Box Turtle Bulletin

And what’s more, if you really study Christianity you learn that it’s mostly just made up. As in ALL of it.

Sir Andrew

And now, just for fun, go to his church’s website. They are no longer accepting email for the good Pastor Dummy. One can only imagine what that mail has looked like in the days following his public display of pure idiocy.

Darina

Why isn’t that girl in the right end of the photo wearing blue? :)

The pastor is such a parody… but alas, there are always people to take somebody like him seriously.

Steve

Here is the likely source:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/almostdiamonds/2011/11/16/a-good-lie-for-jesus-is-immortal

Turns out that judge served in the 50s! And he was a “moral” crusader

Gregory Peterson

I had tracked down the quote and the Judge’s name at the Free Republic website, a reliable source for highly unreliable information. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1502263/posts

Here is a book by Chief Magistrate Murtugh. http://www.scribd.com/doc/30449172/Cast-the-First-Stone

Ryan

The pedophile stuff is an obvious lie that “stacks the deck” by declaring anyone who molests a boy a homosexual, despite the fact that most are married, and thus don’t count as part of the “2-3” percent. The murderer stuff is I think a completely brand new stereotype that makes no sense at all. But the STD stats…any chance that they’re accurate?

Stephen

I got an email off to him. Must have beaten the ban.

Timothy Kincaid

Ryan,

No. They are not true.

I didn’t track down each of them, but an easy one stands out.

He claims that the majority of gay people have intestinal parasites. Do the gay people you know have intestinal parasites?

justme

“Actually, I have no idea whether Vineyard even likes pie (though I can guess).” Fat-bashing? Seriously?

Gee, I can’t imagine why gay men have so much trouble being taken seriously when even self-apopointed spokesmen behave in public like 13 year old mean girls.

So you don’t love anyone who’s fat, apparently. I do. And, trust me, you are not better than them, and, I’m guessing, not more attractive than them for not being fat.

It’s always the gay men who have absolutely nothing else going for them physically other than not being fat that put down fat people. In fact, I’ve just found a YouTube video of you to see who this perfect specimen is. It speaks for itself.

Not so much fun now, is it?

The moral of this story is don’t be a bully. It shows the entire world your insecurities, it detracts from the subject at hand, and it’s ugly as hell.

Jim Hlavac

That’s funny, seems 100% of us gay men denounce pedophilia in no uncertain terms and deny heatedly that we are pedophiles, and strangely, 100% seem to claim we knew we were gay when we were kids and had no one to talk to about it — and that 100% of us were not recruited or molested into this “lifestyle.” Maybe the good pastor should have asked us.

Meanwhile, I love how other of our detractors are quite insistent that we Choose to be gay, and still others that we were made gay by something our dads or moms did or did not do — perhaps this Vineyard fellow should talk to Rick Santorum and Peter Sprigg — it would a most humorous discussion to see the three of them battle out exactly why we are gay. For the three of them hold such completely opposite reasons that it boggles the mind.

For to be all at once made gay in toddler times, been recruited in teenage years, and choose to be gay in young adulthood is quite a feat for any man. Or perhaps they’ll agree that it takes the three things together, who knows anymore.

JFE

Out of all of these comments above, I have to agree with justme. I though this post was going to show just how the pastor was wrong, in that he failed to give sources, used biased and outdated sources, used unbelievingly misleading “statistics,” and did not care to understand his fellow man.

Instead, it seems this post is a bunch of name-calling. A follow-up please?

Regan DuCasse

In my professional life, and continued study of criminal analysis, I find people like Pastor Tim not only stunningly stupid, but bordering criminally responsible themselves.

There has to be a discussion on the danger of slander and libel of an entire minority group. That the traditionally maligned minorities have historically and traditionally suffered similar slander that’s led to wholesale menace to their lives.
Any law enforcement professional can look on such statements and rightfully caution Pastor Tim on HIS behavior and lack of ethics.
You all can tell ME, why people like this guy will ignore what I have to say, what professional expertise and experience I have to bring to the discussion.
Why does he have to go off like this without actually CONSULTING someone from a law enforcement agency or sex crimes counselor without concern as to the CONSEQUENCES of what his misinformation might do?

Bearing false witness has NO exceptions just because it’s a minority you consider beneath you. Jews suffered the results of this tactic, blacks, gays and lesbians. Myth and misinformation about the sexual proclivities of these minorities are all on historical record. In VERY RECENT history, and what this pastor DOESN’T know is a disgrace.
Using his position as a pastor requires that he be truthful, accurate and ethical in his reporting.

