I feel like I’m still detoxing from the in-depth special report I posted yesterday, my account of my experience inside the belly of the beast at Lou Engle’s Gateway House of Prayer. Apparently, though, there is no limit to the number of delusions Lou Engle has in a given week, because now he’s weighing in on the recent Supreme Court decision of Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, where the court simply held that a Christian group at Hastings College of the Law has to abide by the same nondiscrimination policies as anyone else, as long as they want to accept school funding. But no, for Lou Engle everything has World of Warcraft-style implications:
A 5-4 Supreme Court decision Monday requiring Christian campus groups on public universities to accept gay students as members and leaders may signal the beginning of religious persecution in the U.S., says prayer leader Lou Engle.
“This is the first time in U.S. history where the Supreme Court has actually ruled that gender rights now trump religious rights, which means this is the beginning of the possible coming harassment and persecution of the church because it’s going to be clear that the true church will take a stand only on the Word of God,” Engle, founder of TheCall prayer movement, said today. “So these campuses will find out who the real Christians are, who is willing to take a stand and risk their status with the school as a club.”
He will take any opportunity, no matter how tenuous, to keep his followers in a constant state of fear, won’t he? He has to keep up a constant stream of faux-victimization, because if he doesn’t, his followers might accidentally forget that they’re persecuted and go on to live productive lives. Quelle horreur!
SCOTUS simply said that no, Christian groups are not entitled to a special right to discriminate. But as I explained in my report yesterday, Lou Engle and his worshippers don’t hold the United States or the US Constitution in high regard, believing as they do that American government should conform to their idea of “God’s government.”
(h/t Steve M.)
Tags: Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, cry victims cry!, fundamentalists, Gateway House of Prayer, Lou Engle, Supreme Court, wingnuts20 Comments »
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Hmm… if he thinks “this is the beginning of the possible coming harassment and persecution of the church”… doesn’t that imply that there has not been any harassment and persecution of the church in the past? That’s not what fundies like him usually assert. I might be able to settle for that small, technical win.
Comment by NFQ — July 1, 2010 @ 12:27 pm
Of course scalia, alito and thomas sided with the bigots. Who woulda thunk?!
Comment by Gary (NJ) — July 1, 2010 @ 2:03 pm
I wish the end times were possible, then lunatics like this would be snatched up, so those of us who live in the real world can enjoy life a lot more easily
Comment by Darwin's Bulldog — July 1, 2010 @ 2:58 pm
You guys need to read a bible. What lou says is true.
Comment by Jane — July 1, 2010 @ 3:54 pm
But i would think that is exactly what he wants. The end times. Hotdamn. Jesus on a bobsled, comin’ to take him home.
Comment by ben in oakland — July 1, 2010 @ 5:02 pm
Jane you need to get a brain and think for yourself!
Comment by Vegasguy — July 1, 2010 @ 6:15 pm
LOL, yes Christians are persecuted when they’re not allowed to persecute gays.
Comment by Priya Lynn — July 1, 2010 @ 6:39 pm
Jane, I’ve seen him speak in person, and I know that Lou doesn’t hate the version of gay people who exist in his mind, but as for gay people as we actually are, yes, he hates gay people. Perhaps if you knew a gay person you would understand how easy it is to tell. I recommend that you read the last three paragraphs of my piece again and see ask yourself the questions I suggested.
Comment by Evan Hurst — July 1, 2010 @ 7:31 pm
There’s nothing Christian about them. If you are a Christian then follow the words of Christ not the men who pretend to represent him
Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing!
Comment by JamesStone — July 1, 2010 @ 7:35 pm
“persecution of the church”
That’s like the school bully getting his come-uppance and whining that he’s the one being bullied.
