They’ve handed me some of their pamphlets before. One of them was warning about the end times and one of them was a cartoon comic about a young man who dies and God shows him all the evil things he did when he was alive such as telling a dirty joke.

I see a lot of the members walking, so I assume they don’t have cars. Some of them act extremely weird like they are on drugs, others seem to be a bit more normal.

They don’t like places that sell alcohol. One bar they kicked out after buying up the property and on the window of the bar right before they had to close I remember seeing a sign that said, “We have to close because we’re the devil.” They’ve offered high prices to other liquor stores in the area to try and get them to sell. They are really trying to take over the whole area.

This is why we have to continue to speak up against these people, and expose them for what they are.

And NEVER let the fact that many of them use sweet language fool any of us.

That was part of the argument at the other side. I’m a grade-A ass, but I’m that way in the spirit of defending people who have been hurt. There is nothing worse than a person who plays all nice and loving while advocating and encouraging hatred and discrimination, in my honest opinion.

I see no reason to concede on the issue of IHOP’s leader living modestly, and not being motivated by money. According to critics of the group, they charge “interns” farm more than it costs to feed and house them for the time they are with the group. This money must go somewhere. There is plenty of friction in the community over IHOP buying up lots of property, putting large numbers of kids in each house, and generally taking over the area.

Buying up real estate costs money. Large numbers of paying interns crowded into houses with 4 kids in a room with each paying for the priviledge can generate quite a bit of cash flow.

Claims by the leaders of one of these things that he only gets $35,000 can completely obscur other forms of payment, such as cars, free housing, credit cards that can be used to expense meals, groceries, clothes, technology items, travel, hotels, conferences at resorts, exotic trips for “research” purposes, etc.

It is entirely possible (but I would guess unlikely) that this guy lives modestly. The real estate aquisitions and the aggressive recruitment of interns who overpay for the services they recieve raises serious red flags about the IHOP leader and his disdain for money.

I have had experience with both.

Glad to see the note added to the article.

Incidentally, regarding your last post, I think many followers of Jesus can relate to your “coming out” experience more than you realize.

Yeah, it seems that there’s a correlation between familial acceptance and success in life, though people handle it differently. I know people who were utterly rejected and used that as their springboard for creating success, despite all that. On the other hand, speaking from personal experience, I never got into drugs or anything, but I know that part of the reason it took me a while to really get on course was because I was so completely unsupported when I came out. I was 19 when I came out, and I came out fast. I was mentally unprepared for the idea that I would be rejected so completely by my parents, and so that made what should have been a completely positive time of self-acceptance turn into something a bit different, and I flailed around for several years trying to find my bearings again. What got me through was supportive, high-caliber friends and several sets of substitute parents, people who remain dear to me to this day. But I can see how, if I hadn’t been able to find those ships to anchor onto, things might have been different.

I’m aware of the party culture, and I agree with you that it forms only one segment of the gay community, and that a similar segment is to be found in the straight community. But that was not what I was referring to.

It seems to me that quite apart from the party culture that does crazy and often dangerous things for the hell of it, there is another reason why one may be using “recreational” drugs, namely that life is intolerable, just as some people drink themselves into an early grave because life is intolerable. My friend, whose experience I briefly described, was clearly in this second category.

I was most definitely NOT suggesting that being gay causes drug abuse — which, of course, is a lie that right-wing Christian groups love to disseminate. What I am saying is that homophobic abuse of young gay people increases their risk of drug abuse. It may not even be open and explicit abuse: just a generally anti-gay ethos is abusive, since it retards self-acceptance and causes feelings of loneliness, isolation and worthlessness. It was in this sense, and only in this sense, that this young man’ sexuality probably DID have something to do with his drug addictions — NOT because it caused the addictions, but because his lack of self-acceptance probably led him to seek an escape in drugs, just as in the case of my friend.

This is why the kind of fundamentalist Christians whom we see in the video are so dangerous. They don’t want young gay people to come to terms with their natural sexuality; on the contrary they will do all that they can to prevent them from doing so, thus increasing their risk of drug abuse, alcohol abuse etc. Attempts to “cure” them of their natural sexuality amount simply to further abuse on top of all that has gone before.

For information on the effects of rejection on gay teenagers, see:

http://ucsflgbt.org/pdfs/FAP%20Press%20Release.pdf

As I said over there, I don’t give a damn if the kid finds peace in being a born-again Christian. If so, great! What I do care about is the fact that you people like to kids like Jacob and tell them that they can’t find favor with God without trying to destroy a part of themselves.