Taking down anti-Gay Christianity: It can be done and how we are going to do it. Update 1,2.
A list of ways we can start bring down homophobic Christianity and how we are going to do it.
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Taking down anti-Gay Christianity: It can be done and how we are going to do it.
Gays are under attack by Christians globally. An effective counter-offensive needs to be done to take down anti-Gay Christianity.
It can be done.
This essay will show how it can be done and also show why the Gay community has failed to do so in the past. As the plan is developed this document will be updated.
This essay may extend beyond what Substack will allow as a mailing. If it is too long, part of it will be posted, emailed out, and then the rest added in.
Read this online, rather than in the email.
Since no one has even thought to have a plan to take down homophobic Christianity or have a counter-offensive, everything will need to be explained in this essay, and hence it will be somewhat long. The reward for reading it, is that we will have a plan to bring down one of the major enemies of the Gay community.
SECTION 1: They are vulnerable.
Their numbers are declining rapidly, their obnoxious behavior has made them unpopular, people know Gays and don’t want to seem them hurt, and the world in which Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christianity had flourished is gone.
There are four major reasons why Christianity in general is vulnerable.
First Part: The collapse of Christian faith in America.
The percentage of Americans who are Christian is declining fast. Not just for the population as a whole, but for each age group, but most importantly for each age cohort.
An age cohort, is a group of a certain age at a specific time. For example, the age cohort of people 30 to 35 in 2010, would be the same age cohort but 40 to 45 in 2020. It is the same group of people over time.
Even with each age cohort they are losing faith in Christianity. It isn’t just a matter of younger people getting older. Christianity is declining across all age cohorts.
In the past, young people often would start going back to church when they started families. This isn’t happing much anymore.
Second Part: Rising unpopularity.
Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christians have been really obnoxious and have greatly annoyed the general population. This is likely one reason Christianity is declining. The brand has a bad reputation.
Further, as Christianity is declining, those who are remaining Christians, tend to be older, more reactionary and generally more obnoxious, further driving the decline of Christianity and increasing the public dislike for them.
Third Part: Gays are generally out now, and people at least one Gay person. Most people have at least one Gay relative. There is the joke on TikTok where they repeat the saying, “Everyone has a Gay cousin,” and the person wonders who is his Gay cousin, and then realizes, “I am the Gay cousin.”
Gays have parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, and so even though we are about 3% of the population, maybe about half of the public has a Gay relative that close to them.
Further Gays have colleagues, friends, co-workers, neighbors, and others.
They may have various issues with Gays and homosexuality, but they don’t want something bad to happen to their Gay friend, relative, colleague, or neighbor.
There is a built-in majority against homophobia.
To counter this, Churches have already start programs whereby their members are supposed to be able to on supposed good terms with their children while not giving up their homophobic Christian beliefs.
This person gives this class at Evangelical Churches across the United States because otherwise parents might decide that their love for their Gay children is more important than clinging to a homophobic religion.
http://marycomm.com/consulting/resources/uncommon-love-bible-study/
The Evangelical Churches are already being forced to adopt counter-measures to avoid reputational stigma and avoid having individual members drop out due to homophobia. If someone could find any record of Gay Christian groups pointing out that this is a slimy despicable thing, the author of this essay would be interested. It seems it is getting a free pass.
Another effort to avoid stigma due to their homophobia is documented in this post, about the “He Gets Us,” campaign, which is to try to pull people into Evangelical Christianity without being upfront about their homophobia.
Fourth Part: In the background there are powerful tends changing society which is changing the fundamentals whereby Christianity doesn’t have the power over society.
We tend to forget that with the increase of the means of communication and education the nature of society, in particular to critically assess a religion, not rely on authority, and be independent in thinking has changed drastically.
The author of this essay, was reading a 1927 Texas journal and there was an editorial suggesting that people on the farm would find it useful to own a radio. Back in the early 20th century a very large fraction of people lived on the farm. Before the radio, they at most got something in the mail to read. Now there is radio, television, cable, internet, and other media. The nation as gone from rural to urban. From isolation to information overload. People are not isolated and they are exposed to a lot of ideas.