Comment by Scott — July 1, 2010 @ 10:10 pm
“I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.” — Susan B. Anthony
Comment by Will — July 1, 2010 @ 11:33 pm
The only differences as I see it between Lou Engle and Fred Phelps is in their approach. Lou doesn’t shout “God hates fags” or carry signs saying such things, or blaming the deaths of our service members on America’s acceptance of Gay people. Lou claims to love the homosexual but yet is on a crusade to turn America around because we are of the spriit of Jezabel etc. They are both false prophets in my humble opinion. When people become obsessed with trying to keep you from God and talk you out of your faith and salvation then they are the one with the problem.My bible says if you confess that Jesus is the Christ, that whosover believeth shall be saved. It does not say, except homosexuals as Lou would have everyone believe. 1 John 4:1-19 says:” Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. 4 Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. 5 They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. 6 We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
God Is Love
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17 By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot [1] love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.”
Comment by Don Craddock — July 1, 2010 @ 11:37 pm
“The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma.”
- Abraham Lincoln, American president (1809-1865).
Comment by Will — July 1, 2010 @ 11:40 pm
Jane, you say to read the Bible…is that the book that was once used to condone slavery, to burn witches, to take a stand against inter-racial marriage, to torture and kill thousands if not millions during the dark ages and the inquisition? I think I have heard of it THINK. This book is being used to falsely condemn again.
Comment by Russell — July 2, 2010 @ 11:26 am
Jane actually may be right if you believe the Bible. Luckily, in the US our laws are based on the Constitution not the Bible. There’s a lot of batshit in the Bible. One of the best ways to stop believing in God is to read the Bible.
Comment by Daniel — July 2, 2010 @ 4:48 pm
The Bible is a combination of history, metaphor, symbolism and myth (in the real meaning of that word) and it even says in there that all parts of the Bible are not equal, some parts of the Bible are more important than others. I guess like ‘loving your neighbor as yourself’(JANE) and not ‘dipping your toes in the blood of your enemies’…and ‘smashing the heads of their children against rocks’. Lou’s rhetoric would undoubtedly lead to gay heads being smashed against rocks—JANE.
Comment by Gary (NJ) — July 3, 2010 @ 1:43 pm
Jane, the version of the Bible that you’re reading is a bad English translation which is completely misunderstood when taken out of the context of its time and place. When Paul bitches about ‘homosexuals’, he doesn’t mean gay people, as they had no clue that our *orientation* even existed. He was talking about pederasty and the anal rape of male slaves and other men who were beneath the station of the rapist, these rapes were intentionally made as painful as possible.
Making all women wear veils in the ekklesia (church), was not because he was trying to subjugate them, it’s because slave women were often forced into prostitution and not allowed to wear veils in public. A bare head meant sexually available. Married women and women of high standing wore veils. He was protecting the ‘unveiled’ ones from stigma and shame. There are loads more facts like this that you will never learn from uneducated quacks like Engles, Pat Robertson, et.al. Try reading what historians and REAL scholars of religion have to say on the subject.
Comment by Epagapalian — July 3, 2010 @ 2:03 pm
The Bible is a combination of symboism, myth, metaphor. History? Not so much.
Comment by Daniel — July 3, 2010 @ 4:20 pm
I’m not surprised by Engle’s “approaching tribulation” mentality. He’s been peddling fear for years. It’s how he makes his living. That is what is keeping the whole Anti-Gay machine running down the tracks of inequality. What I find more disappointing is the fact that the SCOTUS vote was so close on an issue that anyone with sound reason would expect to be overwhelmingly in favor of Hasting’s non-discrimination policy. Marriage Equality faces some huge challenges when it arrives on their desks.
Comment by Will Byrd — July 3, 2010 @ 11:31 pm
Jane, you betray your ignorance when you flippantly say “you guys need to read a bible”. You obviously have no clue what you are talking about outside of the misguided interpretation of the scriptures that your equally deluded minister/pastor feeds to you every week….and I’m sure you accept every thing he interprets for you to believe without question. I feel sorry for you….and I’m praying for you.
Comment by Stephen S. — July 4, 2010 @ 3:02 am