Ministers, teachers, politicians and persons in law enforcement are required to be more informed, accountable, fairer and certainly morally ethical in not just what we talk about but WHO we talk about.
Otherwise, the line is crossed and we leave the public very vulnerable and endanger the innocent, rather than protect them.
Such pillars of the community cannot incite the mob, any more than LEAD one. They are most in the position to keep mobs FROM forming and doing something really dangerous.

He’s a disgrace, this man. He’s dangerous and a liability. People in law enforcement know better. But it’s disconcerting and unfair that someone like HIM, thinks he can circumvent the truth, and use fear to challenge what someone like ME would know.
There is EARNING trust, and then there is ABUSING it.
The real shame of it, is that certain members of the public think what this man is saying, won’t come back to bite them eventually.

Timothy Kincaid

justme,

I’m not a self-appointed spokesman for anything. But, just to be certain, in case I appointed myself without noticing, I hereby revoke my appointment.

Better?

And by the way, why are you putting down people who are “ugly as hell”. Are you a looksist? We ugly as hell people have feelings too, you know.

Seriously, though, a college friend of mine is no longer with us. His heart and other organs simply could not sustain his weight. So I’m not too sympathetic to a defense of obesity.

But that’s not really the issue in the case of Pastor Tom. Sure, he’s heavy. But poking fun at “fat people” isn’t my point here.

What I see here is a form of hypocrisy.

Pastor Tom is quick to deny necessities to others – for heaven sake he’s there testifying for why gay people should not have employment protection (or really even exist) in Oklahoma City. It goes without saying that any pleasure that gay people might find would send Pastor Tom into a tizzy. But it seems evident that Pastor Tom finds no need to deny himself of the pleasure of eating.

And Pastor Tom was there ranting and railing about the imaginary “medical conditions of homosexuals”. But Pastor Tom seems to find no concern in the health hazards of obesity.

There is a reason that the phrase “fat and complacent” exists. It reflects an attitude of gluttony and self-interest. And throughout history, excessive weight was often perceived as selfishly consuming more than was necessary while others went without.

I don’t think that in our society a little extra weight suggests greed or gluttony. But I took a look at the ministers at Pastor Tom’s church and they all seem to share his fondness for pie. I did not, however see any mention of food for the needy.

In contrast, the Church of the Open Arms – the UCC church that was there to support the ordinance – runs a food pantry.

When i talked about pie in the above commentary, it was shorthand for this whole idea. “Where’s my pie?” speaks to Tom’s attitudes and priorities and perspectives and demands.

I agree that mocking something like a little extra weight is pretty shallow. But sometimes, sometimes, it has a deeper meaning.

Timothy Kincaid

Regan,

Ministers, teachers, politicians and persons in law enforcement are required to be more informed, accountable, fairer and certainly morally ethical in not just what we talk about but WHO we talk about.

Yes. Exactly.

In ministry, it’s called a “calling” and the idea behind that phrase is that ministry to others requires that you put yourself last, that you take on others’ burdens, that you see people through God’s eyes not your own prejudices, that you fight for justice and mercy in the lives of those around you and that all of this is such an imposition on the minister that surely no one would do it if God himself had not “called” the minister to do so. For those who take it seriously, it is a very heavy burden. It nearly destroyed my brother.

Sadly there are too many Pastor Tom’s who think that pastoring is about power and privilege and imposing your will on others. I guess they are “preachers” and not ministers.

Priya Lynn

Timothy said “And by the way, why are you putting down people who are â€œugly as hellâ€. Are you a looksist? We ugly as hell people have feelings too, you know.”.

Now, that’s not fair, he wasn’t referring to your appearance being “ugly as hell”, but rather your making fun of a fat person.

Timothy Kincaid

parody, comedy, irony, humor

words that come before “seriously, though” generally are not to be taken seriously

Richard Rush

Timothy,

Pastor Tom Vineyard of Windsor Hill Baptist Church in Oklahoma City consumes in excess of 423 pies a day, meaning that 52% of all pies baked in Oklahoma City are eaten by Vineyard.

I think you’re exaggerating. I’m guessing that, while he buys all those pies, he only eats 23 of them each day. He smashes the other 400 and throws them in a dumpster. You know, he’s just like most gay people – while some of us would like a marriage, our real goal is to destroy it for everyone else. How did Grapehead miss that little Magic Fact in his itemized list of our evils?

NoxiousNan

“Fat and complacent” is an ignorant cliche, as was your rant at Justme. There is a reason these phrases exist as well:

Black people are good dancers.
Hippies never bathe.

The death of a friend is your excuse to be unsympathetic to those that might share the same risks? Empathy fail.

Terry

I see some choose to ignore the message and climb aboard the self-righteous train…Who knows maybe the next time they choke on their words others will refuse to give them the Heimlich maneuver for fear of a sexual harassment charge. Death by PC, what a story.