The level of education has gone up in the last 80 years tremendously. When the author was growing up in the 1960s, there was a big campaign to let parents know that their children needed to graduate from high school because employers were requiring high school diplomas. It was explained to parents that though they were able to get good jobs without a diploma that in the future good jobs would require it.
In the 1960s the rate of those going to college had started to greatly increase and going to college became common and has been since then.
What is means is that in 2023, there have been three generations of those who have been much better educated than in the past, much more connected to information, and urbanized.
The world which supported Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christianity no longer exists and residuals of that world are disappearing.
In summary, the homophobic Christians are in serious decline, they have annoyed the general public with their obnoxious behavior, most people know at least one Gay person and are concerned that they not be hurt, and the world that previously empowered them is now exists only in slowly disappearing remnants. They are vulnerable.
SECTION 2: There hasn’t been any counter-offensive.
The Gay community has made no credible effort to fight homophobic Christianity. The entire discussion about homophobic Christianity has been dominated by the agenda of Gay Christians who wanted homophobic Christian organizations to accept them and fear alienating homophobic Christian denominations. The Gay Christian agenda has been represented as the agenda of the Gay community as a whole serving the general interests of the Gay community, even though it really only serves their agenda. This situation has been continuing into the present, even though now only a minority of LGBT are Christian.
The Gay atheists haven’t provided a counter-offensive either. They are pre-occupied with showing how Christian belief isn’t rational as if doing so will accomplish anything in fighting homophobic Christianity. Gay atheists haven’t formulated any systematic plan to fight homophobic Christianity except to post things on social media pointing out that Christianity isn’t rationalistic.
The LGBT establishment groups are for legislation against discrimination, but avoid criticizing specific religious groups. Their strategy, which isn’t entirely bad, is to argue that it is a secular state, but not to seriously criticize homophobic Christian beliefs or go after the Christians and their continuing disordered behavior. It isn’t good for Democratic Party politics, and the LGBT establishment is obedient to the larger establishment.
SECTION 3: How Gay Christians undermine the Gay community.
Gay Christians have an agenda as being both Gays and Christians and it is appropriate that they have an agenda for their interests. The problem comes in when their agenda isn’t recognized as just being their agenda and not the Gay community as a whole and instead is represented as the agenda for the whole Gay community.
These are the four major problems with Gay Christians.
1. They locate the legitimacy of the existence of Gays and the rights of Gays to exist within a convoluted interpretation of the Bible made by some theological contortionist instead of it being the question of the legitimacy of Christianity in a universe where Gays exist.
Debating what the Bible says, implies that what the Bible says is important and that Christianity is real and credible. Christians love haggling over the Bible and being champions of the faith. Arguing with them empowers them.
Debating homophobic Christians gives them credibility as persons whose arguments are credible and need reply. That would be a valid tactic is your goal was to get the particular Christian group to be not homophobic so you could join them and have megachurch fun.
The Gay Christians frame the issue of homophobic Christianity to be people misguided in their interpretations of the Bible. The reality is that they are bad people who are homophobic and are just using their religion as a pretext. Further some of them are being Evangelical, including its homophobia, to just have personal dramas and be on a crusade and fill their lives with some type of meaning. They have pathologies
It is up to Christianity to figure out how Christianity can exist in a universe where Gays exist, NOT for Gays to figure out how they can fit into Christianity. For Gay Christians the belief is the opposite.
Instead, our right to exist and breath is made contingent to whether Gay Christians can convince homophobic Christians of a certain interpretation of the Bible and what Christianity might be.
2. Gay Christians obscure the fact that Christianity as a whole constitutes a clear and present danger to the existence of the Gay community. That the character of Christianity in history and globally seems to default towards homophobia.
In regards to Protestant denominations, their achievements are limited to being tolerated in a few dying liberal denominations, and even that achievement is insecure.
