Believers Against Bush: Gospel of Hate

A “Gospel” of Hate

Christians, Moral Values, and Gays

November 3, 2004—George W. Bush was re-elected and many of those polled cited “moral values” as the reason they for voted for him. At the same time, 11 states—including the battleground state of Ohio—passed “definition of marriage” laws and amendments which were written exclusively to prevent gays and lesbians from legally marrying.

We have written elsewhere on this website (see our Smokescreen article) about how gay marriage has become one of the “hot buttons” of the religious right—as well as the vast majority of evangelicals. We have also discussed that marriage by the state is nothing more or less than a civil union. We are bringing the issue of gay marriage back to the table because Bush and his chief strategist, Karl Rove, have used this issue as both smoke screen and wedge, and we believe it was decisive in winning Bush another term.

Yet the real moral values have to do with fighting poverty, injustice, the needless killing of civilians in an unnecessary war, and fighting oppression wherever and whenever it appears.

We have long believed that the religious right has scapegoated our gay neighbors and friends referring to them as the cause of America's alleged “moral decline.” Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, and their crowd—using propaganda techniques worthy of Joseph Goebbels— have planted fear in the hearts of the faithful by referring over and over again to the “powerful gay lobby” for well over twenty years.

Falwell, Dobson, Robertson, and it seems the vast majority of evangelicals have forgotten certain Biblical truths:

All human beings—all—bear the image of God
When Jesus died for the sins of the world, He died for gays and lesbians too
Jesus said that one of the great commandments was to “love your neighbor as our yourself.” Jesus further illustrated who our “neighbor” is with the parable of the good Samaritan. The Samaritan was a neighbor because he acted in a kind, compassionate way to total stranger who was in need. In other words, Jesus wasn't telling us who are neighbor was, but telling us to be a neighbor to everyone, and thus truly fulfill the second of the great commandments.
If we believe that God's grace has been applied to us—as many say that we’re “sinners saved by grace” we should be a reflection of that grace, removing the “logs in our own eyes,” not denouncing the specks in everyone else’s.

Gays and Lesbians, as humans bearing the image of God, as people for whom Jesus died, are people who should enjoy the same rights and privileges that we do. State-sanctioned marriage is all about rights and privileges: the right to hospital visitation, the right to inheritance, the right to make life-saving medical decisions—as well as highly questionable “privilege” of the marriage tax penalty—that we heterosexuals take for granted. There is nothing about faith, morals, or religion in state sanctioned marriage.

Whether Christians believe homosexuality is a big sin, a little sin, or no sin at all, it is a great sin not to stand up for the rights of our neighbors and fellow human-beings.

Westboro Baptist Church The Christian right, along with the vast majority of Evangelicals, have long been preaching a “gospel” of hate, prejudice, and bigotry to our gay neighbors. On November 2, 2004, they helped set their hatred and prejudice into law in 11 states, including my own state.

Evangelicals have long acted as if the “gay problem” is something “out there,” far removed from their comfortable, largely white, mostly suburban churches. This couldn’t be further from the truth. An untold number of gays and lesbians were brought up in Bible-believing washed-in-the-blood churches in the Southeast and the Midwest. What options does the church give them? Celibacy, chastity and singleness? How many were told that they were still “struggling” because they didn't “have enough faith”? How many were simply put off because of the church’s collective bigotry and prejudice? Talk to your gay and lesbian neighbors and colleagues, and you will hear these themes again and again.

Evangelicals often speak as if homosexuality is the greatest sin of all! Yet the real moral values have to do with fighting poverty, injustice, the needless killing of civilians in an unnecessary war, and fighting oppression wherever and whenever it appears. Whether Christians believe homosexuality is a big sin, a little sin, or no sin at all, it is a great sin not to stand up for the rights of our neighbors and fellow human-beings.

Tony Campolo sums up best what we believe, and presents the type of “moral values” to which we are committed in this story that he tells:

I’m in a lot of trouble in the Evangelical community these days because there’s a group of oppressed people that I tend to love. And it’s a group of people that everybody’s upset with these days... But let me just say this. I was in high school. And there was a boy in high school who everybody picked on because we found out he was gay. We mocked him, we ridiculed him—you know what high school kids can do when they find out that somebody’s gay. We humiliated him in every way we could think of. On Fridays when the other boys went into the showers following gym, he would never go in—he was afraid. And when we came out with our wet towels, we whipped them at him and stung his little body.

I wasn’t there the day they took Roger and pushed him into the corner of that tile shower, and as he wrapped himself up like a fetus, five guys urinated all over him. He went home, and that night, went to bed, got up at two o’clock in the morning, went down to the garage, and he hung himself. And I knew I wasn’t a Christian. Oh, I believed all the things that Christians are supposed to believe. I went to Church. I believed the whole thing. But if I was really a follower of Jesus, I would have been Roger’s friend. And I would have stood up for him, and I would have put my arm around him, and when they came to attack him, I would have been his defender, and if they started to talk about me in negative ways, I would have been able to say, “Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and say all kinds of terrible things about you falsely, for my sake, rejoice, and be exceeding glad, for great shall be your reward in heaven.”

That’s what it means to be a person of commitment, and I wasn’t committed that day. I wasn’t committed to stand up for the battered down, the beaten and the lost and the downtrodden. (1)

May God help us all to be people of true commitment.

(1)Tony Campolo, Speech at Washington State Governer’s Prayer breakfast.

Photos and illustrations:

Cartoon, by Zachary Parker

Photo, from Wesboro Baptist Church (aka godhatesfags.com). Yes that is Howard Stern in the background. Apparently, they all gave the “shock jock” a visit.