Newsweek’s Debate

This commentary is the view of the author and does not necessarily reflect that of other authors at Box Turtle Bulletin.

Timothy Kincaid

December 16th, 2008

Following the publication of Newsweek’s cover story on the biblical case for gay marriage, conservative Christians were outraged. In response, Newsweek has provided a debate about how Christianity should address gay marriage and homosexuality generally.

Bill Wylie-Kellerman, a United Methodist serving as pastor at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Detroit, Michigan, supported the full inclusion of gay persons in both civil and ecclesiastical life including marriage recognition.

Dr. Barrett Duke, vice president for Public Policy and Research at The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, an agency of the Southern Baptist Convention, argued for both civil and religious oppression of homosexual behavior and for (undefined) “change”.

Both were sincere and both sought to be forthright and truthful in the expression of their views. And neither sought to be universally condemnatory of same-sex attracted persons or to villify each other.

Though lengthy, this is an exchange well worth reading, not only for the thoughts expressed but for the worldview revealed. Wylie-Kellerman sees Scripture as a Living Word to be viewed through the eyes of experience and at the direction of the Holy Spirit. Duke sees Scripture as an inerrant, finite and complete exposition of all of God’s direction to be applied to all people at all times. While both value and respect Scripture and seek to live according to its directives, it is readily evident that they are not reading the book in the same way.

I am biased.

Although I was raised in a very conservative fundamentalist family (my grandfather, father, and both brothers are or have at various points been Pentecostal pastors), I have come to see Scripture in a different light. I now find it less of a rule-book and more of a composite of wisdom about man’s efforts to know the Divine. I now find Christianity less about how I can bring my life into compliance with the arbitrary dictates of a Divine Despot and more about how to commune with God and incorporate Him into my life and a guide on how to interact with His Creation.

So I obviously view the debate through the lens of my faith and my perspective.

Nonetheless, it seemed to me that Wylie-Kellerman holds a view of God, faith, and Scripture that reflects the reality of the world around him, while Duke unquestioningly seeks to deny that which does not conform to his preconceptions and to shape his world to conform to his doctrines.

Even though we recognize that homosexuals believe that same-sex attractions are normal for them, we do not believe we are helping them by affirming them in this state. If God has declared homosexual behavior to be sinful, we don’t help homosexuals by telling them everything is all right as long as they engage in homosexual acts within a committed relationship. We only help them by telling them what God has said about it, and then offer them a safe, loving, compassionate environment in which God can help them change.

Duke’s theology is not a matter of application of Scriptural principles and ethics to a situation, but rather the recitation of a rule – a rule which he need not question nor be too concerned about the inherent morality of how it impacts those to whom it is directed.

Which is, ironically, encouraging. I cannot help but believe that the faith with seeks to make Scripture applicable and relevant to modern life will in time outlive that which seeks to make modern life subject to the dictates of Iron Age prophets. I look forward to that day.

[NOTE: Comments to this thread that discuss the article or the diverse views of Christianity are welcome. This commentary is not an invitation for Atheists or Anti-Christians to make broad condemnations against the religion. Please be forewarned that I will remove any comments that I think are off topic and that I will be very narrow in my interpretation.]

Rick

December 16th, 2008

I think more than two viewpoints would have made for a better article. Part of the problem with this issue is its stubborn ‘either/or’ presentation in the media. It affirms the posture of ‘us vs. them,’ at which point many people become outraged emotionally and stop listening or reasoning. I would have liked to see, perhaps, a rabbi and an imam and a formerly-Christian atheist included in this discussion. Maybe next time, maybe in an ongoing series. I perceived Duke to be rather condescending in tone, but this is probably because I’m at the other end of his judgment.

Timothy Kincaid

December 16th, 2008

Rick,

While I think your idea of a greater inclusion would serve a purpose, I don’t think it would serve the purpose at hand.

The question was not “what is the nature of God, if any” but rather “what does the Christian Bible say about homosexuality”. I don’t think that an imam, atheist, or rabbi have much to contribute to that discussion or the authority from which to speak.

