Oh we are sorry we missed this entry into the Mike Huckabee Is A Closeted Bigot Tour! The former Arkansas governor showed up on Sean Hannity’s television program on Friday night to get in the last word against the huckster Rosie O’Donnell, who caught him in one lie after another. Needless to say, Mr. Hannity did not bother fact checking Huckabee’s statements, like the one he continues repeating the line about how he doesn’t want gay adoption to be a big issue. Or about how that mean college reporter made Huckabee say those mean things!
Huckabee’s defense against his terrible remarks, like where he compared gays to drug users as among “behaviors” this country shouldn’t tolerate? That Michael Tracey, editor of the College Of New Jersey’s newspaper The Perspective, and the guy who interviewed him, was once arrested at an Ann Coulter speech. See, he’s a radical activist! And he’s only focused on getting himself attention!
All of which, of course, ignores the fact that after Tracey released the full audio tape of his interview with Huckabee, and everything that was reported about Huckabee’s views on gays is not only true, but actually far worse.
Jon (humor the old guy)
Blech. Can I have my 6-minutes and 52-seconds back please?
Mike in Asheville, nee "in Brooklyn"
Thanks Jon (Humor the old guy), I’ll save that time for something better.
Mike in Asheville, nee "in Brooklyn"
@Jon (humor the old guy): To Jon, well you can’t get that time back BUT check out the vlog by the kid: “A Brilliant Response to Gays Who Hate Effeminate Gays”! Its half as long but will totally wipe away the nausea caused by Huckabee and Hannity.
Jon (humor the old guy)
Thanks, Mike. .it worked.
Latebrosus
“Closeted bigot”? Uh, no. He’s WAAAAAAY out there.
Jon
Because of bigots like him I have to hide the fact that I am Christian. Episcopal Church, evangelical lutheran church of america, united church of christ and the united methodist church ALL support gay marriage so why do they make it look like Christian=bigot. I am so freaking sick of Bible Belt crazy Christians being “the Christians” who know what God wants. Sorry this just pisses me off.
AndrewW
@Jon: Then get those “new” Christians to reject the traditional Christian teaching that homosexuals are wrong, sinful or deviant. The denominations you’ve mentioned “welcome” and “accept” the LGBT Community. Unless they reject the teaching, all they’re doing is marketing.
Don’t hide the fact that you’re Christian – bring your church into the 21st Century and reject the “bigoted beliefs” of mainstream Christianity. Then, as a favor to the World, work on those Muslims.
Thank-you in advance.
Cassandra
Gee, AndrewW has found another subject to spread falsehoods about.
Cassandra
Jon
Don’t forget bigots like AndrewW as well. You know the type, the fundamentalist atheists who defend anti-gay theology even more stridently than fundamentalist Christians do.
They purposefully make it difficult for GLBTQ people of faith to participate here and on other blogs.
They don’t actually do anything except criticize anything anyone else is doing. No matter how a church or denomination states that they reject ‘homosexuality is sin’ – it ain’t good enough for the anti-Christian bigots. A detailed, 15 page dissertation repudiating the scriptural basis of ‘homosexuality is sin’ – doesn’t count. An explicit statement on a website – doesn’t count.
The fact that the majority of all people in the U.S. who support civil equality for GLBTQ people are Christians – doesn’t count.
That there is no evidence that any atheist group supports civil equality for GLBTQ people – well, that doesn’t matter either.
Hypocritically, anti-Christian bigots, like AndrewW, use exactly the same tactic that homophobes use. Each picks out some example, like Mike Huckabee or a gay man convicted of sex crimes, and then declares “This is what Christianity is all about” or “See how those gays are!”
Here’s AndrewW demanding that Christians must all renounce anti-gay theology in the wording he demands, otherwise it means they really are homophobes – just as homophobes demand that every GLBTQ person must renounce NAMBLA , otherwise it means we support pedophilia. It is the same filthy game, whether AndrewW and his peers are doing it to people of faith, or some homophobe is doing it to GLBTQ people.
From one group of bigots we get abused for our faith, from the other for our sexuality. Both ought to mind their own lives for a change.
David Ehrenstein
@Cassandra: Religion is the problem. Atheism is the solution.
Jon (humor the old guy)
well, Andrew, Jon, Cassandra, I’ll just throw the statement from a church that kind of flies in the face of huck and the taliganvelists:
St. Paul is a reconciling congregation of the United Methodist Church. We are an open, affirming, and supportive community of Christian believers.
We welcome all persons regardless of race, marital status, sexual orientation, or gender identity in an open, welcoming and supportive community.
We invite You to find your place here.
You will not be judged.
You will not be told how to live your life.
You will not be told what to believe or how to think.
Your desire to explore individual spirituality is honored. We encourage everyone to sit, to pray, or to sing along as a participant in praise, thanks, and celebration.
St. Paul is a community that accepts and celebrates diversity.
