Joe Murray, who served as a staff attorney for the American Family Association, speaks out against intolerance of homosexuals among Christian fundamentalists.
How could preachers preach such vehement messages towards gays when it was clear that the Bible was unclear at best, and silent at worse, on the issue? Why recklessly condemn a group of individuals? Why fixate on them when your congregation is knee deep in divorce (Jesus had some pretty clear words on that issue)? And as for gluttony, how could preachers lecture gays on restraint when churches host pot luck dinner after pot luck dinner and not be deemed hypocritical?
It was this hypocrisy that caused me to open my eyes. Those on the Christian right, for whatever reasons, have become fixated on homosexuality. They are obsessed by it and perverse form of vengeance appears to be fueling their inquisition. I may be wrong, but I think actions are speaking much louder than words here.
The whole gay issue is no longer about the quest for the Truth; it is about fear and loathing. It is about shame and sorrow. It is anything but Christian.
You can read the rest of the interview here. It is refreshing to see a public figure closely tied to fundamentalist movements in the United States reading the Gospels so closely and speaking out in this way and wondering whether hate really is a Christian value.
Larval Subjects . 
March 29, 2007 at 3:46 pm
This is good news, that those preaching hate according to “textual evidence” have now turned to the text in question and realized it doesn’t altogether hold.
Have you read John Boswell’s Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality? If not, I would highly recommend it. It caused a big controversy–for several reasons, even within the gay “camp”–but it’s enlightening and revolutionary work, even if it’s now a bit dated.
March 30, 2007 at 6:19 am
Dr. Sinthome I think Christian fundamentalists hate homosexuals because in fact there’s nothing that gets them more excited than a tight arse. Which I’m sure they can;’t get from their Christian fundamentalist wives. I am sure many of them have good-looking macho cousins who have fucked them on one occasion or another when nobody was lookin’, or who knows maybe they repressed the memory. Because they can’t handle these desires, or the ”shameful” acts they have led to, they ascribe moral corruption to gays. This is just like the Nazis, who while burning gays, enjoyed a lot of sodomy themselves. I speak from experience! I have met such people and heard their confessions.
March 30, 2007 at 10:21 pm
According to Anson Rabinbach and Jessica Benjamin, “The crucial element of fascism is its explicit sexual language, what Theweleit calls ‘the conscious coding’ or the ‘over-explicitness of the fascist language of symbol.’ This fascist symbolization creates a particular kind of psychic economy which places sexuality in the service of destruction. According to this intellectual theory, despite its sexually-charged politics, fascism is an anti-eros, ‘the core of all fascist propaganda is a battle against everything that constitutes enjoyment and pleasure’… He shows that in this world of war the repudiation of one’s own body, of femininity, becomes a psychic compulsion which associates masculinity with hardness, destruction, and self-denial.”[46]
March 31, 2007 at 3:51 pm
I think there are many reasons why the Christian right hates homosexuals, but particularly enlightening is what a smart man once told me: the intolerance of homosexuals is all about power (in the Foucaultian sense). These Christian fundamentalist males like to do the penetrating, a sign of dominance, of the exercise of power. They do not want to be penetrated–that would imply weakness, surrender, power being exercised on men rather than men exercising it. Doesn’t that make sense? Aren’t these Christian fundamentalists also the major spokesmen of patriarchy, the biggest bigots of all?
April 4, 2007 at 8:48 am
These Christian fundamentalist males like to do the penetrating, a sign of dominance, of the exercise of power.
But the thing is, Ryan, that the desire to penetrate in these Christian fundamentalists often hides a desire to be penetrated, as we’re dealing with a classic case of Freudian latent homosexuality in this situation.
You have to be careful though about your designation of ”patriarchy” here. In its original form, patriarchy is not necessarily associated with the Father as oppressive or destructive power. The Law of the Father is not simply prohibitive, or sadistic. It is far more nuanced in reality.