Evan

December 16th, 2008

I think that if you remove the proper names from this quote…

“Nonetheless, it seemed to me that _____ holds a view of God, faith, and Scripture that reflects the reality of the world around him, while _____ unquestioningly seeks to deny that which does not conform to his preconceptions and to shape his world to conform to his doctrines.”

…you pretty much get a summation of all religious arguments regarding homosexuality, as well as religious arguments surrounding other “hot-button” issues wherein the reality-based community finds itself slamming up against a brick wall.

I mean, the collective “they” have built monuments toward this sort of willful ignorance (see: Creation Museum).

I saw some quote from, I dunno, Focus on the Family or somewhere (I might have seen it here) recently that quite explicitly said “If we believe that God has something different in mind for [gays],” then it’s their responsibility to try to take away our civil rights.

It was so on-the-sleeve arrogant, the presumption that they would have the knowledge, much less the right, to determine what “God has in mind” for people they don’t know and who don’t want to know them.

MR Bill

December 16th, 2008

The best discussion I have seen of this issue is at “The Abominable Shellfish-Why some Christians hate gays but love bacon.” Jim at Slacktivist, a committed Christian and serious thinker, dogged deconstructor of the odious Left Behind series, tells us that the story of Peter’s vision of food is actually about people:

“This is generally regarded as an instance in which a New Testament passage seems to set aside a prohibition from the Old Testament. And that’s why our friends on the religious right do not feel compelled to eat kosher and do not consider shellfish to be “an abomination.”

Fair enough, but there’s something else going on in this story. The main point of Peter’s rooftop epiphany has nothing to do with diet. The main point of this vision had to do with the people who were about to knock on Peter’s door.

Peter is about to meet Cornelius. Cornelius is a gentile. Worse than that, he is a Roman. Worse than that, he is a Roman centurion. Cornelius is about as kosher as a bacon double cheeseburger.

But give Peter credit — he understood the vision. “Don’t call anything unclean that God has made clean.” Don’t call anyone unclean that God has made clean.

Peter does not treat Cornelius as an unclean outsider. He travels to the centurion’s house, where he says, “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with a Gentile or visit him. But God has shown me that I should not call any man impure or unclean.”

Peter gets it. In this new community that God is building, this church, there is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave nor free. No one is excluded as unclean.”
As they say, read the whole thing.
The comments are a good gauge of the sort of argumentation from various Christian points of view.

Rick

December 16th, 2008

Timothy,

‘What is the nature of God, if any…’

This is not at all what I meant. I meant that I would find it a more compelling article if it contained a cross-faith discussion of scriptures with regards to homosexuality and gay marriage. And there are commonalities among the religions I mentioned, even if they do not use the same bible.

That’s all that I meant, Timothy.

Stefano A

December 16th, 2008

Considering Timothy’s threat to narrow the conversation, I’ll say this anyway.

Part of the problem with this issue is its stubborn ‘either/or’ presentation in the media.

The “problem” is the media positing a discourse on theological arguments as being of relevance as to how a secular government should inform it’s social policies regarding the treatment of homosexuals.

Theological arguments such as this are appropriate and legimate (even beneficial) as inter- or intra-faith discussions among people of faith with the aim of working toward greater acceptance (or tolerance) of homosexuals, but theological lines of arguments are completely irrelevant and inappropriate as a basis of discourse for deciding civil social policies.

While the discussions between the two pastors is relevant to a discussion among the faithful as to whether or not religious institutions should or would recognize SSM the entire article was completely irrelevant to a discussion of SSM as a matter of Civil law.

Whatever the theological “beliefs” about homosexuality either pro or con, those are completely irrelevant to civil law. Their only relevance in that matter is to act as a rationalization for imposing personal faith beliefs for
governmental endorsement. Arguments that are not only irrelevant but
inappropriate in this country with regard to separation of church and state.

This is a theological religious debate which cannot be relied upon as a basis for establishing social policy. Either argument presented is part of a religious doctrine and should not be a basis for governmental endorsement either pro or con as using theological arguments is a direct violation of separation of church and state.

