This is, um, “Pastor Kellan Criswell,” and he is talking in this long winded video about whether gay people can be Christians, or whether Christians who don’t hate gay people are “bad Christians.” In it, he uses every Christian euphemism available to replace the inner sentiment, “God Hates Fags,” including the number one hit “God loves homosexual people, but!”
Anyway, about two minutes in, he explains how he used to support gay rights, but when he was twenty years old, something traumatic in his life happened which caused him to “meet the Lord,” (or something…I’m skimming with my ears), and ALSO caused him to renounce veganism. Got it? Start hating gays + eat some meat = SAVED!
Just after that, he agrees with the bible verse forbidding having sex with a woman who’s having her period and makes an “icky!” face and says it’s gross to do that. This is all his lead up to Leviticus 18:22, which no one has ever heard before. Certainly no scholars (who tend to be smarter than the average fundie) have ever analyzed this verse and found that it’s not as simple as it appears to uneducated bigots!
Fast forward through the rest: gay people can’t be Christians. This is an asinine statement, but it’s something that fundamentalists say a lot, to make them feel better about their fears about the reality of the world around them. We all know that there are lots and lots and lots of gay Christians. LOTS.
Anyway, the last thing I notice about this video, because I had to turn it off, due to the fact that I remembered that I was listening to Jimi Hendrix a little while ago and had that paused, is that dude is sitting in front of a bunch of lockers. Ew. Creepy to think people like that could be broadcasting from schools.
Watch it if you’re totally bored.
Notice the tattoo? Yeah, that has about the same level of condemnation for fundamentalist snakes as it does for “homoseckshul relashuns.”
[h/t Jeremy]
Too bad you turned it off. At 8:40 he makes the requisite “I have gay friends and I love them!” comment. Also, he is not ex-gay; he apparently was a straight HRC employee.
So there’s this clown and Greg Quinlan as HRC alumni to go anti-gay crazy. Who says that HRC isn’t having an impact?
IMHO when activists jump back and forth between sides, it’s all about the money.
What happened to these people who become narrow minded. I thought as we grow older and experience life we become more understanding and open to the complex beauty of life? guess not.
He makes a good case for those that believe in an Abrahmic God. It’s only when that “God” is tendered to the tinder box containing the tooth fairy and santa clause, will all change. I don’t mean to step on anyones toes, but this whole s**t fight is based on a obnoxious ego based God created out of man’s image. You can garner more knowledge and wisdom of how to live your life in an hour with Dr Phil than a whole lifetime of idol worship of this jealous manipulting conflict inducing God dog. Sheer bunk. To even give one ounce of energy to this faux creation gives the RR power and only serves more idols of confusion..
He may have renounced veganism, but it appears he’s still packin’ in the carbs.
PS It’s always floored me how one can be “saved” by “the prince of peace” then go to work for a “God” of war, the very thing the “messiah” came to correct but failed due to murder.
One thing I think one might agree on whether secular or religious, “it’s all about sex”.
Your gay friends hate you Kellan.
There is nothing “Christian ” about these people. If Christ were alive today he would be appalled that these “band of bigots ” have hijacked his name to spread hate and fear and ultimately increased the suicide rate of young people …
He’s not brainwashed. He’s brain dead. In this entire video he failed to express one original thought. Like a sheep, he offered regurgitated garbage. Why bother? He could have simply turned on a recording sine he had nothing new to say. Absolutely worthless.
Also, Greg Quinlan never worked fir HRC. The man is a liar and only claims to have worked there because it makes for a good story. When I worked at HRC, no one had heard of Quinlan, either in DC or Ohio. It seems the lowlife scum bag fabricated the whole thing.
Yeah, Quinlan is a bald faced liar. We all know that. This dude isn’t claiming to be “ex-gay” so we don’t automatically assume he’s a lying mouthbreather.
As a Christian gay man, I rebuke shrill anti-gay activist Criswell in the name of Jesus. The good news is that he’s not God, does not represent God, does not speak for God and does not have authority to give permission for other people to have relationships WITH God.
Think he eats meat on Fridays? If so he’s going to Hell. Thinks it is okay for a daughter to get her father drunk and have sex with him to have a kid? The Bible says it is okay. People seem to forget the Bible also says “What you hold true on Earth, so shall I in Heaven” meaning that if we as a collective society accept the gay community and quit seeing them as “abominations”, God would also hold this to be true. Anyone else find it sad it took a Pagan to point this out?
Wait, so he claims he was canvassing for a hate crimes bill, but now that he’s a Christian, he doesn’t support it, because…um, God doesn’t condemn gay-bashing? WTF? I’m inclined to believe Wayne’s telling the truth…a lot of wingnuts fabricate an “I used to be so liberal until…” story, and they never sound convincing.
“In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.”
Autobiography of Mark Twain by Samuel Clemens
Yes, fundagelicals love testimonies (its big entertainment at their church services), so people try to one up each other and how bad or how deeply depraved they were to show the miraculous power of god. I have no doubt that many ex-gays get a lot of needed attention through their “testimonies”. We know a number of them make a decent living off it as well.