For example, the United Methodist Church was prosecuting pastors for performing Gay marriages. Now, in the name of unity, with the rest of the homophobic United Methodist Church outside the Western world, it has taken a stand against Gay marriage and clergy. Even so, the denomination is now breaking up into different factions, since a great many United Methodist Churches don’t want any acceptance of LGBT.
For the Roman Catholic church, a denomination which makes up the majority of the Christians in the world, some papal statement is given some strained interpretation and over represented to mean some supposed subtle shift in Roman Catholic policy towards a more positive view of Gays. Gay Catholics are always telling everyone that “the church moves slowly.” Somehow the whole Gay community should have to wait until the Catholic Church stops being idiots.
The fact is homophobia looks very much like it is built into the Christian religion. Some Christian apologists will say, when some Christian attacks Gays, “that is not true Christianity.” However, this “true” Christianity isn’t found much in the historical record, and exists in a few minor modern Protestant denominations, and even then, often it is just tolerance. To Gay Christians we say, “Ye shall know them by their fruits.” The Christian record of the last 20 centuries regarding Gays has been fairly clear.
As a consequence of denying the clear danger to Gays of Christianity, despite the violence visited on Gays by Christians and the leadership role of Christians in persecuting Gays globally, we have no plan or strategy of defense against them or counter strategies to lessen their ability to persecute and harm Gays.
What is substituted for a defense plan is some hope that at some undefined point in the future Christians won’t be anti-Gay.
3. The priority of Gay Christians is the defense of Christianity over the welfare of the Gay community. When Gay people start to call into question Christianity and the defense of Christianity by Gay Christians, they will engage in all sorts of tactics to defend Christianity and attack Gays who point out the obvious negative effects of Christianity on the Gay community. In this way again they block efforts to defend the Gay community from attacks by Christians.
Further they essentially disarm the Gay community’s ability to defend itself from homophobic Christian attacks by refusing to use arguments that would be powerful, but might alienate homophobic Christians that they hope to eventually ingratiate themselves with or might prove to be injurious to the reputation of Christianity.
For example, instead of discussing how Leviticus is selectively quoted by homophobic Christians to condemn homosexuality, and how other sections of Leviticus are ignored allowing Christians to eat shrimp and women wear red dresses, the Gay community should instead discuss how Christians selectively read the Bible on the issue of slavery.
Even the most doctrinaire Evangelical or Fundamentalist Christians do a lot of involved interpretations to ignore the plain pro-slavery teachings of the Bible. This will be reviewed more in depth later.
Christians have been campaigning against drag shows as being not kid friendly. How friendly is a weekly Sunday ritual where the body and blood of their god is devoured?
Or how “kid friendly” is the cruxifiction where nails are hammered into hands and feet?
4. Worst is the endless pleading for acceptance from straight people in a homophobic religion, a pleading which precludes basic Gay self-respect and instructs straights that they can respect Gays when it is emotionally convenient for them. It instructs straights that merely tolerating Gays is some limited way is some type of moral accomplishment.
The Gay Christian agenda is inherently an assimilationist agenda to get straight acceptance. For Christianity, even with the acceptance of Gays, will still be 95+ percent straight people with heteronormative ways and Gay Christians will need to try to fit these heteronormative ways to fit in.
Gay Christians legitimize groveling for acceptance.
Update 1: SECTION 3A — Working with militant Gay Christians.
However, if some faction of militant Gay Christians that are really serious about taking on homophobic Christianity emerge, and don’t engage in tactics undermining the Gay community we should not be in conflict with them.
When you are fighting the same foe you need to avoid needless conflict with those aiding their effort. Though it will always need to be monitored that Gay Christians are fighting homophobic Christianity with means and methods that don’t undermine the larger Gay community.
The goal is to bring down homophobic Christianity and be pragmatic in the methods we use.
SECTION 4: Effective Tactics
Effective tactics would have two goals.