It is a legimate form of discourse only within a religious context.

Stefano A

December 16th, 2008

The entire debate posits a religious test upon social policy formation. Completely inappropriate.

Timothy Kincaid

December 16th, 2008

Stefano,

As I read the debate, it seemed to me that the ministers were less interested in social policy (it was rarely mentioned) than in theology. The debate was over whether Scripture made a case for or against religious gay marriage, not whether civil law should comply with religious doctrine.

Stefano A

December 16th, 2008

I don’t disagree with you, Timothy, but my point was how Newsweek has posited both the original Lisa Miller article and this follow-up debate as being relevant to the CIVIL debates.

All arguments fall back on religious doctrine. Instead of furthering those debates as being legitimate lines of argument for the civil debate for SSM both the media, and in my opinion, persons such as Wylie-Kellerman should emphasie the distinction and stress just what you said, that those lines of argument and debate are ONLY RELEVANT in the debate regarding religious recognition.

The way Newsweek and other media posit these arguments are not within the context of that “religious debate” but in the context of the civil debate.

Wylie-Kellerman in his opening remarks gave brief mention to the two forms/recognitions of marriage; i.e., civil, but in my opinion that separation is not stressed enough.

Stefano A

December 16th, 2008

… i.e., civil/religious…

CPT_Doom

December 16th, 2008

What struck me in this debate was the refusal of Duke to engage when Wylie-Kellerman moved into areas of argument that cast doubt on the inerrancy of the Bible. Duke seemed to respond with “well, that’s what the Bible says, and I have to believe it.” The irony is that one could make the exact same arguments, based in at least the Roman Catholic version of the Bible, to argue against the sin of being a Southern Baptist! The most direct analogy to homosexuality is not slavery, but rather heresy and the freedom of conscience we now share in this country. Are we not, by following the First Amendment, allowing far more sin to flourish in this country through the existence of religious traditions considered “false” by other sects?

Duke does not recognize, or will not express, that there has been an enormous shift among nearly all Christian theologians and sects that differing interpretations of Christianity – even differing Bibles – can add to our understanding of God and the Word. It is that shift, more than any other, that allowed for movements like abolition, sufferage and the various racial/ethnic civil rights movements.

Stefano A

December 16th, 2008

I also think that both debaters were quite aware that while they were discussing religious “recognition” or not, that they entire reason the debate was being published was with regard to social policy formation.

The very open salvos, especially those of Duke, clearly indicated that this was being posited both with regard to religious recognition and as what should be considered social policy.

Barrett Duke: Greetings. I look forward to our conversation. This is a very important topic, not only for the church but also for our culture. I believe Christians must submit to the Bible’s teachings, and I believe the Bible is unequivocal in its teaching that homosexual behavior is sinful. That being the case, it is impossible for me to accept same-sex marriage, which legitimizes a sinful behavior.
….
“Religious objections to gay marriage are rooted not in the Bible at all, then, but in custom and tradition …” was offensive and uninformed. My objections to same-sex marriage are very much rooted in the Bible. If NEWSWEEK actually intended to be an honest mediator of this issue, they should have published pro and con articles by respected Bible scholars rather than engage in such blatantly obvious opinion journalism.

Wylie-Kellerman: By laying out a clear argument, public conversations are invited. I also know it was a great breath of air for gay folks to read a theologically literate argument on their behalf. They are so constantly hit over the head with Scripture, to which we must surely come.

It is quite clear that while the debate was a pretext for a discussion “religious recognition” (or not) the entire debate was occuring because of and with regard to social policy formation in favor of SSM.

Stefano A

December 16th, 2008

Timothy:

Quite frankly, it matters very little whether or not either debater believes their is theological support for religious recognition, as that is NOT what is being requested with government recognition of SSM.

Again, that is the context for both Lisa Miller’s original article and this one; i.e. the civil public debates regarding the government recognition of SSM and how in those debates the religious beliefs were being used as a club to impose said beliefs on social policy.

Bill Wylie-Kellerman specifically attempted to introduce that aspect with his references to the previous abuses of religion and how he preferred the other side of that coin, where religion was not used as a club but stood for social justice.

