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March 27, 2024

Gay hate preached from the pulpit as well as the mosque

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In regard to the massacre of gay men in Florida, are we really ready to recognise what’s at the root of this madness?

Religion screws with your head… All the ‘Abrahamic’ traditions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) cite their ‘sacred’ texts to justify their phobia. Bigotry always dressed itself up as righteousness; that’s its favorite disguise.

People need to be alert to the wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing syndrome (identified by Jesus of Nazareth), when ‘christian’ pastors call for the persecution of ‘homosexuals’.

As late as 2015, for example, U.S. Pastor Steven Anderson of The Faithful Word Baptist Church in Arizona was calling for ‘homosexuals’ to be put to death, according to scriptural dictums. While stating that he personally would not kill anyone, Anderson believes that ‘the government should use the death penalty on murderers, rapists and homosexuals’ (Christian Post.com, July 8, 2013).

And, in a more recent sermon, Pastor David Berzins of Word of Truth Baptist Church condemned all those who would refuse to endorse ‘God’s call to kill the gays’.

Berzins was particularly angry with a fellow pastor who had refused to endorse Steven Anderson’s call. Claiming that being gay is a choice like drug abuse, the senior pastor for a megachurch in Tennessee says that ‘gays must be put to death’ because God commands it.

In September, 2014, Brainerd Baptist Church Senior Pastor Robby Gallaty told his large congregation that Christians should never stop discriminating against homosexuals, claiming that gays could choose to be straight if they only accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

So, it ain’t just dem mad ‘moslem’ terrorists, folks! Watch your back …

 

 

 


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14 COMMENTS

  1. You are right. It’s not only the moslems. But on the other hand it’s not alway the religious people. I know a lot of religious people that support homosexuals. And I know a lot of homosexuell christians, moslems, hindus… And I know a lot of homophobic atheists.
    So please don’t do the mistake and think that hate against religious people is a good answer to this horrifying crime. Religious people get discriminated and killed aswell.

  2. I thought it was a pretty lazy attempt to say all three of the religions are the same on this issue. I looked up two of the three ministers you quoted and they are obviously right wing nutters, hardly typical of mainstream attitudes and ideas, so you lost me there. It would appear to me that in Christianity and Judaism this issue is firmly on the table for discussion, both have gay clergy and congregations and there is dialogue to reconcile differences. Not sure that we see that yet in Islam. I think the previous writer makes a good point, in that homophobia is probable not just based on religion.

  3. Full acceptance of LBGTI humans still has a way to go, even in people who you think are all about equality. It is still heard in language, stereotypical views re our actual sexuality and our right to be loving parents.

    But when a tragedy like the Orlando massacre occurs it should remind all of us there are extremists from all religions and non religions still out there who vent their anger at their own lives onto us. We see that too in some of our politicians as they spew their anti gay views on our right to marry whom we love.

    We have progressed considerably in the West but those of us old enough remember very well the discrimination we experienced in housing, jobs and the regular entrapment by the police, who often thought gay people were play things to fill their quotas. Also most of us experienced or know what it is like to excluded from family events because we were not married. Or worse still expelled from our families completely because of who we were born.

    My sadness this week is for all the gay lives murdered where ever, from being thrown off buildings in the Middle East, to being murdered because they appeared “gay”. And how a lone mad gunman was able to purchase semi automatics to murder Saturday night dancers.

  4. It is not just Gay murders, whether by Muslims or Christians or Jews, that is the root problem. You have rich and powerful people encouraging uneducated poor people that their salvation is through these false gods if they only believe these violent and stupid rules.

    It’s Ok to have slaves, molest children, kill women and any man that doesn’t agree with their ridiculous ancient goat herder rules.

    Every good thing that the church does can be done by any organised community group without religious ties.

    Rewrite your evil rule book or accept that you are an anachronism that needs to weeded out of an inclusive reasoning society.

    If you belong to any of the abrahamic religions, shame on you.

  5. S.Cantrill you must be joking the tone of your letter is aggressive and angry which is behaviour I assume you are speaking against, and then you say that religious beliefs must be “weeded out of an inclusive society” seems like an oxymoron to me. i hope you are not in the lead when your revolution comes i could imagine inclusive and reasoned beheadings beginning soon after.

    • Sorry Simon, logic and reason does not lead to beheadings. That is the domain of the crusades, the inquisition, the pogroms, jihad. the numerous reformation wars. It seems that then and now, if you criticise religion, then ‘off with your head’. Galileo and Darwin would support me on this, I am happy for you to play with your Gods, but to quote Fred Nile, just don’t shove it down our throat.

      • S Cantrill The French revolution, the great revolution of the age of reason, led to an extraordinary series of beheadings. And where do your comments on religion leave followers of mainstream, non-fundamental Christianity, or modern non-fanatical Muslims? Go into a regular Uniting, Catholic or an Anglican Church and you will not hear hate speak against LBGTI or Muslims or anyone else – that is not the spirit of what we believe Jesus taught, Indeed at my Uniting Church last Christmas I read the relevant passages from a translation of the Koran concerning the birth of Jesus and the injunctions to treat Christians with respect. Fanaticism is a manifestations of psychological and socioeconomic issues in people – it can be Christian or Muslim, but equally people that way inclined can follow sectarian beliefs like communism or fascism in the same blind and dangerous fashion.