One is to reduce the reputation of Christians. This includes showing that they aren’t rational actors, they are bigoted, and given to disordered behavior.
Two, to disable the homophobic Christians. This could be to divert Christians to defending themselves, not just regarding homosexuality, but their religion as a whole. This could be to psychologically disable them such that realize they have disordered and pathological behavior individually and collectively.
Before discussing these two goals, the current ineffectual efforts need to be criticized.
Part One: Ineffectual techniques and abusive language.
Much of the criticism of Christianity by atheists is that it isn’t rational. That is when analyzed it doesn’t make sense and isn’t logical.
Atheists will show the inconsistency of granting a prayer for a promotion, but letting children elsewhere starve to death and point out other illogical aspects of Christian belief.
Christians and theologians have dealt with these questions for centuries and have ready answers for all the critical questions that might be raised with the all-purpose answer that the ways of their Christian god are mysterious and beyond comprehension.
Persons who attempt to argue against Christian belief or other religious beliefs using analysis and logic are oblivious to the nature of religious belief. People in general have an emotional basis for their beliefs, and not logical or analytical reasons, though they might like to think they do. Even those presenting what they think is a logical defense or justification or proof of their faith, hold their faith for emotional reasons and what they might represent as logical is just something that is just superficially imitating logic.
Using analysis or logic to get a Christian to give up their faith is often a waste of time. When it does seem to work, it is likely that the person was already losing an emotional attachment to their faith. Or perhaps their new faith is a conceptualization of themselves as being analytical and not subject to irrationality like others. Some effort should be devoted to the effort, but it needs to be recognized it is of limited utility and there is an excessive focus on it.
Verbal abuse is not only a total waste of time, but Christians thrive on it. There is an extensive narrative in the Christian faith in suffering for their faith and dying for their faith and suffering abuse from society. It is also extensive in the Old Testament. When you throw at them a stream of insults, they are able to act out dramas of suffering for their faith and turning the other cheek and trusting in their Christian god, etc.
Verbal abuse enables Christians. Also, it helps promote their religion since there will be others impressed by their suffering. The Christian religion was able to dominate Roman society even though they were initially thrown to the lions.
After all the chief symbol of Christianity is the cross.
Part Two: Effective tactics.
This section is about the rhetoric and arguments we should use, there are some specific tactics which will be discussed later.
What does work is what emotionally impacts them.
The primary reason that Christianity is declining isn’t that suddenly everyone is analytical and see logical contradictions. Algebra still isn’t a popular topic. What is causing Christianity to decline is its emotionally repulsive image of moralizing scolds wanting to persecute someone you know or a relative.
Being a Christian would collide with their identity as not being an obnoxious person.
When people drop out of Christianity it doesn’t mean necessarily, they have become atheist or agnostic. They often have some vague metaphysical or spiritual belief and it is sort of undefined, or they switch to another religion, but they aren’t atheists.
Some people will always have an emotional need for religion and one thing that needs to be recognized is that the goal in dealing with homophobic Christianity is to have them cease being homophobic Christians. It isn’t necessary that they become atheists, if they adopt some other religion that isn’t homophobic, that works. More will be discussed in a later section.
On Facebook, it a moment of irritation, I casually said:
“You are likely Christian because of an empire: Roman, Spanish, or European.”
I hit a nerve and a locally prominent historian and social justice Christian explained how it was just what Christ himself said in the Bible that counts and his message is what is important and human institutions led Christianity astray.
The person’s identification with being Christian was colliding with his African American identity as a person interested in his African roots and his identity as a social justice advocate. My post was upsetting on an emotional level and upsetting enough that he reacted and replied.
On the historical issue of slavery, the Christians are just wishing away the historical record. Though logically it is the equivalent to their selective reading of Leviticus in the Bible, and equivalent to the usual Gay Christian haggling over the Bible, people have much stronger feelings about slavery than eating shrimp, and slavery is in the Gospels and in the Old Testament. It can’t be easily ignored like a prohibition on shrimp.
