With the sheer number of mouth-breathers conspiring against us, Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council had to do something to distinguish themselves from the homophobic fray. So they gave an award to a preacher that even their ex-gay allies are speaking out against.
On Thursday, the FRC gave its top honor, the Watchman Award, to North Carolina pastor Ron Baity, whose bizarre hate-filled rhetoric is beyond the pale—even for a fundamentalist preacher.
GLAAD, which targeted Baity in its Commentator Accountability Project, has expounded on in some detail:
So who is Ron Baity? For those not instantly familiar, he’s a guy who has said of gay relations, “I don’t think even maggots do that.” He’s a guy who’s admitted he wants to “save” gay people so they will “quit being homos.” He’s a guy who once asked of the overturning of laws that criminalize being gay: “What are we gonna do next, turn all the murderers loose?” Ron Baity says our society was smarter when we prosecuted gay people, and that the gay community is signing America’s “death warrant.” He’s also someone who, unfortunately, was often quoted by the mainstream mediain the run-up to NC’s vote to ban marriage without any of this critical context.
A column in the conservative Baptist Press indicated leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention, no slouches themselves in the anti-LGBT department, are distancing themselves from Baity and other NC hatemongers in the wake of recent videos from the likes of Charles “electrified fence” Worley and Sean “punch your effeminate son” Harris.
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Even the ex-gay group Exodus International chastised FRC for honoring Baity: “It’s time conservative Christians who claim biblical principles such as loving their enemies and neighbors, and considering the welfare of others first, to speak swiftly and strongly against this type of action,” said Exodus president Alan Chamber in a statement. “For too long we’ve stayed silent and allowed our brothers and sisters to tip that hat toward angry and abusive rhetoric… It’s a terrible witness for Christ, and clear hypocrisy to a watching world.”
Can somebody look out the windows and tell us if pigs are flying?
1equalityUSA
Birds of a feather…I revere the words, “Mouth-breathers” by the way. The fun things I learn on Queerty, “F__cktard” from 2008 and “mouth-breathers” 2012. By the end of my life I will have quite a selection of choice words. Thanks! My dad had to go to the army to get his special sayings.
Z
There are cultural undertones in Christian conservative society that suggest disparaging homosexuality is somehow macho and makes for a “real man”. To these lowbrow fundies, it’s like a penis-measuring contest to see who can spew the most hate. It would be laughable how outlandishly evil, irrational, and unfounded their value system is, if it wasn’t frightening, pathetic, and dangerous.
Larkin
@1equalityUSA: Here’s another one for ya… TWATWAFFLE!
stewie
I bet all those haters are secret homosexuals
Alexi3
@stewie: No stewie they’re not. They seriously believe in what they are saying and doing. I’ll admit for a variety of reasons, but not because most of them are secret homosexuals. They see homosexuals as heterosexuals who are behaving badly. they don’t admit, even to the possibility, that sexual orientation even exists let alone is innate. They see it as a choice. And the choice they see being made is to willfully sin against your own nature. What they have lost sight of is what their actual mission in the world really is all about. Christ was asked by an expert in the Law who wished to trip Him up; Which is the greatest commandment? He answered: “The first and greatest commandment is To love the Lord your God with all your heart and with soul and with all your mind; and a second is like it, Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Phrophets hang on these two commandments”. If they were being true to what Christ actually said, rather then taking a few lines out of context from Leviticus, they would have no choice but to drop their hateful treatment of their neighbors. The fact that they and those they’ve mislead into following them are not authentic Christians however makes them no less dangerous. The Southern Baptist Convention leaders don’t need to just distance themselves from these preachers, they must denounce them in no uncertain terms and throw them out of the Convention to send a clear signal to a watching nation what they actually stand for and what Christ actually instructed them to do. Until they do this, they are trying to gain political advantage in the temporal world at the expense of the Kingdom of God; and that is a bad bargain if they truly want to be a witness for Christ.
What the f**k
@Larkin: Thanks for that one! Very good.
bystander
They gonna start giving rewards to Westbro next?
JayUVA
One has to wonder why these self-anointed preachers and various politicians are so obsessed with The Gays. My guess is they are projecting due to excessive repression. They should take a lesson from Ted Haggard. After Haggard came out/was outed, he claims to have accepted himself and gay people and is much happier as a result. And he is still preaching albeit to a much smaller congregation than his former mega-church, but at least gays and lesbians are welcome in his new church.
Alexi3
@JayUVA: forgot all about him. very good point.
James M. Martin
Tony Perkins only does these things to cover up his homosexual past. His mother was infatuated with the late movie star, Tony Perkins, and named her son after the actor, who later died of HIV and was exposed as gay. Young Tony took this so seriously he wanted to keep everyone from confusing him with the gay actor, so he started dissing gay people to make everyone else think he wasn’t one himself. That explains his extreme, pathological homophobia. He thinks he can fool everyone, but he can’t. He sneaks around on wife and family, having clandestine one night stands with men a la Travolta.
David in Vancouver WA
More evidence the FRC/AFA and christianity in general is nothing more than organized hate. If it’s not GLBT, it’s women, people of color, Muslims, Jews … think of anything, really, and they hate it. The silver lining of all this is that we’re all seeing these people for who they really are: no more hiding behind their bibles and their god.
Donn C
@Alexi3: Rarely see such a well written comment on any blog. Thanks for that.