If you want to experience pure frustration, visit ChristWire.org for just a few minutes.
The website and its Facebook page are both full of anti-gay writings from so-called preachers and pastors demonizing LGBTs gay men in particular with writings so outlandish they almost read like submissions to The Onion.
The reason for that is simple it’s a satirical website meant to show the absurdity of the Christian Right.
I have to admit, the ramblings of its writers had me fooled for some time. I took the writings as serious pieces of work penned by religious leaders of the Christian faith, like the hateful diatribes of Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell, who blamed gays, lesbians and feminists, among others, for the terror attacks of Sept. 11 and the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.
Today, we have politicians and religious leaders claiming that Hurricane Irene, Tropical Storm Lee and a surprising East Coast earthquake are a result of the country’s growing acceptance of the LGBT community.
The superstition of ridiculous religious and political pundits who point the finger of blame at us is almost laughable, if only it wasn’t so irritating, dangerous and real.
It’s not a surprising move, and it’s one I’ve talked about in this space before.
The hateful people who follow Fred Phelps at Westboro Baptist Church constantly blame the country’s growing acceptance of gay men and lesbians for the death of our soldiers. GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachman said that Irene was God’s way of getting the attention of the American people. She later said she was speaking metaphorically in an attempt to appear scientific.
It’s no secret that we are a multimedia world. With the explosion of Facebook, news travels fast. Anti-gay groups sprout up constantly, claiming to be spokespeople for God.
Their attempts to be a modern-day Moses are frightening and honestly, a bit unbalanced.
If you believe in a higher power, it’s impossible to believe that God (or Jesus or Buddha or Mohammad) is punishing the planet for the actions of LGBTs or the support of us. But if God does have his destructive sights set on planet Earth because of LGBT acceptance, how do we explain the other disasters across the country and the world?
Was the tornado outbreak this spring in the southeastern United States where same-sex rights aren’t exactly exceeding expectations God’s vengeance for Alabama’s House vote to ban text messaging? And what about those wildfires in Texas, where constitutional amendments outlawing same-sex marriage were easily passed? Is God upset with the rewriting of those history textbooks that received so much attention earlier this year?
And now that we know that North Carolina’s senate has approved a proposed constitutional banning same-sex marriage in that state, can we assume that Irene was really aiming for that state because God is in favor of gay marriage?
It makes me wonder what the Japanese did to rile up the Almighty so much that he felt it was time to unleash an earthquake and a tsunami back in March!
And on a personal note, an acquaintance of mine shared that some recent medical issues I faced were the result of him praying that Jesus punish me for some perceived indiscretion. Yeah, I don’t see him on the invitation list to this year’s Thanksgiving dinner.
God is not a weapon, yet religious leaders and too many others continue to preach that He or She is an entity that will punish us rather than love us. They view God as a junkyard dog they can sic on anyone with a different point of view.
History has shown that religion is at the root of most wars and that hindsight is more than 20/20 it’s terrifying. Religious leaders caused the Salem witch trials. They were also behind the Crusades, which kept Europe in a death trap of turmoil for more than two centuries.
I am a religious person and was raised to respect the religious beliefs of others. But with each new crop of so-called leaders using hate as its principal message, more LGBT people turn their back on religion.
That’s sad, because it’s not religion that is the problem, it’s the people who claim to represent it.
