A little hope...
May. 8th, 2004 09:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
muscadinehttp://www.tennessean.com/local/archives/04/05/51036670.shtml
Preachers stoke anti-gay sentiment
By LEON ALLIGOOD
DAYTON, Tenn. — Eight preachers, spurred by anti-gay rights organizer the Rev. Frank Raddish of Washington, D.C., heaped fire and brimstone on ''homosexuals and sodomites'' during a five-hour preaching marathon yesterday beneath the century oaks of the historic Rhea County Courthouse.
Before the ''Amen'' of the final prayer, a preacher in the audience took exception with his fellow pastors on the program, a local gay man quietly protested the meeting's ''hate message'' and passers-by pondered what today's Gay Day in Rhea will bring — when an estimated 3,500 people plus and unknown quantity of protesters converge in Dayton.
''This is going to be a mess,'' predicted Joe Cox as he stood on the sidewalk listening to the courthouse speeches.
''I'm telling you right now, I'll probably be in jail tomorrow, because if my nephew looks at me and he says, 'Uncle Joe, what are those men doing holding hands?' I shouldn't have to explain that to my nephew. There'll be trouble,'' the Rhea County man said.
Rhea County officials, however, contend they have the situation under control. Law enforcement from Rhea County's 50-person sheriff's department, the Tennessee Highway Patrol and the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency also will be on duty to maintain control at the event at Point Park.
Officially known as a ''Godly Heritage Day'' event, yesterday's rally was planned as a pre-emptive strike against today's Gay Day rally, which people from as far away as New York and Texas are expected to attend the pro-gay speechmaking marathon.
This weekend's event is a reaction to a controversial March 16 vote of the Rhea County Commission. The motion, rescinded two days later in the face of worldwide media coverage, called for Rhea County to be off-limits to homosexuals.
Yesterday's preaching session at the courthouse attracted a small but vocal crowd of about 50. As speakers held their King James Bibles aloft or pounded on a cedar pulpit, the mostly male crowd punctuated the air with shouts of ''That's right! ''You tell it, brother!'' and ''Right, sir!''
''The pedophiles will be here tomorrow. The men who dress like women will be here. They're not going to bring decency to Rhea County,'' said Raddish, founder and director of Capitol Hill Independent Baptist Ministries in Washington. Raddish is a frequent speaker at churches across the country.
''The world wants to educate our children to be tolerant of homosexuals. The homosexuals can't grow in number unless they recruit. How do they recruit? They sodomize. That's the only way,'' Raddish said, his voice thundering through a public address system that could be heard through most of downtown Dayton.
If Raddish lit the match, speakers who followed added gasoline to the fiery anti-gay rhetoric.
''If you think 9/11 was something, buddy, you don't know what judgment awaits. If we don't repent and get right with God as a nation, God will destroy this country,'' said Chattanooga-based evangelist Ray Jameson, pounding the pulpit.
''You're right!'' one man shouted in the audience.
''Look at what God did with people that cursed him, that mocked him. This is what the homos will tell you: God loves them. Yes, God loves them. He wants to save them. If they won't turn from that sin, God will destroy them,'' he said.
Donna Robarge, out for a barefoot stroll with her three children, ages 3, 2, and 1, listened to the messages for a while but left shaking her head.
''The Bible says don't judge, and that's the first thing these people are doing,'' she said.
''One day it's going to be gay people. The next day it's going to be people who are black or what. Civil rights are civil rights, and you have to respect that.''
After listening to several hours of speeches, the Rev. Chris Pugh of The Father's House in Dayton had also heard enough.
''I'm very disturbed about the anger I hear coming from behind that pulpit. Homosexuality is no different than a man murdering somebody or stealing a piece of bubble gum. It's sin, but the Bible says gluttony is a sin, and I see a lot of fat people around here,'' he said.
Pugh said he's not condoning homosexuality, ''but let him who has no sin cast the first stone. A spirit of hatred will never win the lost,'' he said.
Across the street from the pulpit, Billy Jordan, 39, of Dayton watched and shook his head.
''I'm gay and I'm the way God made me. I hid it for years because of people like him,'' said Jordan, pointing to the speaker of the moment.
''I got tired of hiding, so I decided to come out. I told my family the day before the commissioners took their vote. My sister came in the very next day and said, 'They're going to run you out of town.' Well, they aren't. My family is behind me, and they told me if I wanted them here with me tomorrow, they'd be there.
''Well, you know what? I'm going to be there,'' he said, raising his voice to be heard over the public address system.
''They're not going to stop me, and they're not going to condemn me to hell.''
