Which bigoted hater will hate the hatiest? Let’s find out!
Many of you have already read the column from Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, about Tyler Clementi. It’s fairly disgusting, so let’s look at his most egregious hate, and then we’ll see how former insurance tuff guy wrestler Bam Bam Barber stacks up against a real professional hater. Mohler:
That is four teenagers in just one month. And look at those ages. Two were only 13, one was 15, and Tyler Clementi was 18. That is four dead boys in the space of one horrible month, and all were struggling with sexual identity.
Actually, it’s not clear that “all” were struggling with sexual identity, but fundamentalist Christians assume that all people who are gay are “struggling.” It’s a cute thing they tell themselves, because it deflects attention from the fact that the ones who DO struggle tend to do so because they’ve been fed Christian hate speech their entire lives.
The homosexual community will argue that these boys were oppressed by the fact that so many believe that homosexuality is sinful. They respond with calls for the acceptance and normalization of homosexuality. Their logic is easy to understand.
Oh, I guess we agree then. But homosexuality doesn’t need to be “normalized,” per se, because science has already shown that it’s normal. Point: GAYS.
If the stigma attached to homosexuality were to disappear, persons who are convinced that they are homosexual in sexual orientation, along with those who are confused, would be free from bullying, the threat of exposure, and injury to their parents and loved ones.
TRUE. But persons aren’t “convinced” that they are homosexual. People simply are homosexual.
Oh, if only his column had ended right there…
Of course, Christians committed to biblical truth will recognize this as a demand to lie to sinners about their sin. The church cannot change its understanding of the sinfulness of homosexual acts unless it willfully disobeys the Scripture and rejects the authority of the Bible to reveal the truth about sin and sinfulness.
Because the church is ignorant? Basically he’s saying “damn the consequences, if we have a few dead kids here an there, if it means we have to give up our hate.”
But this is not the end of the matter, and we know it. When gay activists accuse conservative Christians of homophobia, they are wrong. Our concern about the sinfulness of homosexuality is not rooted in fear, but in faithfulness to the Bible — and faithfulness means telling the truth.
Haha, whatever. It’s always funny to me that the most successful, most intelligent Christians don’t tend to overlap with the fundamentalists very much. That’s just a side note, but I always find it hilarious that a group of people who tend to range from mundane and average down to the lowest common denominators of society build themselves such an intellectual pedestal from whence to spout their crap.
Yet, when gay activists accuse conservative Christians of homophobia, they are also right.
Correct! If only the column ended there…
What if Tyler Clementi had been in your church? Would he have heard biblical truth presented in a context of humble truth-telling and gospel urgency, or would he have heard irresponsible slander, sarcastic jabs, and moralistic self-congratulation?
He probably heard both, to be fair. Bigoted lies, cloaked in faux-niceties about Christian love, are still bigoted lies.
We can only look at this news account and grieve. As Christians, we just have to wonder. Was there no believer to befriend Tyler and, without loving his homosexuality, love him?
False construct that only works for fundamentalist Christians who reject reality. This is like saying “Can’t you love black people without loving their dark skin?”
Even long before they may hear or respond to the gospel, they need to know that they are loved and cherished for who they are. They need to know that we stand between them and those who would harm them. They need to know that we know how to love sinners because we have been loved despite our own sin.
I am haunted by the one question that seems so obvious and clear in the account of Tyler Clementi’s tragic death. In those days of crushing anguish, humiliation, and confusion, was there no one who could have stood between that boy and that bridge?
I dunno, maybe if the Religious Right wasn’t so intent on pushing kids like Tyler off the edge, someone might have made it up there.
Okay, let’s go say hi to the Bam Bam and see if he can out-hate Al Mohler. He certainly doesn’t feel the need to pretend to be loving or Christian, which is handy:
“Anyone with a heart grieves deeply over these needless suicides. Taking one’s own life is never the right choice. There are thousands of teen suicides each year. Some kids just don’t seem to understand the permanence of it, or how it destroys the lives of those they leave behind.
“We all agree: harassment and bullying of children should always be dealt with immediately and firmly. And if laws are broken, offenders should be prosecuted – period. This is true whether kids are targeted because they’re perceived to be homosexual, conservative, Christian or for any other reason.
Two paragraphs in and Bam Bam is already crying “Victim!” Tell me the last time you heard about a young kid killing himself because he was bullied for being conservative. What the hell, Bam Bam? How dumb is your average follower?
