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01/07/2009
Please, SBC: Stop caring so much! We're good. Really.
If there's one group in America that has rightfully earned the "anti-gay" label, it is the Southern Baptist Convention. Year after the year, they vote against LGBT people having even the slightest of roles within their ranks, oppose every sort of pro-gay policy that comes to the political forefront, and teach each incoming generation the rules of "smear the queer." While this is certainly not true of each individual member, it is certainly more than fair to say that the SBC is an extremely anti-gay outfit.
So now that we've said that, we want you to read the following. After subjecting readers to a long piece about the need to cure "lost" homosexuals, Bob Stith, the Southern Baptist Convention's National Strategist for Gender Issues, poses the following question:
"My educated guess is that homosexuals know full well that Southern Baptists regard homosexuality as a sin. But I wonder: Do they know we care about them?"
We show this to you because, to us, this terse comment quite ably represents just how self-centered this particular religious group can be. Because what never seems to occur to Mr. Stith or his SBC friends is the more key question: Does the SBC know that the vast majority of LGBT people DO NOT CARE whether or not they care about us? The answer: For most of us, that ship of concern sailed long ago!
What most self-acepting, self-respecting LGBT people want is the freedom to live in a world where the personal concerns of groups like the SBC don't have any bearing on our lives. Most of us are totally fine with collectively them imagining an eternal future where we are the main dish at Beelzebub's backyard BBQ, but totally NOT OKAY with them using this fiery prediction to deny us our civil liberties. This is what the SBC, with their well-financed programs to combat homosexuality, fail to see. They are so into their meddling ways that many of them seem wholly incapable of understanding what live and let live even means. It honestly seems like the vast majority of SBC leaders and members see situations as only having any merit if their personal faith community has had a chance to weigh in on it. For those of us who are so frequently affected by it, this self-appointed policing is absolutely GALLING.
So do we know that the SBC cares, Mr. Stith? Well to be quite honest, most of us stopped listening after receiving your organization's one millionth condemnation. And for the average gay, that milestone comes about twenty minutes after coming out!
Do they know we care? [BP News]
Your thoughts
I'm in 100% agreement in regards to want is fundamentally wrong with people using their personal faiths as a means to deny LGBT people their civil liberties in the USA.
However I do know why they do it and that is because the main tenet of their faith (mainly Christians) is to "shepherd to those who are lost".
My problem with that reasoning is shouldn’t they be fighting as hard against divorce laws, drug & alcohol laws (which they consider sinful behavior on the same level of homosexuality) as they do in preventing LGBT people from marrying, having/seeking equal treatment in employment, housing and serving openly in our nation’s military.
Even if they did do all that I still would be opposed to people using their faith to govern other people’s lives – but at least they would be constant.
Posted by: Alonzo | Jan 7, 2009 7:20:52 PM
However I do know why they do it and that is because the main tenet of their faith (mainly Christians) is to "shepherd to those who are lost".
I have to agree with this part. Further along though is a verse about telling others about Christianity but NOT browbeating them about it. If someone doesn't want to listen, the speaker is to just walk away (I think in book of John). Too bad so many pick and choose the verses they want to live (or make others live by) and ignore those that they disagree with. :(
It really makes it difficult to be a gay christian
just my 2 cents
aj
Posted by: aj | Jan 7, 2009 8:01:23 PM
The reason we may not know that they care about us is that their is no evidence that they care about us.
Posted by: Mike in the Tundra | Jan 7, 2009 8:01:29 PM
SBC = Southern Baptist Convention
Posted by: Bill Ware | Jan 7, 2009 9:20:43 PM
Wow, Bill -- what a weird error for me to make. Twice.
Thanks for catching. I've corrected.
Posted by: G-A-Y | Jan 7, 2009 9:27:08 PM
"My problem with that reasoning is shouldn’t they be fighting as hard against divorce laws, drug & alcohol laws"
Alonzo, the reason that they don't go after those other issues is because they are no longer politically expedient hot-button topics. They tried prohibition against alcohol and they have prohibition against drugs. Neither one of them has worked out very well. Alcohol prohibition was such a horrendous mistake, that it was repealed.
The reason that they don't go after divorce is that they would piss off most of their congregants. If they did propose legislation to prohibit divorce, half of their revenue stream would walk out the door. And, that is another reason why they won't attempt an alcohol prohibition again - they would lose too much of their financial support.
But, the primary reason why the fame-whores like Falwell, Robertson, Dobson, Warren, et al. have chosen to vilify us: IT'S BECAUSE THEY CAN - we are one of the very few groups that they can still publicly hate, and get away with it. And when they do revile us, they know that they'll get media attention - media attention directly translates into dollars.
Falwell had amassed a personal net worth of over $10 million. In what I consider to be the ultimate display of Karmic justice, a contractor who was working with Falwell to build a "religious city" somewhere, ended up swindling him out of almost all of it. The master swindler got conned out of almost his entire ill-gotten fortune. No one would have ever paid any attention to the old racist if he hadn't latched onto abortion and homosexuality as his pet peeves.
Posted by: Dick Mills | Jan 7, 2009 11:40:37 PM
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