(Weekly Column)
For fifty years, Bob Jones University, in Greenville, South Carolina, prohibited interracial dating and Bob Jones Jr. once claimed that Catholicism was a
“satanic counterfeit” of fundamentalist Christianity. Despite the ugly rhetoric and vile policies, Republican candidates regularly flocked to the school and groveled for its endorsement. The GOP luminaries who appeared at the university include Ronald Reagan, Dan Quayle, and Bob Dole.
This ignoble political ritual ended in 2000 after presidential candidate George W. Bush was excoriated for appearing at the school. In 1983, Bob Jones University lost its tax-exempt status over its dating rules and argued in court, “God intended segregation of the races and that the Scriptures forbid interracial marriage.” However, the media firestorm over the Bush speech forced Bob Jones III to announce on CNN’s Larry King Live that it was reversing its bigoted policy.
Over time, so-called traditional values can come to be seen as valueless traditions. While the transformation of attitudes can take decades, the actual policy change itself can seem abrupt. Bush was simply following in the footsteps of others, but failed to realize America was walking down a different path.
The same can be said about last week’s uproar over the removal of Rev. Louie Giglio from President Barack Obama’s inauguration ceremony, after Think Progress discovered that he had delivered a toxic anti-gay sermon in the mid-90s.
A few notable nuggets from Giglio’s talk:
• “That movement is not a benevolent movement, it is a movement to seize by any means necessary the feeling and the mood of the day, to the point where the homosexual lifestyle becomes accepted as a norm in our society and is given full standing as any other lifestyle, as it relates to family.”
• “And the only way out of a homosexual lifestyle, the only way out of a relationship that has been engrained over years of time, is through the healing power of Jesus. We’ve got to say the homosexuals, the same thing that I say to you and that you would say to me… it’s not easy to change, but it is possible to change.”
Not surprisingly, the maven’s of martyrdom on the fundamentalist fringe are portraying Giglio’s removal from the program as a loss of religious freedom. Janice Shaw Crouse, executive director of Concerned Women for America’s Beverly LaHaye Institute, wrote an op-ed for The Washington Times titled, “Obama Committee’s Slap in the Face of Religious Liberty.”
“The Obama administration has thrown down a gauntlet, declaring that anyone who espouses historic, biblical Christian teaching will be prohibited from participation in events in the public square,” wrote Crouse. “As Christians, we cannot back down from our religious freedoms, nor can we betray our faith by watering down scripturally based Gospel.”
Crouse’s overheated rhetoric is a mix of pontification and exaggeration. No one is taking away her right to hold backward beliefs or speak out against what she regards as sin. However, Crouse and other evangelicals routinely confuse freedom with having free rein to insult and demonize others without suffering consequences. They simply can’t comprehend that the “untouchables” they used to bully with their Bibles are no longer remaining silent and refuse to accept their inferior place in society.
Crouse goes onto pose an interesting question:
“Now, like the thorough FBI background checks for security purposes of all potential high-profile political appointees, will anyone who participates in any way in a public event have to undergo a thorough background check for statements about the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender community?
Once again, Crouse engages in hyperbole by conjuring images of an oppressive police state harassing Christians. However, the reality is much crueler for those who share her convoluted convictions. Increasingly, politicians will use Google to search for mean-spirited attacks on the LGBT community. They will do so not from pressure, but from an understanding that their constituents do not want to see their LGBT friends, co-workers, neighbors, and family members publicly humiliated in the public square by prehistoric-sounding preachers.
Crouse goes on to rip the Obama administration’s official statement on Giglio’s departure:
“Officials wrote that the replacement person’s beliefs will ‘reflect this administration’s vision of inclusion and acceptance for all Americans.’ Except, of course, those who disagree with the administration’s narrow view of ‘inclusion’ and ‘acceptance of all Americans.’”
In Crouse’s perverse fantasy world, there is a bizarre moral equivalence between bullies and victims – and it is downright narrow-minded, even intolerant, not to give them equal time. I wonder how she’d feel about sharing a stage with foreign officials who condemn Christians and consider doing so just another valid point of view?
Rev. Giglio is not a victim of religious persecution, but simply bad timing. Like Bush in 2000, Giglio unwittingly stepped into the intersection of change and evolution and got run over by time. Similarly to BJU, Crouse can either find a new way to interpret her Bible or people will increasingly interpret her offensive views as unfit for polite company.
** Note: If you are from a cool, pro-LGBT evangelical church, I’m obviously not talking about you when I use the term “Evangelical” in this op-ed
Quite right Wayne, you nailed it.
The new “freedom of religion”= the freedom to bully and hate..
Just because someone reads any book (or scripture) doesn’t mean they should act on it. People have to act responsibly, scripture gives nobody license to thoughtless misbehavior. Offensive fictional statements aimed at others do not fall into the definition of religious worship. Thus stating that one’s “religious freedoms” are being taken away are as bogus as their antigay statements.
Jim Stone, I disagree.
The Religious Right’s revised “freedom of religion” is not merely a freedom to bully, it’s a “freedom” to deny everyone else their own freedom of religion.
I wish she truly did follow traditional biblical teaching; like the one that says women should be silent and not presume to teach a man! I don’t beleive this but if she wants traditional teaching, you can’t cherry pick!
Someone said in Christianity Today that people are more willing to change their religion to suit their politics, than to change their politics to suit their religion. There was one exception I know of; someone in the Reagan administration studied the Bible to prove Reaganomics was biblical. He came to the opposite conclusion and even switched parties.
People improperly use books as backup to prove whatever idea they had before they read the book. Religious people and non-religious people use the Bible the same way. She wants to hate her neighbor, so she figures a way to twist the Bible to say the opposite of Jesus’ commandments. You don’t know the Bible, so you take what she says at face value. The non-religious person who thinks the Bible is ridiculous looks for a passage that appears to serve their purpose.
The same book that says that women (in the congregation) should not be talking during the service also says that women who preach and lead prayer should wear a sign of authority on their heads so visitors won’t be confused. In the ancient church, men and women had separate catechism classes, because contemporary sentiment was that a mixed class was indecent. Paul does not say that women should not be teachers, he discloses that it is his practice not to use a woman to teach the men’s class. The ancient church had female deacons who taught the women’s classes and baptized the women (since baptism involved nudity).
People don’t want to hear this because one group doesn’t want the Bible to be reasonable, and the other group wants an excuse to hate their neighbors.
This woman is not using the Bible, she is abusing the Bible.
These people take “freedom of religion” to mean that everyone has the right to THEIR RELIGION and that they have the right to persecute anyone at will and scream that THEY are the victim. Well, they are the minority and their numbers will continue to dwindle until there’s nothing left but just a few old, hateful bigots left sitting around thumping on their bibles, giving each other hand jobs. Freedom OF religion also means freedom FROM religion.
First of all, Giglio’s removal from the Inaugural program was not from any other public square.
Just THAT particular, and obviously very special event. The administration isn’t trying to keep him from going anywhere else he pleases speak his mind.
He’s just not going to be validated by a Presidential invitation. I’m getting REAL sick of these anti gay religious conservatives thinking that just because they aren’t given carte blanche EVERYWHERE, suddenly they are persecuted and silenced.
Girl, please.
Defamation of a particular group, isn’t going to make you especially popular necessarily and there is no reason for these people to think it should make them A list participants all the time.
That’s some blatantly arrogant assumption.
Mores the point, to b***h about it as taking your rights away, is especially graceless.