An article in the Christian Post today is doing that thing that fundamentalists all do, all the time, annoying non-Christian writers like me and deeply offending the great majority of Christendom who aren’t unreconstructed bigots. They’re asking “Can Christians avoid being called haters for being against gay marriage?” Uh…well first of all, not all Christians are against marriage equality. Indeed, lots of them are all for it! Straight Christians, too! “Are we haters for simply being pro-family?” Uh…well, if you only support families that fit your widdle daffynition of what constitutes a family, then yeah, you sort of are acting from a place of hate. It may be cloaked in nice Christian words, but…
Let’s just look at the article.
Peter Sprigg, senior fellow for policy studies with the Family Research Council, believes that Christians need to make it clear that they are motivated by love.
Thanks for your input, hate group leader who has called for gays to be exported from the United States. The idea that any human alive would be taking direction on “love” from a person such as Peter Sprigg would be offensive if it weren’t so ludicrous.
“I think that’s kind of the major challenge that we face,” he commented to The Christian Post. “We in the pro-family movement … those of us who are Christians, we know in our hearts that we are motivated by love, not hate. The definition of love is not that you let people do whatever they want.”
Ah, so this kind of illuminates one of the silly things that fundamentalist Christians believe about themselves. These people who haven’t contributed a major scientific or artistic breakthrough in Western society in quite awhile nonetheless feel that they are The Arbiters [the loving, disciplinary parents, if you will], for the entire rest of society, even though their own record on the principles they espouse is no better than the rest of the population, and is often worse. They simply believe they are better. The word for this is “supremacist,” and “love” is nowhere in the definition.
“The essence of love,” he added, “is to desire the best for someone, and to act to bring that about. And I would argue that’s what we think we’re doing.”
Here is another silly thing that fundamentalist Christians believe about themselves. Starting from a place where they actually believe they have the right answers [they who believe that the earth is 6,000 years old and under whose tutelage we never would have had antibiotics], they feel they have the right to act to control other people’s lives in order to “bring about the best” in the rest of society. The problem is that Peter Sprigg is not an expert on any damn thing! The actual experts — scientists, the medical profession, the mental health community — uniformly state that homosexuality is a natural part of the human condition, is not a disorder, and should be treated just as heterosexuality is. Therefore, taking the statements of actual experts, repealing DOMA and bringing about full equality for gays and lesbians is simply doing what is verifiably the best thing for our community. Peter’s opinion on the subject is irrelevant, as the fact that he has some thoughts about what’s written in an old book have absolutely no bearing on the issue at hand. I have some thoughts about that book, too, but I certainly wouldn’t use them to deny anyone their constitutional rights.
They talked to another bigot for the article, an “ex-gay” one:
But what worries Greg Quinlan, president of the Pro-Family Network, is that many Christians aren’t standing in opposition to gay marriage for the sake of getting along with those on the other side of the debate.
“I am intolerant,” he said, “but I don’t hate. Yes, there is a difference … We have to turn the definitions around.”
Good luck.
“Christians have to understand how to tell the truth in love, but it isn’t love until you tell the truth. Now, we have to not be concerned about what other people think of us. We have to stop trying to be nicer than Jesus.”
You aren’t nicer than Jesus, Greg. You and your kind lie about, malign and spread hate against an entire minority population in this country in service of your conception of a deity. At least when Jesus was in a mood he acted with a shred of integrity.
“When somebody calls us a hater … we need to be all the louder, all the more persistent and consistent with our message,” he said.
When you’re correctly called a hateful bigot, hate louder, he seems to be saying!
Well then, that was fun. Until next time one of these fools says something stupid…
