 William Butte Religious-Inspired Hatred
“We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.” -Jonathan Swift, Irish cleric and satirist
Within Judeo-Christian theology, homosexuality has been misunderstood and condemned from the time the ancient Hebrews mistakenly believed it was degrading behavior derived from paganism, to the equally erroneous belief favored by today’s conservative Christians who consider it chosen, evil behavior derived from Satan.
So it was Swift’s quote about religious-inspired hatred, uttered during an era of fire-and-brimstone preachers and witch-burnings that came to mind earlier this month when I heard that the Rev. D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church had died.
Like the Rev. Jerry Falwell, that other recently deceased preacher of puritanism who ignorantly and infamously blamed 9-11 in part on the gay community, Kennedy was a modern-day preacher of hate, full of fire-and-brimstone – and a few lies. He wasn’t above the sin of false witness, such as his counterfactual claim in a newsletter under the headline SEX WITH CHILDREN? HOMOSEXUALS SAY YES! that “Adult sex with children has been a crucial component of the homosexual movement all along.”
With faith even Mother Teresa lacked, and the fervor of every 19th century Southern preacher who quoted the many scriptures sanctioning slavery to rail against the emancipation of slaves, Kennedy focused on the few verses condemning homosexuality to rail against the emancipation of gay Americans from second-class citizenship. Opposing every civil right, from protection against housing and job discrimination to hate crimes legislation and marriage equality, he instead offered the gay community the “reparative therapy” of celibacy and prayer as an alternative.
But just as abolition created religious conflict and societal change yet left behind the stain of racism, America again is in the midst of similar changes.
Through social interaction and scientific research, our society’s acceptance of homosexuality as innate instead of evil has increased, which has created a more favorable atmosphere for gay rights legislation. It has also caused Christian denominations to debate a scriptural literalism that condemns homosexuality as chosen behavior. Even the president of uber-conservative Southern Baptist Theological Seminary recently admitting that homosexuality may be biological.
Religious conflict and societal change, however, produce all types of repercussions - even for those who continue to focus on homosexuality as illicit behavior.
Just days before Kennedy’s death, his friend and acolyte, the mayor of Fort Lauderdale, was removed from the county’s Tourism Development Council by a unanimous vote of county commissioners, after he spent the summer publicly complaining about the city’s epidemic of virtually nonexistent public restroom sex between gay men, and in response the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau received hundreds of e-mails from folks either cancelling or threatening to cancel vacations. Ironically, during this time it was reported that two married Republican congressmen were arrested elsewhere for soliciting undercover male cops in restrooms.
Of course, the two congressmen in question, Florida Rep. Bob Allen and Idaho Sen. Larry Craig, both claim they are neither gay nor guilty, though Craig’s sexuality has long been questioned, and Allen chalked up his solicitation to racial fear. Instead of coming out of the closet earlier in life and perhaps fighting for the civil rights of all gay Americans, they both got married, aligned themselves and voted with a political party that vehemently opposes gay rights, relegated their same-sex attraction to illicit restroom behavior, and solicited their way to political ruin.
And political ruin through sexual solicitation doesn’t come easy in a political party full of false piety and selective moral outrage, where its members ignore the sleazy sexual solicitations of male congressional pages made by a Florida congressman popular with the Palm Beach crowd, and then applaud a Louisiana senator after he recently admitted calling a female prostitute service.
But as Bob Dylan would sing, the times they are a-changin’. Even in Iowa.
Those of us who view our sexuality as more than just behavior got a vicarious thrill recently after a Polk County judge struck down red-state Iowa’s ban on same-sex marriage as unconstitutional. Before he put a hold on his ruling the following day, one couple legally married. Sean Fritz and Tim McQuillan, turning Swift’s quote around, found religious love through a Unitarian minister who married them on his front lawn.
Afterward, Fritz told McQuillan, “This is it. We’re married. I love you.”
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