Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbySeptember 5th, 2007
This post has been revised to add information on Kennedy’s ties to the Christian Reconstructionist movement, and to include Wayne Besen’s reaction.
Rev. D. James Kennedy, pastor of the Fort Lauderdale megachurch, Coral Ridge Ministries, died this morning. He was 76.
Kennedy was one of the more notorious, rabidly anti-gay extremists in America. And in his zeal to demonize gay Americans he chose a colorful array of associates. The Miami Herald briefly notes his associations with members of the extremist Christian Reconstructionist movement. Christian Reconstructionist author George Grant once served as Kennedy’s vice president at Coral Ridge, and Kennedy was an avid supporter of Judge Roy Moore. Other Christian Reconstructionist leaders (notably John Rushdoony and Gary DeMar) appeared on The Coral Ridge Hour and ministry sponsored conferences. Kennedy promoted the so-called “Constitution Restoration Act” which would have authorized Congress to impeach judges who fail to acknowledge “God as the sovereign source of law, liberty, or government.”
Kennedy’s recently-shuttered Center for Reclaiming America for Christ sponsored a series of television commercials in 1998 promoting gay conversion featuring Michael Johnston. Johnston, who is HIV-positive, was later found to have been secretly hosting orgies, taking drugs and practicing unsafe sex without disclosing his HIV status.
In 2004, Kennedy co-wrote What’s Wrong With Same-Sex Marriage with Jerry Newcombe which quotes extensively from discredited “researcher” and Nazi apologist Paul Cameron. In 2005, Kennedy published another book titled Why the Ten Commandments Matter, which features distortions from Cameron’s influential pamphlet, “Medical Consequences of What Homosexuals Do. And Kennedy’s Center for Reclaiming America posted at least one other article citing Cameron’s “research.”
The Miami Herald adds this reaction from Wayne Besen:
Fort Lauderdale gay-rights activist Wayne Besen calls him something else: “a source of great pain for gays and lesbians, distorting our lives on a national level. The whole ‘ex-gay’ movement we see nationally was jump-started by Coral Ridge Ministries … Kennedy popularized this idea that has caused a lot of suffering for gay people,” that homosexuality could be “prayed away.”
As with Jerry Falwell’s death last May, reactions to Kennedy’s passing are likely to run the gamut from mournful sadness to unmitigated glee. This should come as no surprise. Divisive people often provoke divided reactions, and few were more divisive than Kennedy. For me, there’s no glee. But again, like my first reaction on hearing about Falwell’s death, it’s “one gone, so many more…” My thoughts and prayers go to his family, sure. But the bulk of my thoughts and prayers go to all those he harmed over the course of his career.
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Drew
September 5th, 2007
I can’t offer any prayer for his family. Too many colleagues and followers of his ridiculous line of rhetoric will offer them up on their behalf. My prayers stay with those who were marginalized and demonized by his preaching. Not enough people will remember them.
homer
September 5th, 2007
Some day when the history of gay rights in the late 20th and early 21st century gets written, Rev. Kennedy may be lucky enough to get a paragraph or two, maybe a couple of footnotes. People who are against positive social changes never fare well- when was the last time that the KKK appeared on a stamp?
Michael Hamar
September 5th, 2007
Kennedy was definitely a hate peddling homophobe who harmed the lives of many gays and their families. What perhaps got me the most disgusted with Kennedy was that his Coral Ridge Ministries continued to sell Michael Johnston’s bogus ex-gay material right up until the minute Johnston was exposed in a Southern Voice article in 2003.
In contrast, other gay haters – word was out amongst the fundies BEFORE the Southern Voice article that Johnston had a “moral fall – had the decency to stop selling Johnston’s materials as soon as they learned about Johnston. Not Kennedy. I cannot say that I will mourn the man.
marcusT
September 5th, 2007
The way I came to know about Dr. Kennedy was through watching the egregious anti-gay videotape of his that my mother sent me after I came out to her. He had her absolutely hysterical with his incredible distortions of what “the gays” were like. I spent two afternoons tracking down 47 separate distortions of fact or outright lies in his hour-long videotape. Some could be defended as simple misunderstandings or mistakes on his part. Others, it was clear from the context, were deliberate distortions meant to whip up anti-gay sentiment in his audience and promote discriminatory legislation. I’m sure he did many noble and caring things during his long life and career. I regret that I never saw any of them — only the pain and heartbreak that he brought to so many gay and lesbian individuals and their desperate family members.
Knowinso Jones
September 11th, 2007
Kennedy, to be fair was probably
not as antagonistic as his surface
behavior suggests. He was almost
certainly a closet homo himself.
What ??? and hid it for years to
the public, his kid, and his wife ????
To all knowledgeable psychologists
his overt posturing betrayed, and yet
covered, his true nature both to
others and himself. Self deception
(I can’t be a queer, I’m too much
against it) for people like him,
Falwell, and Dobson are the beacon
which navigates their own perverted
secretive fears and egoism.
shary
September 15th, 2007
Rev D. James Kennedy was for Christian Government and Christian elected officials. His image of this country was theocracy at the expense of others. This is something to be highly concerned with.
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