Hypocrisy shrouds the gay marriage debate

Wolfman1982

people are hard to please
Joined
May 26, 2005
Posts
2,178
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2010-11-08-column08_ST_N.htm

By Kirsten Powers
The issue of same-sex marriage has receded into the background during this past election cycle, mostly because voters are overwhelmed by the state of the economy. But the recent spate of gay teen suicides has thrust the issue of anti-gay bigotry back into the spotlight.

Even some Christian leaders are re-thinking their approach to this issue. Exodus International, a Christian activist "ex-gay" group, pulled its sponsorship of the annual "Day of Truth," where high school students are encouraged to express their disapproval of homosexuality.

But why did it take multiple suicides to make a Christian group realize that heaping condemnation and judgment on others is not its job? A reading of any of the Gospels would teach you that in about two minutes.

Let's remember, Satan wasn't kicked out of heaven for being gay: It was pride. The people who really ticked off Jesus were the Pharisees, who were self-righteous and hypocritical, which could fairly describe many of today's Christians.

The Bible or the Constitution?

When novelist Anne Rice declared this year that she was quitting Christianity — though remaining dedicated to Christ — in part because she refused to be "anti-gay," it struck a nerve with many Christians.

Many complained that they weren't "anti-gay", that they just opposed same-sex marriage because the Bible, they said, defines marriage as between a man and a woman. Yet, we don't live in a theocracy. The Bible is not the governing legal document of the United States. The Constitution is.

Tuesday, for the first time in Iowa's history of electing judges, voters threw out three state Supreme Court justices for invalidating an Iowa law prohibiting same-sex marriage. It was a unanimous 7-0 decision based on the law, not ideology. What a novel idea. The $800,000 campaign to unseat them was led by Bob Vander Plaats, who ran unsuccessfully as the conservative Christian option in the Iowa governor's GOP primary. When Focus on the Family's James Dobson endorsed Plaats, Dobson lauded Plaats' Bible-based crusade against gay marriage.

But if people really want to use the Bible as our governing legal document, then we need many constitutional amendments, including one that bans divorce except in the very narrow circumstances the Bible permits it. This would be a tough one for evangelicals, since their divorce rate is almost identical to that of atheists and agnostics. This might explain why you don't see evangelical leaders pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into campaigns to keep the government from providing divorce.

Why does this double standard and selective morality matter? Because it reinforces the idea among Christians that gay people are morally inferior and don't deserve to be treated fairly. Is bullying by teens that much of a stretch when you consider the same-sex marriage rhetoric?

Evangelical superstar Rick Warren (of whom I'm a fan when he sticks to preaching the Gospel) said in an interview, "They can't accuse me of homophobia; I just don't believe in gay marriage," but then he went on to compare same-sex marriage to pedophilia and incest. So, being gay is fine, just like it's fine to be a child molester?

Come on, people.

What about heterosexuals?

If this movement isn't driven by anti-gay bigotry, then where is the outrage and "Day of Truth" over heterosexuals who are engaging in sex outside of marriage? Why aren't Christians running around confronting their sexually active heterosexual co-workers and friends about their "lifestyle"? I guess because there is no "ick factor," to borrow a phrase former presidential candidate and Southern Baptist minister Mike Huckabee used recently to describe gay men and lesbians.

This double standard might have something to do with the fact that many Christians also violate the Bible's condemnation about sex outside of marriage with impunity. (I'm still waiting for the constitutional amendment banning extramarital sex.)

A few years ago, I attended a talk on the plague of pornography in our society at a New York City evangelical church. At one point, a speaker asked the group of about 300 young Christians, "How many of you are pursuing purity?" About 10 people raised their hands.

Has anyone noticed that there is this special little area carved out where the Bible's teachings must be enshrined in U.S. law, but only when it applies to others, i.e. gay people?

It seems as if Christians have enough issues to deal with in their own community on the issue of promoting marriage.

Perhaps Christian leaders such as Warren and Dobson should spend less time trying to prevent a tiny percentage of the population from having the right to marry, and help Christians get their own house in order.

Or, as Jesus warned: Take the log out of your own eye before focusing on the speck in your neighbor's eye.

Kirsten Powers is a freelance writer and political analyst on Fox News. She served in the Clinton administration from 1993 to 1998 and has worked in New York state and city politics.




Damn, this article is extremely subjective. But other than that, then they have misspelled the name of the TV Station which the last time I checked was Fucks News. But oh well it is human to make an error.
 
Yanno, Wolfman, these articles are not news to American GLBT folk. They are just one more boulder on our backs. Do you think you would mind keeping all of these in one thread? They are all pretty much of a piece.

Maybe this forum could include other news and concerns, positive as well as negative. I don't think it was meant to be "the forum documenting death and hatred," honestly.
 
Personally, I like his posts.

This one is interesting because the writer freelances with Fox News.

