The “culture war“, now more than 30 years old – today is far from the obscure reference cloaked and made fun of by the little quotation marks which try to create the impression that the culture war is a euphemism and not really a war at all. The truth is very different, because when people’s lives are destroyed through the actions of other people – even people on the other side of the planet, even without the use of conventional weapons – and when people die - it is a war in every real sense of the word.

Far from fading out over time, it is a war that has escalated if anything – and now employs advanced weapons such as the internet, science, medicine, psychology and multimedia – along with more traditional hardware like covert operations, surveillance, intelligence, counter-intelligence, propaganda, politics, dirty tricks, entrapment, investigative journalism, expose’s, espionage, infiltration – and denial. (Read More)

Like flowers in spring, the culture war is in full bloom. The most explosive flashpoint this past week was President Obama’s pick for the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor. She is under fire for saying, “I would hope a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

Her comments caused the de facto leaders of the Republican Party, Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh, to become apoplectic and accuse her of reverse racism. The battle over her nomination seems like a flashback to the old battles in the 1970s and 80s over identity politics.

In Kansas, George Tiller, a brave and fearless abortion provider, was gunned down in his church. Of course, the anti-abortion fanatics deny any wrongdoing. But, this movement knows full well that when they single out and accuse individuals of killing babies, they are inviting extremists to take vigilante action.

“Who me?” they ask, as they disingenuously feign innocence.

Strangely, the one place a national consensus is building (albeit in its budding stages) is marriage equality. A landmark federal lawsuit by conservative lawyer Ted Olsen and his liberal counterpart David Boies has crystallized this phenomenon. They are charging that denying marriage licenses to gay couples is a violation equal protection and due process under the United States Constitution.

“This is not a liberal or conservative issue,” said Olsen on CNN’s Larry King Live. “This has to do with human decency, human rights, and equality under the law.” On the same show, Boies deftly dispatched the argument that civil unions are acceptable, because they are marriage by another name.

“You’re from Japan,” Boies said on the show. “You can vote. You can do all the things that other individuals can do who are citizens. But, we are not going to allow you to use the word ‘citizen’ because you are from another country. That would be discrimination on an unacceptable basis. That is what we have here.” (Read More)

In an undated article that Exodus International promoted this week via its Exodus Youth electronic newsletter, Exodus conference director David Fountain reinforces the organization’s preoccupation with a god of war and with the promotion of “fighting” — not mere “struggle” — against one’s own sexuality.

Fountain’s rationalization of conflict starts peacefully enough: He recalls a voice — which he unwisely attributes to God — “finally answering me one night after many nights of praying for God to free me of this struggle. I heard Him gently say to me, ‘David, I’ve already given you the freedom, you just have to choose to walk in it.’”

Fountain gradually proceeds to trivialize true warfare — the Iraq variety — with exaggerations of the ex-gay struggle against temptation. For example:

Yes, we may still find ourselves weak and tempted at times to give in and give up. Let’s not forget that we are in the middle of a battlefield.

Fountain thanks the voice in his head for freeing him from a “bondage of sin” — but he declines to give the Christian God credit for freeing former ex-gays from the “bondage of sin” that was imposed upon them by dysfunctional and unprofessional Exodus programs. Instead, Fountain repeatedly succumbs to the modern evangelical temptation to believe that the voices in one’s head are God and not one’s potentially dysfunctional self.

Fountain’s internal mental warfare is directed against honesty about one’s sexuality — such honesty is attributed to Satan. Fountain encourages self-denial instead:

If you’re wounded or slightly lost, return to base and recover new strength in the One who already won this war and holds the battle plans. Satan and your flesh will fight you every step of the way. However, keep pressing through, not allowing your feelings or emotions to dictate who you are or what you do.

While serving as a soldier on this battlefield, stay alert and be aware that the enemy will charge at you with lies that you are a “struggler” and that is what you will always be. God has given you an indispensable weapon, His Word, to defeat those lies with the truth.

To support that statement, Fountain falls back upon prooftexted Bible passages — one of which relates to self-martyrdom and has nothing to do with sin — or with sexual honesty.

Fountain also shares anecdotes from presumed fellow warriors. One anonymous ex-gay implies that one cannot practice sexual honesty and remain Christian:

“Fighting this fight is worth it to me because I would have no hope of a relationship with Jesus Christ or eternal life without it. It is worth it because without fighting I cannot live with a clear conscience, without anything within me questioning whether or not I’m doing the right thing. It is only by fighting the fight that I have learned to feel loved by God. I had to realize that I am in need of grace. I tried gay Liberation Theology, but it proved to be a rationalization that diminished my need for grace. I have realized that it is through my heart’s need for grace that it realized God’s love for me, which began, in turn, to satisfy the needs for intimacy that He created within me.” – Wayne

The comment by “Wayne” is ironic:

He rejects grace — unconditional forgiveness — in order to carry the emotional and spiritual burdens of 1) Exodus’ judgment against those who are same-sex-attracted, and 2) Exodus’ battle against honesty about one’s sexual orientation.

In recent decades, some concerned critics say, portions of U.S. conservative Christianity have been overrun by an army of little so-called antichrists.

These “antichrists” are said to be smug and willfully ignorant people who worship a god of warfare and death. When they aren’t justifying wars, obsessing over demons, and rejecting the scientific method, they vote for egocentric autocrats and special interests who favor Armageddon-like living conditions — deteriorating seas, poisoned skies, melted ice caps, runaway ethnic cleansing, no privacy, and large-scale religious conflict. Some of these would-be antichrists — doomsayers Timothy LaHaye and Hal Lindsey come to mind — have earned tens of millions of dollars by writing best-selling books that call other people “antichrists.”

In promoting sales of his own new book, ex-gay activist Anthony Falzarano this week decisively associated himself with this supposed army of believers in a god of death.

Falzarano’s latest message to a sexually-honest former Exodus leader is basically this:

Falzarano’s god is a sadistic tyrant that kills individual people with cancer in order to punish other individual people for petty reasons — and in order to bolster the wobbly egos of Biblically illiterate and impenitent ministers like Falzarano.

I won’t repeat the full text of Falzarano’s latest meme here. It is linked above; it has been repeated by other major bloggers; and we at TWO have already allowed Falzarano to spout his memes here in the past week.

Right-wing religious demagogues spread these memes, sugar-coated with godtalk, for the following reasons:

1. to make money when they are ill-qualified for productive employment

2. to inflate their unstable egos by degrading and bullying other people

3. to intimidate practitioners of traditional, modest, and minority religious creeds, replacing those faiths with egocentric, cynical, and authoritarian cult-like movements that are insulated from any dangerous persons who might express faith in a genuinely loving, graceful, life-affirming, self-sacrificial — or non-existent — higher power

4. to promote conflict, bloodshed, and destruction in a “fallen” world that they admittedly hate

5. to victimize other people, putting them perpetually in a defensive position

It’s a bit difficult for me to imagine anything more anti-life, or antichrist-like, than the culture of death and defamation that Falzarano affirms in his recent messages to TWO and to a former Exodus ministry leader.

But I’ll try: (Read More)

“Truth in Love” was the theme of a 1998 ex-gay ad campaign sponsored by Exodus International and Focus on the Family, which first brought the existence of Exodus’ alleged “ex-gays” to widespread public attention.

But in a statement due next week, evangelicals blast Focus and other culture-war organizations for practicing “truth without love.” (Read More)