“Unfortunately – though not surprisingly – extremist ‘gay’ pressure groups, like the incongruously named ‘Human Rights Campaign,’ Ellen DeGeneres and other liberal activists are shamelessly exploiting these tragedies as a means to achieve their own selfish political ends.
“In a recent statement, Ms. DeGeneres said: ‘There are messages everywhere that validate this sort of bullying and taunting and we need to make it stop. We can’t let intolerance and ignorance take another kids life.’
Yeah, we’re just trying to fight for these kids’ right to live happy lives, without your poisonous influence, thanks. Partially because we’ve been there, and many of us understand a lot of what these kids went through.
“Indeed, actual bullying and taunting must not be tolerated. But what ‘messages’ is Ms. DeGeneres referring to, and how do ‘we…make [them] stop?’ I’ll translate from liberalese to plain English. What Ellen meant was this: ‘Public defense of God’s express, self-evident and unequivocal design for human sexuality must be stopped under force of law. Proponents of the Judeo-Christian sexual ethic are murdering ‘gay’ kids with their words.’
“Those mean terrible gay activists want to take away my right to spend my life and livelihood hurting gay kids for the sake of my interpretation of a book!”
And he’s still crying victim. Nobody is trying to take away bigots’ free speech rights.
“Joe Solmonese, president of HRC, took it a step further, directly blaming for these suicides Christians and the Mormon Church. To him, opposition to so-called ‘same-sex marriage,’ and defense of biblical sexual morality are the culprits: ‘Words have consequences,’ said Solmonese, ‘particularly when they come from a faith leader. This is exactly the kind of statement that can lead some kids to bully and others to commit suicide.’
Yep, and Joe is right. Bam Bam: Joe is right. Joe is right, Joe is right, Joe is right. I’m sorry, Bam Bam, but Joe is right. It may be hard to hear that the blood on your hands came from gay kids who killed themselves, but Joe is right. Class, what is Joe? That’s right, Joe is right.
It makes me physically ill to watch as the HRC and other ‘gay’ militants lick their chops and rub their hands together over the tragic suicides of these troubled, sexually confused young men,” continued Barber. “Before they were even laid to rest, the radical homosexual lobby pounced leveraging these suicides to demand that government codify each of their extremist, social engineering demands. This is political exploitation at its slimiest and it pours salt on the wounds of loved ones.
Uh, no, we’re standing up to defend these kids and try to protect those who are still alive from people like you, Bam Bam. The ones pouring salt in the wounds are people like you and Linda Harvey, who seem to believe that if only these kids had heard more extremist hate speech, they’d still be alive.
“God’s message to young people struggling with same sex temptation or to those who feel the shame that naturally accompanies sexual sin is that suicide is never the way out. But there is a way out. It comes first through belief in Jesus Christ, and then through confession of sin; finally, repentance. As Jesus said to the repentant sexual sinner at the well, ‘Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.’
Translation: Gay kids really don’t exist. They’re just “struggling with sin.” Also, note the false fundamentalist Christian construct which suggests that gay kids have a natural reason to be ashamed of their sexuality, apart from fundamentalist hate speech which is pissed into the society by people like Bam Bam. Sadly, No!, to steal a phrase from one of my favorite blogs. Kids who are raised in open-minded, intelligent homes and communities who happen to be gay don’t deal with anywhere the problems with accepting themselves as kids in closed-minded, unintelligent homes and communities do.
“But Christians are also praying that these wicked and callous political vultures who seek to exploit these suicides become confounded and fail fantastically. Their mission is not one of ‘tolerance’ or ‘diversity.’ Quite the opposite: Their goal is to fan flames of anti-Christian bigotry and discrimination, evangelizing on behalf of their own perverted god: moral relativism. We simply won’t let them get away with it,” concluded Barber.
Oh, what are you going to do, Boxy-pants? But note that, at the end of the day, Matt Barber doesn’t give a good goddamn about the dead kids. He just wants another opportunity to cry “Victim!” on behalf of all the poor, poor fundamentalists for whom reality is the daily negation of their worldview.
Call me when your victim status translates into a bodycount, Bam Bam.
So, who was the winner of the hate-off? Eh, we’ll call it a draw. You both win, boys! You can pin your blue ribbons to your white hoods or tiny boxing shorts or whatever it is you wear.
[h/t Pam]
