Nauseating Contempt on Display in the Name of Christianity

In the post-Michael Sam "coming out" story, the sports world is abuzz with talk of "the gays." As I do many days, I listened to the Paul Finebaum Radio Show today. I'm kinda sorry I did.

There were some very progressive, wonderful calls from LGBT advocates, but the majority were people who expressed one or more of the following views, all in the name if their Christian faith.

It's not natural. Animals are not homosexual.

Homosexuality is a mental illness or disorder.

There is therapy and/or faith to cure homosexuality.

You don't have men and women sharing showers, so straight men and gay men shouldn't share showers.

Maybe we should consider gays a different species, said with "all due respect."

We're not bigots because we are just expressing our religious beliefs.

Why do people hate Christians who stand up for what the Bible says?

Being gay is a choice.

Michael Sam's announcement is part of advancing the "Gay Agenda."

He should have just stayed in the closet.

I actually did call in and made a couple of points. But not all of my thoughts made it on air, so, this is my catharsis.

It's not natural. Animals are not homosexual. Uh, yeah, they are. This is just one FAMOUS example.

Homosexuality is a mental illness or disorder. Uh, no it isn't."[E]mpirical evidence and professional norms do not support the idea that homosexuality is a form of mental illness or is inherently linked to psychopathology."

There is therapy and/or faith to cure homosexuality. No, there isn't. It is not a disease and does not need to be cured. The American Medical Association opposes the application of reparative or "cure the gay" therapy.

You don't have men and women sharing showers, so straight men and gay men shouldn't share showers. Guess what, homophobes! You're already are sharing locker rooms and showers with gay people. 10% or more of the human population is gay. You just don't know they're gay. Gay men are not predators. Unless straight men are, this should not be a concern.

Maybe we should consider gays a different species, said with "all due respect." This guy was actually tearful in his sincere sadness over the poor, put-upon Christians who can't express their contempt for the gays without being called bigots. Boo hoo. You are a bigot. A sincere bigot. But a bigot. You actually suggested gays be considered a different specie "with all due respect." So, you mean, NO respect is due to gay people, then.

We're not bigots because we are just expressing our religious beliefs. Yes, you are. You do not have the "right as Christians" to judge or condemn anyone. Yet you do. You DO have the right as Americans in a free society to be as bigoted as you want. Bigot away, Bigots! But please, for the sake of actual Christians who love God, love their neighbor, and refrain from judging as Christianity teaches, stop saying you're showing contempt and condemnation for gays because you're a Christian.

Why do people hate Christians who stand up for what the Bible says? I don't know anyone who hates Christians. I do know of people who HATE the hypocrisy of choosing the parts of the Bible you want to rely on and ignoring others. Are you joining political campaigns to force widows to marry their brothers in law? Are you signing petitions to prohibit divorced people from re-marrying? Do you eat shrimp? Picking and choosing arcane Biblical provisions to marginalize your fellow citizens is not Christianity. At least, it's not any form of Christianity that I would be a part of.

Being gay is a choice. No it isn't. Even the Mormon church acknowledges this. But if you insist, let me ask, when did you "choose" to be heterosexual? But I'm liberal enough to say this: so what if it is? We live in a free society where we choose with whom we associate. Just mind your own business.

Michael Sam's announcement is part of advancing the "Gay Agenda." Ooooo I hope he gets a new toaster! Come on! The only "agenda" is  to be treated with equal respect, equal dignity, and equal legal rights. Is that a threat to you?

He should have just stayed in the closet. This is like the racist who likes "colored folks" just fine so long as they stay on their side of town. Bullshit. It's bigotry. Sickening.

It's not like Utah is a bastion of gay rights (though we do have at least one good federal judge) but the level of ignorance, misinformation, and outright superstition coming from these callers was a little shocking to me. I have no hope that they will get Above Their Raisin'. I'm afraid time and attrition is required to rid our society of this cultural cancer. When faced with this type of hatred, ignorance, and bigotry, I find it comforting to consider what Jesus of Nazareth said about homosexuality.

Not. One. Word.

I Don't Want to Go Back. Why Do You?

The United States of America has always been a special place relative to other countries. I admit to being biased here, given that I am an American. But who can doubt the unique convergence of people, time, and events that led to America shrugging off the rule of England at a time when England was the strongest navy and arguably the strongest military power in the world. That was special.

And who would question the special leader that was Abraham Lincoln, a man who pursued the seemingly inconsistent goals of ending slavery AND keeping the US united. He prioritized these goals above the rule of law and even over his own life. We lost hundreds of thousands of Americans, brothers fighting brothers, but Lincoln elevated the nation's survival and soul over the lives and souls of Americans themselves. That has been judged the correct decision by most, but it was certainly a courageous and rare type of leadership. He was not defending a throne. Telling people to arm themselves to defend their sovereign was nothing new. He was defending a collective and that community's shared (if contentious) ideas of elected government. The result was a bruised but living United States with an end to slavery. But it would be another century before real progress was made for the descendants of those slaves to approach real equality.

And women were not "given" the right to vote until the 20th century. (Rights exist, they are not "given." In effect, the government stopped denying women the right to vote.) But the struggle for women to obtain equality has continued as well.

And in more recent decades, the fight for equality for LGBTQ Americans has marched forward as well.

Women and minorities always struggle to obtain and maintain equal status. The open society we live in allows those struggles to continue, to grow, and to gain ground. This is why we are special relative to other countries. But we are far from perfect.

In the last hundred years of our country, we have seen women get the right to vote, laws passed to protect people from lynchings and other forms of persecution for their race, laws passed to protect women from violence, divorce become obtainable to anyone, electricity in every home, indoor plumbing in every home, cars in every drive-way (mostly), air conditioning for those who want it, air planes for average people to travel by, interstate highways connecting the country, the Internet connecting the world, cable TV (causing us to waste hours of our lives), a ruling that same-sex marriages cannot be treated as a lower class of family,  vaccines for previously deadly and debilitating illnesses, and thousands of other advancements to improve the quality and length of life. So with all this progress, WHY IN THE HOT HOLY HELL WOULD SOMEONE THINK THIS?

What's so great about Polio? Why would you long for segregation and lynchings? Who wants to live without electricity, indoor plumbing, air conditioning, and the Internet? Who could possible be nostalgic for outhouses, prohibition, and food poisoning from crappy refrigeration?

Ignorant people, that's who! It's people who cannot stand to see "others" getting an equal footing: African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, LGBTQ individuals are growing in numbers and in stature, and that makes some white men (and some white women) very nervous. Maybe it's the same reason a dirty cop never wants to go to prison. People who abuse power, then lose it, are reasonably fearful that the new people in power will enforce retribution. We'll see.

There will always be nostalgia for olden times, but America has never been a country that looks back; it has always faced the future and moved into it with grit and determination even if not always undaunted. These folks need to get Above Their Raisin' and stop dwelling in the fantasy past that they imagine existed. The past sucked. It sucked more for women and minorities, but it sucked for white men too. No one in this country, least of all that white dude on the tractor, has any reason to lament the future. You can still get your farm subsidy while decrying "welfare queens" and go home to your air conditioned home with your big-screen and watch satellite TV while simultaneously playing with your iPad using your WiFi Internet service. The big, scary Black man in the White House isn't going to take any of that away from you.