Stefano A

December 16th, 2008

on second thought

I don’t disagree with you,Timothy…

Actually, I do disagree with you. I don’t think this article was presented at all as being limited to a religious context but as I’ve pointed out was posited in the larger context of addressing the social policy formation debate.

Timothy Kincaid

December 16th, 2008

Stefano,

I’m not sure I understand your point.

Are you arguing that the two gentlemen should not have debated or that Newsweek should not have published the debate?

Regan DuCasse

December 16th, 2008

THE most important part of this issue is:
1. How modern life and education have rendered what those in Biblical society couldn’t have imagined as natural or normal, are now VERY important to human quality of life and progress.

2. The legacy of previous Bible interpretation to rationalize human rights abuses. Even in RECENT history in America, within our current lifetimes. There should be serious caution against using the Bible when the result IS abuse to anyone.
Especially those who haven’t committed a crime or taken away the rights of others for THEIR quality of life.

3. That there is a correlation to how gay people are treated and approached and serious problems in our society. Discrimination and alienation of gay people has SERVED NO GOOD to justify the continuation of the traditional approach or belief.

Most of all, the traditional approach restricts learning just how and in what way gay people will intergrate what is affirming in society.

There is a difference between being incapable, and not ALLOWED to be capable.
We are in an age of exceptional interaction, educational access and experience.

And somehow, the experience of cooperation between gay and straight people continues to be hampered by a religious concept that is ENTIRELY optional.
Confronting the theory of an omnipotent being with the reality of gay person’s singular distinction.

Otherwise the other concepts of sin, are not exclusive and not utilized as disqualfications for civil and human rights.

The Bible will always say what it will. It’s inerrancy could be the degree to how many times it’s rewritten in another language and interpreted to maintain and certain hierarchy.

But human life has moved, evolved and we are not who we used to be, and shouldn’t continue the worst of violations to another human being the Bible has contradicted itself in rejecting or supporting.

As a design for living, we STILL have a matter of choosing or rejecting it’s tenets as INDIVIDUALS.
And even as a group, Christians or other religious communities can’t FORCE you to believe what they do.

That gay people have existed before all established religions should have taught whoever created them, that gay people are a unique variation of themselves, not an enemy of it.
And modern theologists have to know that too.

Being an easy scapegoat and traditionally vulnerable because of the unique difference of homosexuality doesn’t mean the proscriptions are deserved or justified.

And why they are so eagerly and continually embraced is right to challenge, just as challenging slavery was.

Maduin

December 16th, 2008

Stefano,

Like it or not, religious arguments concerning same-sex marriage are very important. We’ve tried to separate the issue of civil marriage from religious marriage and what did it get us? Thirty out of 50 states have passed constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage! The fact is that, for most people, their religious beliefs inform their political views. You’ll never win them over to our side by asking them to ignore their beliefs. Instead, you need to challenge those beliefs directly. That’s the only way you’ll change their votes.

Stefano A

December 16th, 2008

<blockquoteI’m not sure I understand your point.

Are you arguing that the two gentlemen should not have debated or that Newsweek should not have published the debate?
I am saying that Newsweek and any other media outlets, and including people such as Bill Wylie-Kellerman need to stop positing these debates as if their legitimate arguments for or against civil marriage and make it very clear that they are only valid arguments within a religious context.

And as some of those religious leaders did in California when they came out against Prop 8, how they stressed the separation of civil marriage and religious marriage.

But that as in the case of this Newsweek article, it needs to be made very clear that such arguments are irrelevant with regard to governmental stakes in the matter.

In other words, I’m sick and tired of people acting as if such religious impositions on civil law is just fine and dandy. That people like Bill and government leaders, and media and gay rights advocates need to hit people over the head with that fact.

As for this debate itself, no I’m not saying Newsweek shouldn’t have published, and in keeping with Maduin’s comment, I do see value in such discussions.

But what annoys me is how such arguments are posited as if they’re legitimate lines of argument for deciding civil policy.