        • Recently I was confronted by a local Christian evangelical who told me my “life-style” was wrong and it was my choice. His rant was taken directly from Leviticus and could have easily come from the Koran where similar murderous lines are on display. He carefully block his ears when I quoted back many other prohibitions from the same bible.

          I regard these people as a tiny minority in Australia but any incursion of church/mosque into state law can not be tolerated.

          For me it is another example that LBGTI have still got to be wary of people who have an ideology based way back then in another time alongside of those who have a huge chip on their shoulder re their own sexuality.

          • Agreed.

            Though I’d add, it’s weird that people calling themselves “Christians” miss the whole alleged point of Jesus claimed mission; “Don’t do crazy shit from Leviticus and Deuternomy, like stoning people.” They tend to skip that, and all the “love one another” and “love they neighbour” stuff.

        • Petrus,
          In 1789, the year of the outbreak of the French Revolution, Catholicism was the official religion of the french
          The french monarch and the aristocracy corruptly negotiated special privileges with the corrupt catholic pope. Catholic france denied citizenship to non catholics and used religion to suppress the proletariate. The revolution rightly closed down the churches but they were revived by Napoleon for his own benefit. Cult figures like Hitler, Stalin, the Kims etc play on the same mental weakness as religion.

          There is no primary or secular proof that Jesus, as you know him, ever existed. Nazereth didn’t exist until 300CE, new testament has conflicting stories, Romans never mentioned him.

          You are hypocritical if you say that the bible is god’s word then you cherry pick good bits and ignore the violence, racism, misogyny, paedophilea, mistakes and contradictions. It is either all true or made up.

          Look, I really don’t want to criticise your delusions. I would rather you see the wonder of nature and discover the science that explains it.

          • A fewf things. While the the corrupt church and its relationship to the aristocracy certainly played its part in the revolution, much of the beheading was done by the rational secularists. In respect of there being no reference to Jesus by the Romans I am not sure why that would necessarily be expected – it was a big empire and we have no record of what went on (read or watch the news from a large modern state like like India or Indonesia and you might understand what I mean. As it happens many scholars accept the Roman Tacitus referred to Christ and early Christians in his history Your comment on the bible my religion that “It is either all true or made up” is a very simplistic understanding of religion and faith. Educated Christians who have moved on from literal and narrow interpretations, have no difficulty understanding that the bible was written in a particular culture two millennia ago – that is why many of us can accept women priests and gay marriage. This is not new. My Grandfather W.F.Hatfield had degrees in Arts and in Science, received an award from the Royal Society for his pioneering work on radio, became a Science master at Fort Street and then headmaster at inter-alia Lismore High School. In the Northern Star of 14 8 1936 you can read about a talk he gave entitled “MANUSCRIPTS OF GOD” to a men’s brotherhood on the wonders of nature and the science that explains it. Grandfather concluded “The book of Nature, the pages of science, provide a never ending source of delight and interest provided only the reader brings the inquiring mind. Then, having learned the truths of Science, man sees in them the teachings of God, making for a nobler and fuller life, since, as Sir J. Arthur Thompson stated recently in an address broadcast by the B.B.C., ‘in a very literal sense science has given man a new heaven and a new earth, and in this he continues to strain at the limit of his intellectual effort and often finds no peace except that which literally passeth understanding—a belief in God.’ “

        • I tend to think the French Revolution gets too much cred. The Glorious Revolution and American Revolution both preceded and exceeded it. The French affair was a train wreck.

  6. Educated Christians who have moved on from literal and narrow interpretations, have no difficulty understanding that the Bible was written in a particular culture two millennia ago and reconciling our belief with modern understandings of science and human culture – that is why many of us can accept women priests and gay marriage. This is not new. My Grandfather W.F.Hatfield BA BSc was very much a man of science. He received the Sydney University prize in 1907 for Geology and a commendation from the Royal Society for his pioneering work on radio, became science master at Fort Street and was headmaster at inter-alia Lismore High School. In the Northern Star of 14 8 1936 you can read about a talk he gave to a men’s brotherhood entitled “MANUSCRIPTS OF GOD” on the wonders of nature and the science that explains it. Grandfather concluded “The book of Nature, the pages of science, provide a never ending source of delight and interest provided only the reader brings the inquiring mind. Then, having learned the truths of Science, man sees in them the teachings of God, making for a nobler and fuller life, since, as Sir J. Arthur Thompson stated recently in an address broadcast by the B.B.C., ‘in a very literal sense science has given man a new heaven and a new earth, and in this he continues to strain at the limit of his intellectual effort and often finds no peace except that which literally passeth understanding—a belief in God.’

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