Thursday, July 21, 2011

Christian Post article misses the point about 'bigots'

The Christian Post recently came out with an article asking how can Christians who stand against marriage equality not be called "haters" and "bigots."

But based on who the article chose to quote, it seems that those at The Christian Post missed the point:

Peter Sprigg, senior fellow for policy studies with the Family Research Council, believes that Christians need to make it clear that they are motivated by love.

"I think that's kind of the major challenge that we face,” he commented to The Christian Post. “We in the pro-family movement ... those of us who are Christians, we know in our hearts that we are motivated by love, not hate. The definition of love is not that you let people do whatever they want.”

Bear in mind this is the same Peter Sprigg who said he would like to see gays exported from the United States.

The article conveniently did not mention that.

And Sprigg also said he thinks "homosexual behavior"  should be criminalized, which is another point the article omitted.

Lastly, Sprigg has been known, on occasion, to manipulate legitimate studies about the gay community to totally distort their meaning. Of course the article omitted that point.

The article also quoted "professional ex-gay" Greg Quinlan:

But what worries Greg Quinlan, president of the Pro-Family Network, is that many Christians aren't standing in opposition to gay marriage for the sake of getting along with those on the other side of the debate.

"I am intolerant,” he said, “but I don't hate. Yes, there is a difference ... We have to turn the definitions around."

"Christians have to understand how to tell the truth in love, but it isn't love until you tell the truth. Now, we have to not be concerned about what other people think of us. We have to stop trying to be nicer than Jesus."

Of course the article didn't talk about the following comment by Quinlan at last year's "Truth Academy," which was run by another supposed Christian, Peter LaBarbera:

“I wasn’t your flaming faggot, you know. I can say that because I’ve been there and done that. You know, the one’s whose wrists are so limp that when the wind blows they slap themselves in the face. I wasn’t one of them,” Quinlan said, as the small audience chuckled.

Maybe it's just me but if you are writing an article about why some "Christians" are considered as "haters," and then omit details about the anti-gay behavior of the "Christians"  whom you freely quote in the article, you are doing a half-assed job of addressing the issue.

This is the second article in two weeks which seems to intentionally avoid the true issue as to why some "Christians" bear the label of "haters" when it comes to gay equality. Last week, an "interfaith" website, Beliefnet, attacked the Southern Poverty Law Center for designating several religious right organizations as hate groups. Beliefnet made it seem that SPLC "unfairly labeled these groups as "haters" because they "merely" disagreed with gay equality. The site did not talk about how the organizations spread propaganda and lies about the gay community.

While the article by The Christian Post did not attack SPLC and did mention the exact reasons why it named certain religious right organizations as hate groups, it did not go into enough detail before opening the floor to representatives of these groups to ramble on about how much they "love" gay folks. And the irony is that it was printed the same day in which a supposed "pro-family" expert was busted in front of Congress for misrepresenting a study to make the case against same-sex households.

Until true Christians address those in their midst who spread lies about the gay community - i.e. we recruit children, we are diseased ridden monsters out to destroy American society, we have a short lifespan, we have lots and lots and lots of sex, we want to wreck the idea of marriage, we want to "force people to accept us" - they should expect the labels of "haters" and "bigots" to be thrown not only with frequency, but also with accuracy.


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