Would St. Paul tell this slave to return to his master like he did with Onesimus?
Arguments about homophobic Christianity need to engage them emotionally. It should question their motives, frame them as contemptible, condemn type of people they are, the credibility of Christianity.
There should be no concern over the impact of what tactics or arguments might have on homophobes. The goal should be to psychologically disable them and their faith. They are out to harm us; we should be ready to do what might get them to stop their attacks. It is simple self-defense.
Just calling them bigots is not enough. Why have they taken up some anti-Gay religion or anti-Gay religious campaign? What are the pathologizes and psychological needs motivating them? It is those pathologies that need to be called out.
When I burned some anti-Gay literature, I mounted the leaflets on cardboard and had these statements:
“Anti-Gay Christian losers need a crusade to feel special.”
“These homophobic Christians hate Gays to be god’s chosen ones.”
“In Jesus these anti-Gay Christians have a big fantasy game where they are special.”
“Their fentanyl Jesus is to make them oblivious to their meaningless lives.”
Why would anyone need to be on some hating campaign? What do they get out of it? Likely there are more effective psychological tactics than I have devised so far. These first efforts are to suggest what direction we should seek.
We shouldn’t accept that the reality of Christianity as a given. It should always be emphasized that it is just one of the religions of the world. We should constantly emphasize that the doubtful reality of Christianity. We should view it as dubious.
We should always use the term, “Christian god,” instead of “God,” implying that their god is just one god out of the many gods that people have believed in.
We need to avoid thinking in the Christian framework and think outside it, viewing it as just one religion among many, but more prone to violent behavior.
Since we are familiar with Christianity. we tend not to see it as the strange religion that it is. What religions have cannibalism of their god as a weekly ritual? It has a pre-occupation with death and brutality and violence in the exercise of their faith, the crucifixion and martyrologies and in their campaigns against other religions and each other.
Its homophobia should be always references as proof of its dubious and disordered nature and as part of a larger historical pattern of Christianity as a religion predisposed to violence, persecution, brutality and public disorder.
We need to also expose Christian evasions of the issue of homophobic Christianity when it serves to undermine the security of the Gay community. The following is a rebuttal of a local Christian in Dallas in response to Stedfast Church in a nearby city which had been calling for the government execution of homosexuals. Though some might think it was pro-LGBT, it was actually a defense of Christianity and an evasion of the issues of disordered homophobic Christianity. The author, of the letter to the editor of the Dallas Morning News just said it was for the Christian god to judge, that is the Christian god might decide to punish Gays, and for people to try to punish Gays was encroaching on the Christian god’s authority.
This church sold their building to Stedfast Baptist which wants Gays killed. They tried to represent themselves as very different. However, they aren’t that different.
Our goals should be to psychologically disable homophobic Christians and bring them into disrepute.
Section 4.5 If your religion is anti-Gay it is a stupid religion.
We need to establish that our right to exist isn’t a question for debate and the obligation isn’t on us to win a person over or convince them or justify ourselves. We aren’t obligated to engage the issues in whatever religion a person might have.
Further we need to set this policy as standard for the Gay community as a whole. An individual Gay person might want to win someone over, or engage on the basis of a particular person’s beliefs, but it should be very clear that this is their particular personal strategy and not a policy for the Gay community and they should reflect on how it undermines the Gay community.
Burning anti-Gay literature is one way of expressing contempt of homophobic Christianity.
Some memes to be used. I am sure better ones can be designed.
When they put it in terms of their culture.
SECTION 5: Anti-Gay Christians are not credible moral voices.
When liberals and leftists routinely quote Pope Francis when something he says might be supportive of their agenda. That presumes that Pope Francis is a morally credible voice though he has an anti-Gay agenda.
Persons who are anti-Gay are not moral authorities whose endorsement is worth anything.
Anti-Gay Christians need to understand that when they are anti-Gay they lose moral credibility in the community.