There was an interesting video on CNN a day or so ago about something like around 800,000 DVD's being sent to Catholics in Minnesota to emphasize the need for good Catholics to oppose any move towards legalizing gay marriage. Not one of the speakers supporting the DVD's dared to mention divorce. The biggest hypocrisy on the whole anti-gay crowd is that they know they can only get people on their side as long as it is an issue that doesn't affect too many people. Since half of marriages end in divorce now, so they wouldn't dare try to make divorce illegal. In the case of churches, the other thing that is so frustrating is that given their dabbling in politics, they SHOULD loose their tax exemption status. Take that away from them, and I bet you would be surprised how much they start to shut up on people's personal romantic lives.
 
Stella_Omega: I am a fighter in so many ways, hell I used to use the "GLBT Defender" as my custom title, until I got flag for that. But that has not changed who I am. I am still the same guy. But I used to scour reddit a lot, for LGBT matters, until I found out they had an LGBT area too. But if other people than me, did at least five minutes a day on LGBT reddit They would probably be posting a lot of articles , like I am from them. Just like this article right here

That has the following headline.

Gay Rights Are Human Rights

So if anyone like me, who had the guts to take a few more looks upon the world, like I do. Then they would understand, why I used to call myself "The GLBT Defender" , instead of getting on my nerves, and backstabbing me, like I actually felt some time ago happened between our moderator Etoile and I, whom I still to this day, admire and have some serious respect for.

So let us be real, I have learned, it is better to cram as much info on to one post, instead of being a postwhore . Which actually means, you like to post as many posts over as little time as possible. Instead of having an okay post number, but has information and thought put into it.

I am also grateful for those who like my posts, and my postings. Cause that gives me energy to do more to show the world, that my little country in the northern parts of Europe (but the most southern part of Scandinavia is not filled with ignorant little bigoted racist assholes, just because my government is such a fiend in that area. And yes I am probably going to post a new thread about the gay rights are human rights in a few moments. So peace to those who like my postings and posts, and sorry if any one feels offended, but fuck the rest !

Stella_Omega I know you are not one of my "enemies" , but understand, I have now given out my "source" to the LGBT news stuff. And I hope other people will at least do or post an article from reddit, that is more or less NOT run by the GOP aka. The fucking Republicans, like Digg has become.
Second of all, the word reddit in Latin means "to give back or giving back". also it is a wordplay on "read it" and also if you like to read between the lines like me, then it has something to do with "red" as in socialism , which I like in philosophy. Not in any way as we used to see in Communist Russia, or the likes. But perhaps more like the "old" Danish Social Democratic government the Danes had some years back, that was WAY better than the Republican clone party, with its fucked up rightwinged racist party known as DPP/Danish Peoples Party who "supports" them. Hell the only difference between the old National Socialist Party and DPP is that the DPP has "cleaned" up their rhetoric. But damn, it sure smells a lot like Neo Fascism as usual. And am I afraid of calling DPP a racist party ? oh God no, there has been trials in the past where DPP went to court with that allegation, and the DPP lost their trial because the court gave the defendant who had written that DPP was racist the favour. So I call the DPP racist , because they are. And I admit, I went quite off the topic, and I apologise for that. Also, when I embed links in the text, it is because of some dumb jackass , said to me some years ago . "what is your source, I do not believe unless you give me sources on the subject", and then another fuckface, he could not understand Danish sources (that was during the 12 drawings crisis) and he refused to accept any sources except for bloody English sources, and to this day. I can NOT stand that guy, and I actively ignore the guy, and avoid him because of that fucking mess back then.
 
Last edited:
Forums are for conversation, mostly...

Dude, I can go to reddit to read, and I do. I discuss on huffington post, craigslist.org political forums, the new york times online, any smalltown newspaper I happen across where people are exhibiting teh stupid. Discussing them here-- not really a big pond.

You might think about starting these posts at someplace like http://open.salon.com where you can create a blog and gather a readership-- you'll get comments, there, too.
 
Stella_Omega: again, I just post the articles here. Because it is one of my homes, and blog/logs/vlogs is just not my style. So I post articles here :) because it is the GLBT news section :)
 
Stella_Omega: I have already explained why, I will not do that. But also, this section of the GLBT chatter is GLBT News and Issues, unless I have misunderstood, why I do what I do. Cause the last time I looked closely on the GLBT , then it meant Gays, Lesbians, Bisexual, and Transgendered/Transsexuals: and NOT Gays, Lesbians, versus Bisexuals and / Transsexuals/Transgendered. and the last time I checked, then I was bisexual/bi something/pan sexual something something something. So I will leave it at that.
 
Last edited:
I live in the USA, and i am very sad and heart weary and nothing you have posted in the past month is a surprise to me or encouraging. And I know that you will find more articles tomorrow, and more the day after that. There will always be something new and horrible for you to share.

There are other places to repost articles. You say you are not a blogger but in fact, you are using this forum exactly as a blog.

So you're a blogger pretending not to be one. :D
 
Back
Top