...a little hope.
Preachers stoke anti-gay sentiment
By LEON ALLIGOOD
DAYTON, Tenn. — Eight preachers, spurred by anti-gay rights organizer the Rev. Frank Raddish of Washington, D.C., heaped fire and brimstone on ''homosexuals and sodomites'' during a five-hour preaching marathon yesterday beneath the century oaks of the historic Rhea County Courthouse.
Before the ''Amen'' of the final prayer, a preacher in the audience took exception with his fellow pastors on the program, a local gay man quietly protested the meeting's ''hate message'' and passers-by pondered what today's Gay Day in Rhea will bring — when an estimated 3,500 people plus and unknown quantity of protesters converge in Dayton.
''This is going to be a mess,'' predicted Joe Cox as he stood on the sidewalk listening to the courthouse speeches.
''I'm telling you right now, I'll probably be in jail tomorrow, because if my nephew looks at me and he says, 'Uncle Joe, what are those men doing holding hands?' I shouldn't have to explain that to my nephew. There'll be trouble,'' the Rhea County man said.
Rhea County officials, however, contend they have the situation under control. Law enforcement from Rhea County's 50-person sheriff's department, the Tennessee Highway Patrol and the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency also will be on duty to maintain control at the event at Point Park.
Officially known as a ''Godly Heritage Day'' event, yesterday's rally was planned as a pre-emptive strike against today's Gay Day rally, which people from as far away as New York and Texas are expected to attend the pro-gay speechmaking marathon.
This weekend's event is a reaction to a controversial March 16 vote of the Rhea County Commission. The motion, rescinded two days later in the face of worldwide media coverage, called for Rhea County to be off-limits to homosexuals.
Yesterday's preaching session at the courthouse attracted a small but vocal crowd of about 50. As speakers held their King James Bibles aloft or pounded on a cedar pulpit, the mostly male crowd punctuated the air with shouts of ''That's right! ''You tell it, brother!'' and ''Right, sir!''
''The pedophiles will be here tomorrow. The men who dress like women will be here. They're not going to bring decency to Rhea County,'' said Raddish, founder and director of Capitol Hill Independent Baptist Ministries in Washington. Raddish is a frequent speaker at churches across the country.
''The world wants to educate our children to be tolerant of homosexuals. The homosexuals can't grow in number unless they recruit. How do they recruit? They sodomize. That's the only way,'' Raddish said, his voice thundering through a public address system that could be heard through most of downtown Dayton.
If Raddish lit the match, speakers who followed added gasoline to the fiery anti-gay rhetoric.
''If you think 9/11 was something, buddy, you don't know what judgment awaits. If we don't repent and get right with God as a nation, God will destroy this country,'' said Chattanooga-based evangelist Ray Jameson, pounding the pulpit.
''You're right!'' one man shouted in the audience.
''Look at what God did with people that cursed him, that mocked him. This is what the homos will tell you: God loves them. Yes, God loves them. He wants to save them. If they won't turn from that sin, God will destroy them,'' he said.
Donna Robarge, out for a barefoot stroll with her three children, ages 3, 2, and 1, listened to the messages for a while but left shaking her head.
''The Bible says don't judge, and that's the first thing these people are doing,'' she said.
''One day it's going to be gay people. The next day it's going to be people who are black or what. Civil rights are civil rights, and you have to respect that.''
After listening to several hours of speeches, the Rev. Chris Pugh of The Father's House in Dayton had also heard enough.
''I'm very disturbed about the anger I hear coming from behind that pulpit. Homosexuality is no different than a man murdering somebody or stealing a piece of bubble gum. It's sin, but the Bible says gluttony is a sin, and I see a lot of fat people around here,'' he said.
Pugh said he's not condoning homosexuality, ''but let him who has no sin cast the first stone. A spirit of hatred will never win the lost,'' he said.
Across the street from the pulpit, Billy Jordan, 39, of Dayton watched and shook his head.
''I'm gay and I'm the way God made me. I hid it for years because of people like him,'' said Jordan, pointing to the speaker of the moment.
''I got tired of hiding, so I decided to come out. I told my family the day before the commissioners took their vote. My sister came in the very next day and said, 'They're going to run you out of town.' Well, they aren't. My family is behind me, and they told me if I wanted them here with me tomorrow, they'd be there.
''Well, you know what? I'm going to be there,'' he said, raising his voice to be heard over the public address system.
''They're not going to stop me, and they're not going to condemn me to hell.''
...a little hope.