I do believe such conversations are

appropriate and legimate (even beneficial) as inter- or intra-faith discussions among people of faith with the aim of working toward greater acceptance (or tolerance) of homosexuals

But I think they should be posited in that general context and not the context of the SSM debate to which they’re irrelevant. And that that irrelevancy needs to be highlighted time and time again with no uncertainty.

We either have separation of church and state in this country or we have a theocracy. People can’t keep playing it both ways religious or politician.

Stefano A

December 16th, 2008

I won’t say further on this so as not to distract your intent for thread, to discuss theology, a discourse I have no interest whatsover involving myself in.

You asked my point.

All of my posts were a point in response to what I quoted I was responding to:

Part of the problem with this issue is its stubborn ‘either/or’ presentation in the media.

That is what I was addressing and the ways I took exception to that comment.

Stefano A

December 16th, 2008

Sorry for the broken code above.

Just for clarity…

This was the quote

I’m not sure I understand your point.

Are you arguing that the two gentlemen should not have debated or that Newsweek should not have published the debate?

I am saying that Newsweek and any other media outlets, and including people such as Bill Wylie-Kellerman need to stop positing these debates as if they’re legitimate arguments….

Matt Algren

December 16th, 2008

Maduin,

The problem (*A* problem) is that there is barely a thread of agreement between the hundreds of Protestant denominations. On ANYTHING. Some of them believe that being gay is a sin. Some believe that it’s not sinful until you have sex. Some believe that a gay person can be part of a congregation but not in a position of authority. Some see no difference between gay and straight.

It’s not just The Gays that we disagree on. I’m not sure non-Christians realize that the biggest and most vocal opponents of gay rights also think that women shouldn’t be in positions of authority (in church or elsewhere) and that they should “submit” wholly to their husbands. (Oh, and all women should have husbands.) My own Methodist denomination wouldn’t allow women to be full pastors until the 1950s, and there are still a lot of churches that say they won’t accept a woman behind the pulpit. (I’ve always said that that should be a surefire way of getting a woman behind the pulpit. But I digress…)

Then we get to the deeper question of whether the Bible is inerrant or infallible. Do people ever get worked up over that one.

It’s not as easy as convincing one group that they’re wrong. It’s a matter of convincing many smaller groups that they’re wrong AND getting them to act on that AND getting them to act on that now, rather than putting it in committee for a couple years.

To be candid, that ain’t gonna happen. It especially won’t happen as long as the James Dobsons and Rick Warrens have as much unquestioned clout and trust among the rank-and-file.

I don’t think we can win them by suggesting that they turn their backs on their leaders. If we’re going to win them it has to be by separating the notion of religious marriage from civil marriage.

Of course, I’m of the mind that the battle won’t be won until SCOTUS gets a hold of it.

Stefano A

December 16th, 2008

Just one last observation and I’ll have had my say …

As far as this particular Newsweek debate, the entire debate really was more a digression about the sin of homosexuality in general than it was anything else, and as such should not have even been posited as a discussion about SSM.

So with that regard yeah, Timothy, I would fault Newsweek for that.

Ray

December 16th, 2008

Personally, I thin k the whole argument (either side) is just old, tired, and BORING.

The Bible is a piece of literature and should be read as such and given no more weight than Homer, Ovid, Shakespeare or even Hemingway.

David C.

December 16th, 2008

It’s the usual problem with believing in a Supreme Beings: you really never know for sure what’s on their mind and it is the believers’ responsibility to find out.

Religious arguments for or against SSM will always revolve around what the Bible has to say about homosexuality. No one is quite sure if the translation of the original texts even got the right word.

So the two sides in the Newsweek debate differed in their interpretation of a work that was produced in a time very different from our own. The Old Testament, which was written over a long time, appeared well before the emergence of Christianity and was motivated by a different set of societal needs and perceptions of God. All early Christians were Jewish for all intents and purposes, including Jesus. Only after several decades following the death of Jesus, did the first book (Mark) of the new testament get written in the first century. Those early Christians were still essentially Jewish. Their “Bible” at the time was the Torah, much of which makes up what we generally refer to as the “Old Testament”. Christianity may have begun to have a written tradition shortly after the death of Jesus, but most likely it was an oral tradition, not written down until the last quarter of the first century—decades after the death of Jesus.