When locally they want to speak out as moral voices on some issue, we need to raise the issue of their homophobia.
SECTION 6: If the religion isn’t harming Gays, leave them alone.
If the religion isn’t anti-Gay, we shouldn’t waste time on them. I address this recommendation to the Gay atheists.
Going after homophobic Christianity will be a tremendous undertaking and will take all our efforts. What efforts that might be spared from this effort can be deployed against the other anti-Gay Abrahamic religions.
Some of these religions are getting harassed by Christians also, some of these religions get slandered by Christians, and others are antagonized by Christian. They are potential allies. They are potential resource for information in fighting homophobic Christianity.
SECTION 7: Support Religious alternative for Gays
The discussion in the Gay community is too often confined to choosing between Christianity and atheism or some non-denominational spirituality. Having alternatives besides atheism and non-denominational spirituality, would provide an attractive alternative for some Gays getting tired of waiting for their denomination to get over its homophobia and not wanting to be atheists and wanting to be in a religious organization.
Gays also are known to relapse and re-join anti-Gay Christian denominations or be slow to reject an anti-Gay Christian denomination. Again, having some attractive religious alternatives would provide a place for them to go and not relapse.
Gays who haven’t left an anti-Gay Christian group, are supporting that anti-Gay Christian group. If we can encourage them to leave, we diminish the numbers of the anti-Gay Christian group they left. We also diminish the number of Gays making excuses for anti-Gay Christian groups.
Alternative Gay religions are likely to be active in criticizing Christian homophobia thus helping to fight homophobic Christian groups. They can approach the issue from directions that secular society can’t or won’t.
By having alternative religions for Gays, the discussion of homophobic Christianity will be less dominated and defined by the agenda of the Gay Christians and more by the needs and concerns of the Gay community in general.
These alternative Gay religions will also show what a religion might do for Gays putting pressure on Gay Christians to less begging for acceptance and assimilation and more aggressively stand for the rights of Gays and their human dignity and have greater expectations.
The Taoist Temple of the Rabbit God Tu’er in Taipei has a ceremony for Gays seeking to find a boyfriend. In Cambodia the Buddhists have blessed the LGBT Pride Parade.
As Gays get disaffected there is a risk that they seek another religious alternative that is a cult, a different anti-Gay religion.
SECTION 8: End government promotion and support of anti-Gay Christians.
This article in CNN had showed that millions of U.S. aid money had gone to virulently anti-Gay Christian groups in Ghana.
Likely other anti-Gay groups are getting funds and this should be tracked down.
Locally, the author found out that virulently anti-Gay Christians were giving invocations at Dallas City Council meetings which gives them prestige.
What is notable about this is that no one checked until the author did. The local LGBT establishment with its needs to influence and funding didn’t raise this issue.
Whereas giving invocations at City Council meetings gives a religious group prestige, being considered unacceptable to give an invocation gives the religious group a stigma. Though the privilege of giving an invocation might seem to be a small thing, the status given to a religious group in either being accepted or rejected isn’t trivial.
We should review government activities to make sure that none of them support anti-Gay groups.
The local Dallas mayor announced that he had an Anti-Hate Advisory Board. Some of the members appear to be members of anti-Gay religious groups. The investigation is still ongoing at this time. No members of an anti-Gay religious group should be on any human rights commission or other board which purports to set standards in ethics and human rights.
A review of local government needs to be done to see where appointments and activities enable anti-Gay religious.
Section 8B:
Part A: Review candidates for membership in anti-Gay churchs and if found to be members of an anti-Gay church or denomination raise the issue about it.
Locally in Dallas Zarin D. Gracy was elected to the Dallas City Council. He is the executive pastor of a church whose activities and executive pastor is nationally famous for their anti-Gay campaigns. I raised the issue about this, though the local Stonewall Democrats endorsed him.
Part B: When a candidate is endorsed by a known Christian homophobe we should raise it with the candidate as to why was this endorsement is accepted.
