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08/20/2007
Evangelical condemns our 'ability to stay employed' agenda
Do you think most evangelical leaders simply want to protect "traditional families" and "traditional marriage," but still want gays to be treated fairly? Well, consider this passage from Pure Life Ministries' Steve Gallagher, wherein he bemoans what he views to be a negative shift in evangelical attitudes:
Many Christian leaders are regularly immersing themselves in the pagan values that permeate television airwaves. Sitcoms, documentaries and talk shows are all openly promoting the gay agenda. Continually subjecting oneself to such ungodly influences subtly and systematically diminishes one's convictions.
A poll conducted in March 2007 by Pew Forum Weekly seems to substantiate the erosion of godly convictions among evangelicals. For example, in 1987 they found that 73 percent of evangelicals polled agreed that school boards should have the right to fire homosexual teachers; that figure has now plummeted to 42 percent. What else could we attribute such a drastic change in attitudes to, if not to the fact that Christians are regularly tuned into the pro-gay message pandered by Hollywood and the media?
And just so that you're not confused: Mr. Gallagher is suggesting in the above passage that the world was better off when more people deemed it acceptable to fire a teacher for being gay! And he is of course blaming that pesky gay agenda and their liberal media allies for fostering that "CRAZY" notion that teachers should be judged by their education, qualifications, and character, not their sexual orientation. He is actively proposing in 2007 America that we would be a more "moral" and "godly" society if we gave school boards the right to de-employ anyone who was found to be of the homo-gay persuasion.
And yet we're the ones they call "militant" and corruptive? ::sigh::
But what 's more interesting is what Mr. Gallagher does not tell you about this Pew Research poll's findings. For if you look on page 33 of the results (pdf), you will see that there was one more shift in evangelical outlooks that has changed in the past twenty years (underlining our own):
...in 1987, 73% of white evangelical Protestants agreed that school boards should have the right to fire homosexual teachers. Today, just 42% do so. And in 1987, 60% of white evangelicals believed that AIDS might be a punishment for immoral sexual behavior; today just 38% believe this.
Yes, that's right, a majority of evangelicals in 1987 also felt that AIDS was possibly some sort of divine retribution. Was Mr. Gallagher in the group who believed this? Is he STILL in the group that believes this? Does he view the drugs and advancements that have saved millions of lives as ungodly tools that systematically diminish God's power to render gays dead? And regardless of his personal outlook, why did he completely ignore this stat?
Well, we suspect that Mr. Gallagher ignored the AIDS stat because while 38% of evangelicals may credit God for this horrible virus, the majority of the population surely finds such a divine linkage to be almost as cruel and unjust as the disease itself. But even if it's not an attempt to paint people as somehow to blame for the world's diseases, Mr. Gallagher's support for the firing of gay teachers is cut from the same immoral cloth. It is still a fostering of the notion that gay people are not deserving of the same sense of fairness and right to livelihood as their heterosexual counterparts. When considering such an idea, one has to ask themselves: Where would those who support such a concept draw the line? If they don't want us teaching their kids, what about us do they view as acceptable? In an evangelical theocratic revolution, what role would we in the LGBT population serve? Where would Steve Gallagher place us if his "godly convictions" were used to govern society in the way that he dreams?
Well, we of course don't know those answers. We can, however, tell you that 0% of Good As You staffers care to find out.
Perspectives: Evangelical churches to ordain gays? [ONN]
Your thoughts
Truly and totally despicable!
But not all that surprising, to be honest.
Posted by: Jarred | Aug 20, 2007 5:44:37 PM
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