Priya Lynn

“words that come before â€œseriously, thoughâ€ generally are not to be taken seriously”

You made several statements before “seriously though” and some of them were obviously not serious but it was not clear that you weren’t being serious when you suggested Justme’s “ugly as hell” comment referred to your looks. That was an unfair characterization of his comment even if some of what you were saying was a joke.

Andrew

I got the joke, Tim. Don’t worry. At least you are a frequent author on a popular website, as opposed to being a mostly anonymous commentator!

Also, Oklahoma (my insane state) is one of the fattest in the Union.

@Terry, :)

Timothy Kincaid

okie dokie

If y’all want to be offended, by all means be so. It’s Friday and I just can’t get worked up enough to really care if I’m a big bad evil (and apparently ugly) person for noting Pastor Tom’s weight.

You could see the bigger point about demanding self-denial in others while engaging in gluttony. You could recognize that obesity is actually a problem in the country and that ignoring it isn’t going to reduce stroke, hypertension, heart failure, diabetes or a zillion other health problems that are going to plague the nation’s Huge Middle class.

Or you can be angry and defensive.

As I said, it’s Friday. Go for what makes you happy. And if you’d rather be angry and defensive, then you certainly should be angry and defensive.

(Priya Lynn, unless I really think that I am “ugly as hell”, my comments kinda had to be ironic. And, for the record, I don’t think that at all. Actually, I’m only ugly as heck.)

(Andrew and Terry, thanks :)

Priya Lynn

Yes, I assumed you were being ironic when you said you were “ugly as hell”.
That’s why I didn’t think it was clear you weren’t accusing Justme of being hypocritical for criticizing youre making fun of Pastor Tom’s weight.

For the record I take no position on mocking people’s looks, I can see where people think that is in appropriate but I’ve done it myself so I’m not criticizing your comments.

Theo

Well, what happened here is that the pastor went to one of the “fact sheets” circulating on the internet, which purport to gather all of these statistics from various sources and offer them in one place. He didn’t invent each of these false statistics. He went to a single source and then simply repeated whatever he found there – false stats about crime, false assertions about molestation and stats – some false, some misleading and some outdated – about STDs. A number of these fact sheets don’t even rely on Paul Cameron anymore. They consist of carefully selected quotes, often from people that no one has ever heard of who were speaking decades ago – maybe Michael Swift’s satirical essay from 1987 or something from “After the Ball” – and some STD stats from non-representative studies from 1970s and go from there. Apparently, Christian love does not entail doing any actual work to determine whether any of these stats are accurate.

This goes on time after time. You saw it in Traverse City and in Manhattan, KS and in Kalamazoo, MI. It will keep on happening until our side gets smart and turns this deceit into an issue. Make their dishonesty the issue and it will stop.

Ben In Oakland

Theo, i couldn’t agree more

We refuse to talk about bigotry, children, and religious prejudice in the public sphere, and every time “those” people use those potent weapons.

No one calls them on it. instead, we get these weak-tea, everybody make nice kumbaya campaigns that don’t work.

jutta

I’m somehow more shocked about the sloppy reporting in NewsOK / The Oklahoman – “The State’s Most Trusted News” than about Tom Vineyard. Vineyard at least mentioned the (purported) source of his quote, the newspaper didn’t. He quoted Murtagh as saying that ‘homosexuals account for half of the murders in large cities’ (i.e. victims or perpetrators) – NewsOK cites this as “murders … commited by gay people”.

Priya Lynn

Jutta said “He quoted Murtagh as saying that â€˜homosexuals account for half of the murders in large citiesâ€™ (i.e. victims or perpetrators) â€“ NewsOK cites this as â€œmurders â€¦ commited by gay peopleâ€.”.

It never occurred to me that he was saying gays were either victims or perpetrators, I assumed he meant gays were always the murderers.

Marauder

You know, I can deal with people’s religious beliefs because people can believe anything they want, no matter how crazy it sounds. If someone tells me they believe God is a cantaloupe or it’s a sin to wear shoes indoors, they can go ahead and believe that and I won’t try to convince them otherwise. But when they act as though they’re dealing in provable FACT when instead they’re just LYING, that’s when I get mad.

The whole “many homosexuals” thing is misleading in that, even if it were true, you can say that “many fill-in-the-blank” think or do such-and-such for any group of substantial size. You could say “Many New Yorkers cheat on their wives” and it would be “true” in that it would be possible to count a number of people in NY who cheat on their wives. But does that say anything about the entire population, or if being a New Yorker has any real connection to cheating on your wife? Heck no.

Ryan