In Dallas, local candidates accept the support and endorsements of this religious homophobe.
Part C: We should raise the issue when someone endorses a homophobic Christian candidate for office.
Part D: We should raise the issue when an elected official supports or endorses a homophobic person or organization or institution.
Don’t depend on your local LGBT political groups to do this. They are focused on their political careers and with their partisan loyalties they will have pressure to give a free pass to homophobia and to fit in with their local political establishment.
SECTION 9: Expose and criticize Gay support of homophobic Christianity.
Locally in Dallas, First Baptist Minister W.A. Criswell said AIDS was god’s punishment for homosexuality. He was a big part of the culture war against Gays.
You can read about it in this article.
When he died, local Gay Christians made excuses for Criswell’s homophobia and praised him. You can read it in this article.
Recently Pope Francis said that homosexuality shouldn’t be criminalized, though Francis still considered it a sin, and Gay Catholics treated it like it was the greatest thing. In reality it was just the Pope’s opinion and not any official policy, and the Catholic church was still against Gay marriage. There was no apology for recent homophobic statements by various groups of Roman Catholic bishops around the world.
This article did a more critical review of how little value there was in the Pope’s statement.
SECTION 10: Have an online database of local anti-Gay religious groups.
Make it easily available online with documentation about religious groups’ anti-Gay program. The whole public needs to know who the anti-Gay religious groups are. The stench of homophobia needs to be on them.
SECTION 11: Make visible in the Unites States the foreign homophobic agenda of a denomination.
When the Catholic Bishops in Ghana denounced Gays, there should have been protests in the United States at Catholic Cathedrals about the homophobic statements. Don’t allow these religious groups to present different faces.
SECTION 12: Don’t allow homophobic Christians to represent their conflicts in foreign nations as human rights issues.
They can’t be claiming to be supported by a doctrine of human rights when they are actively opposing the human rights of others.
These same groups which bitterly complain about some action of some government also often support the criminalization and persecution of Gays and oppose Gays having the right to get married, and have civil rights legislation for employment, housing, and public accommodation.
They don’t have a human rights agenda, they just have a complaint that they aren’t directing who is to be persecuted, and worse it is them who is being persecuted.
There are a lot of complaints about the Modi government of India and the treatment of Christians there, but these same Christians campaigned against the anti-homosexual laws in India being repealed. They wanted homosexuals to be put in prisons, but it was terrible that they might face persecution.
A more detailed review of the problems of Indian Christians representing their concerns as human rights concerns is in this post.
A protestant denomination which is supporting the anti-homosexual policies of Uganda shouldn’t be considered credible when they come complain about claimed human rights violations of Christians in another nation.
One group formed to fight against persecution of Christians, wanted the United States to drop support for LGBT in other nations. The article got pulled, but fortunately it is online at the Internet Archive. (Sometimes the archive needs an extra minute or two to load.)
Further, if the United States comes to the aid of some of these Christian groups, and discrimination ends, will it merely result that the United States has enable Christian groups to launch an anti-Gay campaign? Shouldn’t the United States support those groups which support human rights and not support the enemies of human rights?
When these Christian groups launch a campaign on the basis of human rights, they are hoping for broad public support on the basis of supporting human rights which would get wide spread support. Just educating the public that perhaps it isn’t a human rights issue could greatly diminish the support they get.
It can also be pointed out that the United States doesn’t need to get dragged into every sectarian quarrel in the world. When there was sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland, the United States didn’t take the side of either the Catholics or Protestants. We don’t need to import sectarian conflict into the United States.
SUMMARY
We have lot of opportunities to go after homophobic Christianity and we should get started. Some of the possible ways of combating anti-Gay Christianity only takes one person. The author did search on the persons giving invocations and it took a couple hours a week for about 30 weeks and it was over. It also resulted in a set of pages online with information about local prominent anti-Gay groups.
This is an additional essay focused on a particular church. It is a fuller development of some of the ideas in the above essay.
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