Last week Truth Wins Out wrote about the refusal of Robert Gagnon and other leaders of the hardline ex-gay Restored Hope Network to oppose the execution of homosexuals, specifically in Uganda.
Equality Matters reminds us of Gagnon’s history in regard to American gay people’s right to life:
At NOM’s annual “It Takes A Family” (ITAF) conference, regular speaker Robert Gagnon distributed packets of bible verses on homosexuality to attendees, including the Leviticus verse which calls for gay people to “certainly be put to death.”
Equality Matters points out that Gagnon’s book, “The Bible and Homosexual Practice,” says that sexual minorities “have no excuse for not knowing” that engaging in homosexual behavior makes them “worthy of death.”
Participation in same-sex intercourse is partly its own payback for turning away from the one true God, since Paul regards such behavior as itself unclean, a dishonoring of one’s own body, and a self-shaming act of obscene indecency. At the same time, it is evidence of God’s future judgment, since the participants have no excuse for not knowing that those who do such things are worthy of death.
Out of curiosity, how are such statements (and political ads doing things such as comparing homosexuality to pedophilia and literature denigrating homosexuality as a promiscuous lifestyle) not defamation/calumny? Is there no legal recourse against such reckless hate?
Religion always seems to get a free pass to say and do the most egregious things with impunity.
mike your twitter link under your article takes people to this https://twitter.com/mikelogy instead of https://twitter.com/mikeology
Let him babble and rant. It ruins the little bit of credibility he has and only serves to highlight what a kook he is. Beyond that, he’s preaching to his own crackpot choir.
Thanks, Anthony. I have fixed that link.
Pete, we don’t have hate speech laws in this country. He would have to say something actionable about a specific person or even an organization for it to be actionable.
That comment is one of the reasons anti-gay bigots lost the election; the majority understood it wasn’t just about marriage, but LGBT lives as a whole.
I commend you for use of the term “sexual minorities” Use of that term instead of gay or LGBT always reminds the reader that this is a Civil Rights issue, no matter the rest of the topic. I first saw that term used in the Jones and Yarhouse studies and immediately switched to it. LGBT is alphabet soup.
I like how the term “right to life” gets used in this context, but you guys are always pro-abortion. Love that.
That’s because a cluster of cells can’t beg for mercy wing-nut.
You know in all fairness to Robert Gagnon, your article is entirely misleading. If you read even the introduction to his book, “The Bible and Homosexual practice,” where he explains his commitment to defending a biblical perspective on homosexuality, you’d know that Gagnon does not in any way support the killing of homosexuals or believe them to be worthy of death. Yes, he cites Leviticus since that’s an important text for supporting his position that the Bible prohibits homosexuality, but it is a lie to say that he applies that text to our post-Jesus world.
Richard, I’m not pro-abortion at all — personally I’m in favor of limited restrictions on abortion and ample support for alternatives.
The Christian Right has gone off the deep end, effectively affirming rape and incest — and opposing access to contraception and safer-sex information, especially if that requires taxpayer money. The Christian Right also opposes public aid to women who adopt, and it opposes publicly supported prenatal care.
So it would seem that the Christian Right is actually fostering the conditions that lead to abortion, in order to harm women and also have a political issue to pontificate about.
Yet the Christian Right is willing to waste a fortune monitoring, prosecuting, and jailing mothers and doctors. Denying access to contraception and prenatal health care costs the public and the hospital industry additional billions in unpaid medical bills later on.