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Manhattan Diary by Cahir O'Doherty

Conservative Christians creating God in their image - VIDEO

Posted on Sunday, May 27, 2012 at 02:51 AM

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A few years ago the Los Angeles Times reported that the 'most rapidly growing category today is composed of those Americans who say they have no religious affiliation.'

It's really not hard to see why. Respondents claimed they were alienated from organized religion due to its increasingly conservative politics.

It's not as if the examples of the kind of outrageous intolerance they're lamenting have been in short supply. Last week the world watched in horror as Pastor Charles L. Worley made headlines for suggesting that America's gays and lesbians should be locked behind an electrified fence and left to die.

'Forty years ago they would've hung, bless God, from a white oak tree! Wouldn't they? Amen,' the pastor from the Providence Road Baptist Church in North Carolina said. His congregation immediately shouted Amen's in agreement.

Pastor Worley was advocating the genocide of gays who he said would 'die out' from their inability to reproduce. Critics have wondered where he thought gay people came from in the first place but the pastor didn't intend to puzzle over the details.

A week before him Pastor Sean Harris of Berean Baptist Church in Fayetteville, North Carolina also made headlines for encouraging local parents to beat their sons if they exhibited suspected gay behavior.

North Carolina, by the way, has just passed Amendment One, a needless piece of anti-gay bigotry that prevents gay couples from forming a legal marriage or even a civil union, banishing their relationships and their reality to a legal outer darkness. The only way the majority of heterosexual North Carolinians could secure their marriages was to prevent their gay neighbors from contracting their own, apparently.

In twenty years Amendment One will shame the sons of daughters of the people who voted for it now. In the meantime it's just another expression of the religious and social homophobia that now engulfs the state and right wing politics nationally.

The message from North Carolina is the message from conservative Christianity: God hates gays, God hates abortion, God hates liberals, God wrote the US constitution, Marxist Socialist Liberals have defied God, God will punish America for its growing Godlessness.

These were once considered the views of religious extremists, but now they are sentiments parroted by Republican politicians seeking your vote in a presidential primary.

Having made God in their own intolerant image, and having decided He hates all the same people they do, is it any wonder He's an increasingly hard sell to the rest of the nation?

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eiriamach | May 30, 2012, 02:31 PM EDT

Sure Eamonn, no problemo: Mea MAXIMA culpa, agus Gabh mo mhíle leithscéal. As Machiavelli once said, it's easy to apologize; it costs nothing. I'd rather apologize afterward than stand on line beforehand, waiting to beg for permission to speak! (paraphrased). In my youth, I once worked with a speakers' panel of Muslim women from various places in the Middle East. I learned about their lives, their strategies for change, and the obstacles they face. They made me aware how long change takes in a traditional society. So I do not simply denounce the atrocities of Islam because I remember those who are --no doubt still --working to end the honor killings and pedophile marriages, to educate their daughters, etc. When I'm tempted simply to condemn, it's because I see an absolute refusal to consider change. Now, in the 'States, I think we have that situation-- trad religions in adversarial relation to a rapidly changing civil society that sometimes seems to follow the spirit of the Gospel better than the traditional churches. This environment calls for a diverse strategy. Anam gach n-aon ar a ghualainn féin, beireadh leis nó fágadh.

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Portia777 | May 30, 2012, 09:49 AM EDT

"The only way the majority of heterosexual North Carolinians could secure their marriages was to prevent their gay neighbors from contracting their own, apparently." Where is the logic in that? Who is the contract with? the church and court corporations. Otherwise you cannot contract. Why do men and women feel they have to get someone else to marry them? That is insane. It is only the business of those involved, so why feed your money and give your power away in an UNLAWFUL contract. people need to study contract law. Because something is legal, does not make it lawful either and law is NOT Justice either. I wish people would wake to the scam.

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hollabackgurl | May 30, 2012, 09:32 AM EDT

Again you say gay people are "being used by the far left to destroy the family unit, religion, and the current makeup of society..." But you do not say HOW. A thing is not so because you say it is so. We need proof of your claims. How do gay couples contracting their own legal unions constitute an "attack" on anyone else's marriage, BrianO? Your rhetoric is regrettable and unconvincing.

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BrianO | May 30, 2012, 09:28 AM EDT

My rhetoric? Have you read any of these O'Doherty articles? everyone attacks, paints with the broadest of brushes, describes all religious as zealot homicidal nazis. Not much room for negotiation there. I know how you would describe me, I know how I would be vilified, you would however be wrong. You can achieve goals in many ways, the best is when all sides are made whole. I also believe the Gay issues are being used by the far left to destroy the family unit, religion, and the current makeup of society, not to help the average gay person. If you believe in the communist model and that is what you are fighting for so be it. If you are striving for happiness it is in your power to attain it today.

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EamonnDublin | May 30, 2012, 04:16 AM EDT

EiriAmach, You call that an apology? On your knees, boy! Now, repeat after me: "Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea MAXIMA culpa! Now, doesn't THAT feel much better! You could also throw in "míle" after the "Gabh mo" bit! By the way, I agree that there is "plenty of negative Vatican news" - what I should like to see is just a teenchy bit of negative Muslim news reported. Such as "honour" killings (murders), acid disfigurement, forced marriages of very young girls to old men, beheadings for "adultery" (where are all the feminists gone?) (CiaraSexy? ByTheBay?), etc. Best Wishes, Éamonn, Dublin, Ireland.

