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The Religious Right Freaks Out Over West Point’s First Same-Sex Marriage

By: Hrafnkell HaraldssonDec. 4th, 2012more from Hrafnkell Haraldsson

As Towledroad observed on December 1, ” It is a happy weekend for Brenda Sue Fulton and Penelope Dara Gnesin. Not only are they tying the knot, but they’re making history as the first same-sex couple to do so in military academy West Point’s chapel.”

To say aberrochistians are having a difficult time with this is to understate the case. ChristianNews.net had to put the word wedding in quotation marks as though it were a dog and a cat tying the knot (I think I will henceforth put the word Christian in quotation marks, as in “Christian” News).

I will certainly put this one in quotation marks: Peter LaBarbera at ”Americans for Truth” About Homosexuality called Fulton and Gnesin’s marriage the ”latest manifestation of America’s descent into decadence and godlessness” and called it evidence we are dangling off the “moral cliff.” AFTAH only care about lies, not truth.

And then there that is crusty old religious bigot Pat Robertson, who asked, “what have they done to our cherished institution?”"

Watch Courtesy of Right Wing Watch:

From Robertson we get,

“General Douglas MacArthur rolling over in his grave,” intoned the gravelly voice of bigotry. “Ulysses S. Grant rolling over in his. Robert E. Lee rolling over in his.”

Old Pat may think Youth Earth Creationism is a bunch of hokum, but he still hates gay people.

For the couple in question, their marriage was about their love and about their commitment to one another. As USA Today reported,

The two have been together for 17 years. They had a civil commitment ceremony that didn’t carry any legal force in 1999 but had longed to formally tie the knot.

The couple live in New Jersey and would have preferred to have the wedding there, but the state doesn’t allow gay marriage.

Chris Christie may have been man enough to give President Obama his due in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, but he isn’t man enough to have withheld his veto of marriage equality in New Jersey.

Despite the tremendous gains made for marriage equality in the recent election cycle, with both Maine, Maryland, and Washington legalizing gay marriage, and Minnesota voters rejecting a “traditional marriage” amendment, liberals and progressives must remain aware of how deeply religious conservatives have dug in their heels on the issue.

For the first time, the issue has been favorably decided at the ballot, showing just how much of a turnaround the electorate has made in its own views, much as President Obama has experienced changes in his.

As USA Today points out, “Since the late ’90s, a total of 32 states have held votes on same-sex marriage, and each time, voters have opposed the measure.”

Those days seem to be behind us. Polls show increasing support for marriage equality over recent years, yet day after day we see religious right leaders pandering to the lowest common denominator.

Pat Robertson is one example, but there are others. As Right Wing Watch reports, Joni Lamb and Janet Boynes, the latter one of Michele Bachmann’s favorite authors, went on the air to tell listeners that “thousands” of people “who have come out of homosexuality” and “may be the most discriminated people in the world today.” She went on claim that homosexuality is “ungodly” and “God cannot bless you and you cannot fulfill your destiny while you are operating within the realm of homosexuality.”

Just as bullies are the true victims of bullying, the true discriminated class is composed of “former” homosexuals who have been cured by people like Bachmann’s husband or by the word of God.

Because homosexuals are not themselves discriminated against. Right?

Well, I haven’t seen either Lamb or Boynes produce any evidence of progressive Christian ministers saying anything like this about homosexuals:

Reports AU’s Church and State magazine,

Pastor Robert J. Anderson of Colonial Baptist Church in Randallstown, Md., quoted Bible passages and asserted that “those who practice [homosexuality] are deserving of death.” Anderson later tried to downplay the comments somewhat, but did not truly back down.

He posted a statement on his church’s website noting that he does not advocate violence, but at the same time “the Bible is very clear on the subject of homosexuality, and I do not need to apologize for God’s word.”

No, I am pretty sure no progressives are saying “former” homosexuals are deserving of death. We just think they’re full of shit.

It is interesting that Pat Robertson says liberals are building a “society of death” but it’s religious conservatives who always talk about killing people.

Lamb and Boynes, continues Right Wing Watch, maintain that homosexuality is a “trap that the Enemy has set,” and Boynes claimed that gays and lesbians are “walking right into the Enemy’s trap.”

And we have Linda Harvey claiming that homosexual activitists have misled the electorate into believing that homosexuality is harmless. Harvey, big on tautologies but not so much on actual facts, said,

Homosexual marriage is wrong because two men together or two women is intrinsically disordered, the behavior is unnatural. These aren’t activities that are beneficial or healthy. Homosexual marriage is wrong because homosexuality is wrong.

She went on to say:

There’s significant dangers to our youth in this. One thing our culture does not want if it wants to survive is to have its youth corrupted and this is happening in oh so many ways now, and homosexuality is one more.  And here’s how it works with homosexuality: since no pregnancy threat exists, some people think there’s no reason to prohibit behavior in the young, even the very young. Those who acknowledge no authority from God, who find innocence threatening, are targeting our youth with these messages for some reason.

When are we conservatives going to get serious about making a case to prevent the corruption of kids? And that’s one of the big reasons why homosexual marriage is wrong: because the young are raised on the mores and traditions of the adults and if same-sex marriage is accepted, then children will begin to consider dating and forming relationship in these very different ways; ways that will be very destabilizing to many of them and to our society.

I think conservatives have been serious for some time about making their case. From pressing “kill the gays” legislation in Uganda to saying here at home that homosexuals are deserving of death, I think conservatives have been quite outspoken. None of us, it is safe to say, are in any danger of failing to understand how much they hate gay people.

At this point, because we’ve heard it so much, the old refrain that homosexuality is “of the devil” is becoming rather trite. God isn’t going to kill anybody. But bigoted conservatives armed with assault rifles might.

Especially when their ordained ministers tell them that it’s perfectly alright, that God would approve.

Rather like when the popes told the faithful that killing pagans was the path to heaven shortly before crusaders killed every man, woman, and child they could get their hands on in Jerusalem, including Christians and Jews.

I hope many more same-sex couples are married at West Point and at chapels and churches throughout America. Bigots like Pat Robertson might insist his God doesn’t approve, but I am pretty certain that if there is something of which the God of Abraham does not approve, it is killing people in his name.

It is the behavior of these so-called Christians themselves, who show no interest in turning the other cheek or loving their enemies as Jesus commanded, but who turn hate itself into an institution, and then sanctify it as religion.

If there is a moral cliff, it is religious bigots like Pat Robertson who will lead the flock over the precipice.

The Religious Right Freaks Out Over West Point’s First Same-Sex Marriage was written by Hrafnkell Haraldsson for PoliticusUSA.
© PoliticusUSA, Dec. 4th, 2012. All Rights Reserved

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