with today’s order which has very nice language but is virtually entirely lacking in substance. 

While Trump has delivered on some of his promises made to Christofascists, today's failure to include the much demanded anti-LGBT provisions underscores the reality that Christofascists and evangelical Christians are Motivated by two things: racism and homophobia.  In their strange bubble detached from objective reality and moral decency, they believe that the rest of society harbors similar hatreds.  That bubble is about to burst.  A full one-third  of the under 30 generation has left organized religion and many older Americans are following suit.  A piece in Sojourner looks at this reality.  Here are excerpts:

Last Friday, Jerry Falwell, Jr. took to Fox News to proclaim that in Donald Trump, “evangelicals have found their dream president.” Two years ago, this statement would have made virtually no sense, at least on the surface. To many outside the white evangelical world, it seemed — and still seems — inconceivable that a thrice-married serial adulterer, ultimate materialist, casino owner, habitual liar, and unprincipled deal-maker could ever become the standard bearer for a group that professes to base their vote on “family values.”

In the two years since Trump announced his candidacy, we have seen a remarkable moral unmasking of white Americans who call themselves Christian, and in particular those who claim the “evangelical” label. Eighty-one percent of white evangelical voters cast their vote for Donald Trump, and the most recent Pew Research poll puts Trump’s support after his first 100 days in office at 78 percent among white evangelicals (and 80 percent among white evangelicals who attend church once a month).

In supporting Trump’s crackdowns and, in Trump's words, “big" and "beautiful” wall that will keep immigrants out, Falwell is explicitly and proudly saying that white evangelicals voted for Trump not in spite of his racist and xenophobic rhetoric about undocumented immigrants, but because of this rhetoric. How that relates to Christians, including evangelicals, who are in direct relationship to the undocumented immigrants and refugees that Trump wants to deport or keep out of our country, Falwell didn’t say.

Falwell also didn’t mention that Trump’s agenda and proposed budget would brutally cut off vital support to all “the least of these” that Jesus asks us to protect in the 25^th chapter of Matthew’s gospel. . . . . Jerry Falwell Jr. has once again shown himself to be nothing more or less than a Republican political operative, interested in advancing his preferred policy agenda much more than examining what it means to be a Christian.

This is about the moral hypocrisy of white American evangelical religious right leaders like Jerry Falwell Jr. causing a crisis in the church, dividing American Christians on racial lines, and astonishing the worldwide body of Christ — the international majority of evangelical Christians who are people of color — and whose leaders keep asking many of us what in the world is going on with white American evangelicals.

That number, 81 percent, has become an international symbol that tragically now represents what white American evangelicalism stands for. It dramatically and painfully symbolizes the white ethno-nationalism that Donald Trump appeals to and continues to draw support from among white American evangelicals. It is the most revealing and hurtful metric of what I will call the racial idolatry of white American evangelical Christianity . . . . .

Racism is not a gospel issue to the Falwells, and never has been. That Donald Trump began his political career with a racist lie about America’s first black president isn’t an issue for Falwell, Jr. That Trump opened his campaign by demonizing immigrants in calling them “rapists” and “criminal” doesn’t matter to Jr. either. And Trump’s xenophobic assaults on Muslims seems to be something that Falwell. also agrees with, as his comments at the Liberty University convocation in 2015 indicate. 

That Trump is the dream president for people like Falwell and such a nightmare for the vast majority of evangelical, Pentecostal, and Catholic Christians around the world, and our brothers and sisters of color in the United States, really says it all.

This stark contrast reveals white evangelical Christianity in America as a bubble — a very destructive one, and one that is about to burst.

I hope the bubble bursts soon and that it accelerates the de-legitimization of conservative Christianity as a positive moral force in society.  Conservative Christianity is a pestilence that needs to be removed from society.  No deference is deserved and the media needs to cease providing a platform to Christofascist leaders and granting a false equivalency to their beliefs. 

Pat Robertson: People Who Oppose Trump Are Revolting Against God

Local embarrassment Pat Robertson is at it again and I again wonder why his children don't quietly lock him in an upstairs bedroom out of public view,.  In his latest bout of verbal diarrhea, Robertson has ranted that anyone opposing Der Trumpenführer is "revolting against God."  I'm sorry, but anything is revolting, it is Robertson and his flim flam operation that fleeces the ignorant and the gullible so that Robertson can live the good life.  Right Wing Watch captures Robertson's latest batshitery.  Here are excerpts:

Today on “The 700 Club,” Pat Robertson wondered if President Obama and other Democrats may have participated in a grand conspiracy to bring down President Trump’s national security adviser Michael Flynn, who resigned on Monday over his communications with Russia’s U.S. ambassador.

While Flynn and other White House officials said that the two did not talk about U.S. sanctions against Russia before Trump’s inauguration, such statements conflicted with “reports from U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies that routinely monitor the communications of Russian diplomats.”

Robertson, however, wrongly suggested that U.S. intelligence agencies were specifically monitoring Flynn, not the ambassador, and then warned of a larger plot involving Democrats, liberal government officials and members of the media that he believes could be working to take Flynn down and damage the Trump administration.

Referring to Psalm 2:2, “The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against his anointed,” Robertson said that those challenging Trump are really fighting against God:

I think, somehow, the Lord’s plan is being put in place for America and these people are not only revolting against Trump, they’re revolting against what God’s plan is for America. These other people have been trying to destroy America. These left-wingers and so-called progressives are trying to destroy the country that we love and take away the freedoms they love. They want collectivism. They want socialism. What we’re looking at is free markets and freedom from this terrible, overarching bureaucracy. They want to fight as much as they can but I think the good news is the Bible says, “He that sits in the heavens will laugh them to scorn,” and I think that Trump’s someone on his side that is a lot more powerful than the media.

I want Der Trumpenführer to be impeached or, better yet, convicted of treason and at a minimum jailed for the rest of his life, for many reasons.  But one of the most delicious side benefits would be the utter discrediting of Robertson and other modern day Pharisees  and their institutions - think Regent University - who have hooked their credibility (or at least what credibility they still have) to Der Trumpenführer.