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hollabackgurl | May 29, 2012, 06:17 PM EDT

How do gay couples contracting their own legal unions constitute an "attack" on anyone else's marriage, BrianO? Your rhetoric is regrettable and unconvincing.

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eiriamach | May 29, 2012, 04:54 PM EDT

My last reply did not go through, so I'll try again. Eamonn, if you were to unbend just a little further from the right, you'd admit that no word in this opinion piece is critical of Catholics as such. I'd expect even-handedness about how institutional religions affect our lives when American news is not dominated by the USCCB spearheading political campaigns against marginalized groups (we Americans are sensitive about stigmatizing groups). IC is obviously not searching out bad press on RCC; there's plenty of negative Vatican news that it ignores altogether. In these dark days for institutional religions, I'd say it does a fair job. And yes, you did say "almost" without exception. Mea culpa. Gabh mo leithscéal.

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eiriamach | May 29, 2012, 04:39 PM EDT

Awww Eamonn, if you were to unbend just a little further from the right, you'd admit that O'Doherty has not written any word critical of RCC in this *opinion* piece. We could expect even-handedness about how institutional religions affect our lives if the USCCB were not dominating US news by spearheading conservative political campaigns against marginalized groups. IC writers are obviously not searching out negative press about RCC because there's plenty of embarrassing Vatican news that it ignores altogether. In these dark days for institutional religions, it does a fair job while still catering to its audience's need to know and discuss to arrive at their own opinions. And yes, you did say "almost" without exception. Mea culpa. Gabh mo leithscéal!

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EamonnDublin | May 29, 2012, 10:43 AM EDT

Come on, EiriAmach! You're slipping! Have another read of my post - where it clearly states "almost without a single exception". Now, apologies gratefully accepted! Oh, and by the way, as we are on the subject of negativity about religions (plural), can I mention "honour" killings (murders), beheadings, acid disfigurement, forced marriages of very young girls to old men, etc? Now, I expect we'll see the usual, "well Catholics do this, that and the other". Yes, we KNOW .... because Irish Central keeps drumming it in - that's my whole point! Best Wishes, Éamonn, Dublin, Ireland.

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eiriamach | May 29, 2012, 09:56 AM EDT

Eamonn, your complaint is like many others about the RCC being the ONLY religion mentioned in negative news articles and opinion blogs on IC. But notice that this opinion piece by Doherty is about a Baptist preacher and his parishioners, not about a Catholic priest. I'd expect you to say, "Finally! Some negative news about a Protestant church!" IC can't seem to satisfy its critics, whatever its writers do. Let's be realistic: the news for RCC and some Protestant churches IS negative! It's also troubling for many people. IC provides a forum for discussion, and that can only help anyone still beset with reactions to the sex abuse scandal, the treatment of nuns, USCCB opposition to LGBT civil rights, etc.

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eiriamach | May 29, 2012, 09:41 AM EDT

Well, Eamonn, I was just now thinking that Irish Central seems to be doing its propaganda bit *for* the Vatican by not printing a single word about the ouster of the Vatican Bank director, the arrest of the pope's butler, the leak of embarrassing private correspondence with the Vatican.... The list goes on. These items are news in all the newspapers of the world, discussed around the Internet, yet IC is silent about them. Hummmm, wonder why.... If the news is relevant to IC visitors, it's here. I guess none of us has a Vatican Bank account!

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EamonnDublin | May 29, 2012, 03:28 AM EDT

Is "Irish Central" a newspaper, or is it an anti-Catholic propaganda machine? It certainly is weighed down with articles about the Catholic church, and, almost without a single exception, attacking it. Éamonn, Dublin, Ireland.

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BrianO | May 28, 2012, 10:55 PM EDT

Couldn't agree more with the founders. How does attacking traditional marriage help your cause? I wish all people happiness, the problem lies in how the gay lobby is used to promote the far left anti capitalist policies, which ironically would leave all groups unprotected by the aforementioned documents. If you want an equal status as what is thought of today as traditional marriage you need to start by not attacking. The truth is anything that can be used to attack the founding of the nation, traditions, religion, by the left will be used. Look at the articles by O'Doherty everyone a left wing propaganda piece, pro Obama, using the gay community as cover.

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SheilaSB | May 28, 2012, 10:53 PM EDT

The so-called conservative Christians apparently never read or heard about Christ's teaching love and forgiveness. One may not approve of a person's actions or lifestyle, but a Christian still is supposed to love the person in spite of what may be perceived as faults or shortcomings.

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hollabackgurl | May 28, 2012, 08:54 PM EDT

You can disagree with same sex marriage, you can dislike or disapprove of gay people, you can point to a book written in the Middle East by people who make Al Qaeda look progressive, you can stomp your feet and you can do the foxtrot if you like - what you cannot do is unwrite the United States Declaration of Independence, BRIANO. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Stop standing in the way of your neighbors happiness.

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