A principal thread that runs through the aphorisms and teaching of Jesus is one of inclusion and embracing “others” that are not Jewish, including Pagans and those that were generally considered “unclean” because of their non-adherence to the “law” set down in the Torah, or the God it honored. For some Christians it is hard to accept that the universal love taught by Jesus was to be extended to everybody in the time of Jesus as well as now, which would include people that were in fact homosexual. I think this is mostly because many Christians just don’t want to believe that homosexuality is a natural state for some human beings, and that it is impossible that God could have created people that were in fact “naturally” homosexual. Clearly, medicine, psychology, and philosophy have advanced since the Torah and the four books of the New Testament were written.

Those that want to read the Bible literally, will always have a hard time accepting things in our modern world, and often will have a problem reconciling the universal love taught by Jesus with the many exclusionary tenets of the Old Testament. If you are already predisposed to believe the text of the Bible as handed down to us, and are unwilling to interpret the scriptures in light of what we know about its historical origins, the universal love of Jesus, and what we have learned about the human condition, then you think like Dr. Barrett Duke.

Readers here that want to understand the origin of Christianity in order to better understand how to participate in the debate surrounding religious acceptance of Gay Rights, should watch this PBS Frontline documentary that describes what scholars have been able to learn about the life and times of Jesus and the emergence of Christianity.

Willie Hewes

December 17th, 2008

I don’t think you can convince the people who hold Christianity is a sin that they’re wrong by giving them a theological argument to read. You might be able to do that if you were their daughter and came out to them, AND gave them the theological argument, but even then, it would be a hard fight.

I don’t think that’s the point of this debate; the debaters are hardly going to convince each other. I think the most important point to note is that they disagree.

Many Christians, when they throw themselves into the gay marriage debate, act as if God and the Bible are unequivocally on their side, and therefore if you are a Christian (remember, most Americans are) you have to oppose gay marriage. This idea is so widespread that I think there is real value in having a debate like this, in public.

I also agree with Stefano A, though, this argument is not and should not be presented as relevant to the question at hand: should gay marriages be recognised by the state. They should. The only arguments against are based in bias or religion, or both. Neither bias nor religion have any place in the state’s laws.

Alan

December 17th, 2008

I agree with Ray in that these arguments are getting “old, tired”; I read the article by Collins and there really wasn’t anything new there.

But I disagree about the impact of the Bible; it may well be literature, but it’s impact is much greater than Shakespeare or Hemmingway.

And I think that, like it or not, we’ll have to deal with its influence on gay marriage and other issues into the foreseeable future.

AdrianT

December 17th, 2008

I agree totally with Stefano A. I would add further that the way to make progress is to eliminate from rational argument anyone who claims to know the mind of God, however moderate. It’s wonderful for Christians to try to make their religion accepting of others, relevant and tolerant. But it’s a discussion that is only relevant within the confines of their Church. Religious opinions, be they of Wylie Kellermann or Duke, must not inform public life; neither should they be endorsed by government.

Patrick

December 17th, 2008

What God supposedly thinks about same-sex marriage is irrelevant when it comes to the laws of the USA.

David C.

December 17th, 2008

I would add further that the way to make progress is to eliminate from rational argument anyone who claims to know the mind of God, however moderate. … Religious opinions, be they of Wylie Kellermann or Duke, must not inform public life; neither should they be endorsed by government.

What God supposedly thinks about same-sex marriage is irrelevant when it comes to the laws of the USA.

Were it that easy.

A number of remarks here have focused on the fact that our government is secular, and no church has any business imposing it’s beliefs on the rest of the governed. Unfortunately, the reality of the way people participate in that secular government does not exclude people of faith from raising and voting on issues, or otherwise taking positions with respect to lawmaking and public policy.