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no subject
Date: 2004-05-08 09:41 am (UTC)I have faith in the rest of them. And there are a LOT more of them.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-08 10:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-08 10:18 am (UTC)Hmm, apparently I've been going about my recruitment methods all wrong then. I foolishly imagined that actual verbal discussion of the issues was a more effective way to educate people to be tolerant and/or to be queer than "sodomizing" them. In fact, from my admittedly limited past experience of sex, I have not found sex to have any kind of magical power to change the opinions of those I have sex with at all. I guess I just haven't had the right kinds of sex that possess this mysterious power yet?
"Homosexuality is no different than a man murdering somebody or stealing a piece of bubble gum."
*blinks*
Er, I consider murder and bubble-gum theft to be extremely different from one another, and both extremely different from homosexuality as well. Although I'd like to consider it a good thing anytime anyone suggests that it's a good idea to not spend a lot of energy hating queers, I really have difficulty imagining how anyone can possibly imagine they're saying anything nice about homosexuality by "reassuring" people that it's no different than murder.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-08 10:57 am (UTC)I guess not, cuz I've had great success with this recruitment method. ;)
Er, I consider murder and bubble-gum theft to be extremely different from one another, and both extremely different from homosexuality as well. Although I'd like to consider it a good thing anytime anyone suggests that it's a good idea to not spend a lot of energy hating queers, I really have difficulty imagining how anyone can possibly imagine they're saying anything nice about homosexuality by "reassuring" people that it's no different than murder.
Ahem, well, yes, which is one reason why I said a little hope. But, if you speak "Christianese" (particularly the evangelical dialect), his statement is much more reassuring. The pastor purposefully picked "sins" that people would perceive on opposite ends of the spectrum: one "major/deadly" sin and one "itsy bitsy minor" sin. And then made his point, that (literalist/fundamentalist readers of the Bible are supposed to believe that) all sins are equally bad in God's eyes, and that we are all sinners. That is, stealing bubble gum is also like murder. And gluttony is also like murder. He's not saying gays (or bubble gum kleptos, or fat people) should be locked up or executed. He's affirming a certain metaphysical worldview.
In this worldview, we're all guilty and needful of God's grace. And so focusing on one group as somehow morally or spiritually inferior is they height of hypocrisy, foments hatred, and only serves to drive people away. Which is considered the opposite of Jesus's message of hope and love for all humanity.
So, if someone wants to have a metaphysical disagreement with me on the moral status of homosexuality/same-sex sex/whatever, I say that's just fine. That's freedom of religion. So long as they affirm my status as equal to their own and worthy of basic human dignity and respect. Which is what I think this pastor's point was (in his own "language"), in opposition to the majority voice at this rally.
I don't think it likely that (esp Southern) Protestant evangelicals and fundamentalists are suddenly going to convert en masse to rationalist atheism or progressive/liberal Christianity. I do think there is good reason to hope that views like this pastor's will win the day within the evangelical & fundamentalists communities over and against the hatred being spewed by the other pastors in this news story.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-08 11:44 am (UTC)Wow, I had no idea. But now I'm more frightened than ever of literalist/fundamentalist readers of the Bible, because that sounds like an appallingly immoral worldview to me. If everyone is really considered equally bad no matter what they do, and committing mass murder is no worse than breathing (or whatever sin it is that we can all universally be assumed to have committed - perhaps "thinking" would be a better approximation of the sin in question) . . . well, then anytime I meet a literalist/fundamentalist reader of the Bible who persists in breathing, I'm going to have to assume that this person would feel no greater guilt for committing mass murder than they already feel for just breathing, and . . . wow, I think I'm just going to have to flatly refuse to imagine that they really believe that, because that would make living on the same planet as so many of them rather more frightening than I'm prepared to cope with.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-08 12:27 pm (UTC)Some people, ya know?
Date: 2004-05-08 10:25 am (UTC)They're no better than Caiaphas and all the other "leaders" who condemned first and asked questions later.
Jesus would never approve of all that hullaballoo going on in Rhea County. Their actions are serving mainly to turn people away from Christ and Jesus said that's one of the very worst sins a person can commit. They're the ones who are going to get a serious wake up call when judgement comes. And won't they be surprised?
Re: Some people, ya know?
Date: 2004-05-08 11:21 am (UTC)I've heard the theory you propose before. I've also heard perhaps he was writing a passage or passages of the Law/OT. Or that he was simply writing their names, in reference to a passage in Jeremiah. Or that he was simply doodling and biding his time, waiting for them to realize their hypocrisy. It's interesting that the passage says "the older ones" left first. Perhaps this reference would have made what he was writing obvious to the readers who lived at the time the author wrote. It's an interesting question.