You remember when Glenn Beck complained college brainwashed his daughter into thinking he was a hater of gays, when, in fact, like all haters, he has lots of friends among the hated group?
In fact, Glenn assured his wayward child, he was only protecting Christianity from all his gay friends, because much as he loved them, they only wanted to force him and other Christians to violate their beliefs.
So Glenn convinced his daughter that “This had nothing to do with love. This had everything to do with power.” He assures his audience, who no doubt let out a collective sigh of relief, “She sees it now. “If the youth begins to see that…the agenda is control and the destruction of anyone else who disagrees,” everything will be okay.
Because Sodom and Gomorrah.
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Yes, here we go again. The myth that rampant sodomy is what got those cities destroyed. When in fact, as I said here recently, it was rampant Republicanism.
From the actual Bible, as opposed to the voices Beck hears in his head:
This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her sisters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but they did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty, and did abominable things before me. (Ezekiel 16:49-50).
Yeah. Sodom got taken down for doing what the Republicans and the Religious Right are doing now, for treating the poor like unwanted stepchildren.
On that other occasion, I pointed out that in the story of Lot and his angel-in-disguise friends, there is indeed a mob who wants to get to “know” the angles, if you know what I mean, but Lot offers to exercise some Family Values and says,
“Look, I have two daughters who have not known a man; let me bring them out to you, and you can do to them as you please.”
But Beck isn’t horrified by this. What horrifies Beck is that poor Lot might have been forced to comply with the gay agenda. On his radio show Monday, he said,
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Lot has said in his language of his day, ‘Guys, don’t force us to comply. Don’t force us to comply. No, you will comply! It shows that even back then, the religious were willing to — they didn’t want to fight, they’re not trying to control everybody — they’re just saying, no, I don’t want to participate.
Think of the people who won’t do floral arrangements for gay weddings. Think about the people who are bakers. Now there’s another one with a DJ. They just say, ‘I don’t want to participate.’ That’s what Lot was saying, we don’t want to participate. And in exchange for not participating, I’ll give you something I shouldn’t be offering, but I’ll comprise this far but no further. We’re making exactly the same mistakes and they are making exactly the same demands as were happening in Sodom and Gomorrah.
So Beck claims gays are making ‘the same demands as were happening In Sodom and Gomorrah’ while the real problem is that Republicans are making the same demands as were happening Sodom and Gomorrah.
It isn’t gay mobs that get #1 Billing for old Ezekiel, but haughty, well-fed people who despised the poor.
So Beck is right in a way. We’re treating the poor just like they were treated in Sodom and Gomorrah. It’s just that Beck would rather blame-shift, would rather throw gays under the bus than his wealthy friends.
And now Republicans want to force us to violate our beliefs; they want to force us to treat the poor like they were treated in Sodom and Gomorrah.
When Beck complains that “the agenda is control and the destruction of anyone else who disagrees,” he is outlining the agenda of the Church – of Christianity itself – for the past sixteen centuries. And the church largely succeeded in this, diligently destroying every alternative to itself, from other Christianities that had sprung up since Jesus’ death (like Gnostics) to Classical Paganism to Bogomils and Cathars and others until enough people started to say “No.”
Having done this, and still desiring to do this, Beck instead hoists these crimes on the backs of the gays who are in actuality, just victims. Beck says it has nothing to do with love but it has everything to do with love.
And Beck has shown that, unlike the guy he pretends to follow in all this – Jesus – he has none.
So here we have a Mormon spokesman for patriarchy, for ultimate male control over the practice of marriage, of who can get married and who cannot. And he’s complaining that people who want to add themselves to the list are the ones who want to be in power.
Right. My hypocrisy meter is in a million pieces now.
I know better at this point than to complain that people like Beck are liars and hypocrites.
Yet I still find myself wishing that even a single right-wing demagogue would pick up his or her Bible and actually read it.
I’ve been reading mine since I was a kid. Upon the recommendation of Bart Ehrman, I now have a copy of the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) on my shelf. I must pull it off there nearly daily in order to fact check the words of the alleged experts on the Religious Right.
If Beck’s daughter can’t see the truth of this, college educations aren’t what they used to be.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