Whether or not we as gay-rights supporters want to deal with faith interests, they are a reality of the political landscape. It behooves us to become aware of the influence networks formed by groups that seek to effect public policies curtailing or enhancing the rights of LGBT people. To achieve our goals of inclusion, we will have to work within the structure of those networks to persuade sympathetic subgroups to speak up and work for LGBT causes.

It is essential that LGBT people value the principal of inclusion, not just call for inclusion, and that means reaching out to all communities whose morals dictate their acceptance of gay people.

Everyone in the LGBT camp must realize that just because we believe a particular way does not mean that others don’t believe some other way. Belief is inescapable, even for the most rational humanist. Rational dialogue and persuasion will not work with everybody, but it will work with many who in turn multiply the voices for LGBT inclusion in the whole of society.

Maurice Lacunza

December 17th, 2008

I read this quote from Chuck Colson in Wayne Besen’s column: “Furthermore, beginning today, we commit ourselves to opposing and publicly shaming anyone who resorts to the rhetoric of anti-religious bigotry – against any faith, on any side of any cause, for any reason.”

I was struck by the magnitude of anger and hate spewing from this quote.

I had a little vision of Jesus, sitting around some big rocks, talking to his friends. In that vision, I was unable to conjure up an image of Jesus “going off” with such venom against the people he loved. I know he got upset in the Temple and threw some money tables around, but, that pushed the envelope for him. And rightly so.

Do Chuck Colson, Warren, Dobson, sick et al, do they all really think that Jesus is the kind of man that would mount advertising campaigns against the lesser-of-these?

At times I want to write a book and I would call it, “Go to the Master”. I would analyze all the current Christian agenda including the teachings of the crooks on TV. Then, I would do a comparative analysis strictly against the words of Jesus. After all, he is the Savior, the difinitive source, the Master.

I know the likely result: the gospels of Jesus do not support anger, hatred, bigotry, nor would Jesus ask for $25 to send me a prayer napkin that has been “blessed”. The result would be a stunning conviction of truth; or, attacked as heretical.

Today’s so called evangelicals and Christian activists cannot justify or defend their actions when held up the words of Jesus Christ himself. The church saddens me on one hand, and sickens me on the other. The churches ought to be punished by pulling their tax exempt status and banning them from advertising their hate campaigns. It saddens me deeply.

Keep up the good work,

Maurice Lacunza

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Part 1: What’s Love Got To Do With It?
Part 2: Parents Struggle With “No Exceptions”
Part 3: A Whole New Dialect
Part 4: It Depends On How The Meaning of the Word "Change" Changes
Part 5: A Candid Explanation For "Change"

The Heterosexual Agenda: Exposing The Myths

At last, the truth can now be told.

Using the same research methods employed by most anti-gay political pressure groups, we examine the statistics and the case studies that dispel many of the myths about heterosexuality. Download your copy today!

And don‘t miss our companion report, How To Write An Anti-Gay Tract In Fifteen Easy Steps.

Testing The Premise: Are Gays A Threat To Our Children?

Anti-gay activists often charge that gay men and women pose a threat to children. In this report, we explore the supposed connection between homosexuality and child sexual abuse, the conclusions reached by the most knowledgeable professionals in the field, and how anti-gay activists continue to ignore their findings. This has tremendous consequences, not just for gay men and women, but more importantly for the safety of all our children.

Straight From The Source: What the “Dutch Study” Really Says About Gay Couples

Anti-gay activists often cite the “Dutch Study” to claim that gay unions last only about 1½ years and that the these men have an average of eight additional partners per year outside of their steady relationship. In this report, we will take you step by step into the study to see whether the claims are true.

The FRC’s Briefs Are Showing

Tony Perkins’ Family Research Council submitted an Amicus Brief to the Maryland Court of Appeals as that court prepared to consider the issue of gay marriage. We examine just one small section of that brief to reveal the junk science and fraudulent claims of the Family “Research” Council.

Daniel Fetty Doesn’t Count

Daniel FettyThe FBI’s annual Hate Crime Statistics aren’t as complete as they ought to be, and their report for 2004 was no exception. In fact, their most recent report has quite a few glaring holes. Holes big enough for Daniel Fetty to fall through.