So for starters, I actually have met Kellen in person. What this blog is writing versus who he is, is inaccurate. And the comments about him and some of the Bible are a bit off. And if you want someone to dislike, or want to sound-byte, don’t read on. If you are open-minded (as I would hope you guys are), you’ll hear me out.
As an HRC volunteer, I have talked with him extensively, for hours, about Gay rights, Christianity’s place in it and how relevant to Christians it needs to be, if at all. And I’ll be the first to say this video may be a poor first glance at the man, having first hand experiences around him.
Look, the man tried his best to answer a specific question that a lot of closed minded Christians don’t get. I know first hand, he is not a bigot. Will he vote for Gay Marriage, no. But, he vote against it. Nor will he ask the church to vote against it. If any state allows it, he won’t make a fuss, it’s not really a huge deal to him. His personal opinion is to see people know God. Not, to condemn anyone in the LGBT community.
Just to address some comments here:
He didn’t ‘jump sides for the money’, this dude is broke.
He doesn’t believe that eating meat makes you a Christian.
The church he Pastors is new without money so they meet inside of a Christian School building, until they can afford their own.
If he had read all of Leviticus, it would be irrelevant to the question.
He’s not an anti-gay activist. Not even a little.
He *won’t* vote against it. My apologies for the typo.
James,
People who make youtube videos about Leviticus 18:22 ARE anti-gay activists. People who set up new churches and preach Leviticus 18:22 ARE anti-gay activists.
If he cared even 0.001% about gay rights he would not talk about Leviticus 18:22.
@James R.,
Really??? First I doubt you are an HRC volunteer. Second he isn’t what this blog is writing about him??? Are you serious?? They aren’t making these claims without any proof. The video is posted here for anyone to hear what he had to say. My guess is you are either Kellen himself or one of his flock trying to spin things to make him not sound as bad as he is. The problem is the video is here for all to see. It’s that simple.
Let’s see, James…he lies and misuses the word “love” like fundie bigots. If it looks like a, if it walks like a, if it smells like a…
Probably is.
Oh, and in case you missed it, in the content of the piece, I was making fun of him. In the headline too.
I didn’t actually think that he meant that you have to eat lots of meat to be a good Christian. I just thought it was funny how he got “convicted” of his “idolatry” of veganism, so I decided to make fun of him.
If he makes another stupid video, I’ll mock him again.
What a waste of a perfectly good cub.
Does anyone think the simpleton believers out there are going to: 1. Understand this new twist on their beliefs that fags are somehow OK but just need redemption? 2. Governments that approve of gay unions, especially marriage, are under the auspices of God himself as his agents? He has a lot more faith in the brainpower of the masses than actually exists. That quote from the infamous “Leviticus” about not lying with a man as with a woman always makes me respond, “If I lie with a woman, nothing will happen sexually simply because there is no desire to make anything happen. I am therefore forbidden to lie with a man that way. Something sexual had better happen.” (AND it will! :) ) Why is it not painfully obvious to these “intelligent” people that the writers of all those anti-homo-sex texts did not have any understanding of sexual orientation, nor did the culture at the time? It was always looked at as being chosen behavior that was against the only thing they did understand about sex – men wanted women and vice versa. Their job was to make the people adhere to the cultural mores of the day and their society – they used the threatened punishment of God to make them “toe the line”. Really, just like today with our own religious do-gooders.
Do not judge or u will be judged give o in good measure and be given it in return or smtn like that … its only gods place to be the judge no matter if ur a man of god or not dont judge ppl it aint ur place to so in my eyes that makes him a bad christian for judgen some1 for dif beleafs other then his own shame on u
Ppl with beliefs kill me … dont get me wrong i have faith in a higher power and they go by many diffrent names but i refer this higher poweras god any 1 can beleave in somthing its much harder to maintain faith its much harder god loves us all no matter wat we call him.
Whether or not he’s read all of Leviticus is very relevant since people who have read all of it are the ones who understand how ridiculous it is to use the christianist theocrats’ favorite anti-gay passage as some sort of proof that their god hates us.
It’s totally relevant that when he quotes the line from ALeviticus, he skips the part where it advocates KILLING homosexual men. Why? Either he DOESN’T support giving gay men the death penalty, in which case he has to admit a person need not believe every word of the Bible to be a good Christian, or he DOES support the killing of gay men, in which case he should stop pretending he loves us.
Good on him. If gays have the right to renounce religion and if vegans have the right to renounce meat, I think it’s certainly fair that gays can renounce gaydom, if they so wish, and former vegans can renounce meat. Life’s a journey, folks. Let’s stop dictating to people what they can and can’t do. Let’s give people the freedom to enjoy life and embrace food, sex and love on their own terms.
“Good on him”? Jaynie, I don’t think Pastor Butthead was encouraging people to embrace “food, sex and love on their own terms”. He was encouraging people to become followers of his Leviticus/ Jesus form of christianity. You are free to indulge in that crap all you want but I am tired of the crazy religious continually standing in the way of the civil rights of GLBT people. And that is what the bile people like Pastor Butthead end up effectively spreading, by their GLBTs are evil mantras. No Jaynie, bad on him!