Sometimes I forget that I’m no longer a competitive debater (a high school activity I adored, but which sadly ended more than 20 years ago), and will spend more time than I care to admit engaging with total strangers about random topics (usually about religion, politics, or cooking). As a self-involved blogger, I sometimes find it necessary to post some of my rants here. Go me.
Religion
All posts tagged Religion
So this is a continuation of the conversation I cut and pasted into my previous post, Out of the Republican Closet: A Response. The conversation delves further into this homophobic douchebag’s delusions of grandeur. I am not mentioning his name this time. Not because I want to protect him, but because I want to minimize any traffic he gets to his blog. Here is our continued exchange, uncensored except for where I corrected some of my typos:
I haven’t made much of an attempt online in recent years to argue the morality of homosexuality. After years of dealing with hateful bigots, I decided instead to cut them out of my life and disengage. Hate is illogical and can’t be reasoned with. But this one set me off and I responded to it.
I am posting my response here, as the author of that blog will most certainly delete my response from his page (funny how facts and common sense are usually censored by narrow-minded bigoted assholes).
My response:
This will be the first installment in a series called “Creepy Bible Stories.” The story of Lot and of “Sodom and Gomorrah” begins a full 18 chapters into the bible, so I’m skipping over quite a bit of creepiness just to get to it first. Given that it is probably the story most often mentioned when ignorant homophobes want to denigrate gays, I thought I would jump in with some facts.
Turn with me, if you will, to Genesis Chapter 18.
Towards the end of this chapter, we see Abraham arguing with God over a city called Sodom. Sodom apparently is a very, very naughty city (what with sodomy being named after it and all). As the Old Testament God is frequently given to temper tantrums and fits of violent, destructive rage (see an earlier story about a man and an ark), he really wants to fire-bomb Sodom. Abraham, voicing the sentiment felt by any sane reader of the bible, asks God why he would destroy the good with the wicked.
Dear Christian Voters,
I respect your right to believe the way you want. Regardless of how I may personally feel about the tenets of your faith, I respect you as individuals. I understand that the Constitution affords us freedom of religion (as well as freedom from religion). I was raised in a religious environment, and some of my closest friends and family are members of the clergy. I realize how important faith is in the lives of most people. I may joke about the extremists within your faith being “KKKristians,” but overall I respect that the crazies no more speak for you than the 9-11 terrorists speak for all Muslims (which is something you should keep in mind, but that’s a different post).
I am not writing this to debate your religious beliefs. I am simply asking that you look closely at the behavior of the leaders within your party and ask yourself if their concern for you and your way of life is genuine. Do they share your values? Or are they exploiting your religious faith to get votes?
I have no intention of debating the morality of homosexuality. I could spend several pages discussing the myriad verses in the bible religious fundamentalists choose to completely ignore, and then demand to know why they use the same book to condemn gays, but I won’t. I also have no intention of debating politics, or claiming that left-leaning centrists are smarter than conservatives. I am simply going to show why—per the right wing Christian worldview—opposition to gay marriage is neither conservative nor Christian.
Curtis Knapp, Kansas Pastor Who Said Government Should Kill Gays, Defends Statements
I’m sorry to post on the same subject twice in a row, but I couldn’t resist. Over the years I have grown accustomed to, if not been completely numbed by, ignorance and homophobia, but this instance is particularly egregious.
I wonder if Mr. Knapp realizes that the bible also very clearly states the following: slavery is okay, parents should murder their own children when they disobey, women shouldn’t go outside without their hair covered, women shouldn’t speak in church, and women should be cast out of the city if they touch anyone while they’re on their period (the bible refers to this as being “in their sickness”). It also very clearly states that all of the following are abominations: touching or eating of the pig (so no football or ham sandwiches, y’all), shellfish (shrimp/lobster), wearing clothes woven of different fabrics (so no poly-cotton blends), and planting more than one kind of crop in a field.
I apologize if I sound like a cliché atheist here, but the bible is a collection of mythological tales slapped together randomly (oodles of other similar books and “gospels” were arbitrarily left out). There are heaps of demands in the bible that modern day Christians completely ignore, yet they keep harping on and on about the few that allegedly refer to homosexuality. I won’t even get into the fact that the word “homosexual” was absent from the bible until the 1950s. Or the fact that Jesus himself never said word one about homosexuality.
Then again, it is clear that so-called “fundamentalists” couldn’t care less what Jesus had to say anyway. They don’t seem to have much interest in turning the other cheek, loving their neighbor, resisting the urge to judge others, protesting war and violence, or helping the needy, sick and poor. They only seem to care about spreading lies, hate, violence, and electing Republicans.
If anyone can dig up some Larry Craig/Mark Foley/Teg Haggard-type dirt on this guy and report back to me, there is a shiny new nickel in it for you.
I was raised in conservative rural Oklahoma, attended church at least three times a week from infancy until I left for college, and then attended a private Baptist university for two years. I am well aware of how most fundamentalist Christians feel about the gays. I eventually grew numb to it, then moved to the West Coast and escaped it. I decided the best way to move forward with life and not be completely jaded by all the hypocrisy and hatred that religious fundamentalism entails was to take on a live and let live attitude.
Then I see garbage like this. This is outright child abuse. This boy has no idea what homosexuality is (or any sexuality, for that matter). He has no clue about the intricacies of biblical interpretation. He and his family likely know no out gays (I say no “out” gays because there are scores of closet-case gays running around deeply conservative/religious areas, and they are usually the most vocal and hateful).
He is a child, still learning about the world around him. He should have a sense of wonder and optimism about life, an imagination, and a desire to learn and grow. That is all being stifled by the hateful, bigoted, hypocritical adults who surround him.
The applause and cheers in this video should make you nauseated, as they did me.
And they claim gays indoctrinate…