This is a place of refuge. A place of shelter from imposition of church doctrine; a place of sanctuary for those who want to explore spirituality throught the eyes of acceptance and respect of individuality.
If you have been hurt by religion in the past, or if you have been put down, declared unworthy, cast out and rejected by someone claiming to be God’s helper – you are safe to join with us.
We share together.
We respect the privacy of all families and all relationships.
In this companionship we come together – all of God’s children.
We are:
A place to discover your companionship with Christ.
A safe place that celebrates the spirituality in everyone.
A place to question.
When you Come to St. Paul you can look forward to:
A challenge . .a new look at theology.
A generous welcome from a warm and hospitable community.
SugNight
He said “children are not puppies”….have you seen HIS? I beg to differ. What a pig this guy is. Talk about trying to shoot the messenger, I can’t believe he’s now blaming the reporter that QUOTED HIM VERBATIM!!!!!
AndrewW
@Jon (humor the old guy): That’s marketing Jon. For 2,000 it has been taught by Christians that “homosexuality is wrong, sinful and deviant.”
In order for Christians to separate themselves from that traditional belief, they have to reject it. Rainbow flags, welcoming, affirming and accepting aren’t enough. That Christian belief has define us – it has branded us and created the “stigma.”
Christian denominations that are serious and sincere about our equality need to formally reject that belief. Until they do, it is still there – all the acceptance in the world doesn’t erase it.
I think Lutherans will be the first to formally reject that teaching/belief. Others will follow.
PopSnap
@AndrewW
I really wish you’d stop saying this. There are few places more nurturing for an LGBT person than a church that will accept them with open arms and say “You know this person who people were saying will send you to Hell? Yeah, they’re wrong, because He loves you just the way you are.”
If it weren’t for the Religious Left, we’d still be stuck in the fifties. Name one prominent atheist who has helped us with our rights, who has campaigned in our name, who has fought for us tooth and nail.
Cassandra
“Religion is the problem. Atheism is the solution.”
So spoke the Stasi in East Germany. Look how well that worked out.
The problem is some people’s desire to dominate others. Those who have that desire use whatever is available to achieve domination – science, religion, philosophy, politics, commerce, art, sex, etc.
Atheism cannot be the solution to prejudice because it is a prejudice, nothing more and nothing less.
Prejudice is simply the assumption that all people of a particular group are wrong.
For atheism, the particular group happens to be people who testify to experiencing the Divine. For homophobia, the particular group happens to be people who experience sexual, romantic and spiritual attraction to someone of their own gender. In racism, the particular group happens to be people with specific appearance traits.
In all cases, including atheism, a group of people are labeled as “other” and then dismissed as intrinsically inferior in some way.
Atheism is not based on science. No, it really is not. Science cannot make any claim about God, at best it can make claims about specific definitions of God. But because the broadest and most expansive idea of God extends beyond the physical world it reaches beyond the limits of science. Science cannot speak authoritatively about anything that cannot be measured or quantified, anything that is outside the box of the physical world. God, the Divine, nearly universally is understood to have existence beyond the physical world.
Nor is atheism based on reason, or experience, or evidence, or logic. It is entirely based on some individuals’ lack of experience and lack of evidence, coupled with their refusal to believe other people’s testimony solely because of who those people are.
It is not a coincidence that when atheism has dominated a society, horrific oppression has been the rule.
Atheism is just a prejudice and the answer to one prejudice is not another prejudice.
Cassandra
Jon (humor the old guy) and PopSnap
“I really wish you’d stop saying this.”
AndrewW won’t though. It is the lie that makes him feel empowered and superior and feeds his ego.
Like this claim from AndrewW “That’s marketing Jon. For 2,000 it has been taught by Christians that “homosexuality is wrong, sinful and deviant.”
Somehow, magically, AndrewW just knows out of thin air and malice the “real” motives of the men and women who wrote St. Paul’s belief statement quoted above. He just magically knows that they were insincere, that their words are just ‘marketing’.
How does he magically know that? His prejudice told him. Christians wrote that statement, and through the lens of his prejudice, everything that Christians do is dishonest, manipulative, etc. Not because of what is said or done, or any evidence at all, but solely because of AndrewW’s preconceived notion, his pre-judgement (prejudice) about Christians.
And that exaggeration of his where the faults of some Christians are used to define all Christians. Even he recognizes such behavior as evidence of prejudice when a homophobe does it about GLBTQ people, but when he lies about Christians, it is different in his eyes. He “just knows” that all Christians have all done some bad thing since forever because, after all, they are Christians and in his mind, all of them only ever do bad things.
“I think Lutherans will be the first to formally reject that teaching/belief. Others will follow.”
The reality is that several denominations all have explicitly rejected ‘homosexuality is sin’. I know, I know, AndrewW will dismiss any evidence of such dismissals, some going back 30 years or more, as not good enough. Not “formal” enough, on the wrong letter head, phrased the wrong way, written by someone too high, or too low, or too close to the middle of the chain of command, someone too gay, or too straight, too white or too black, too young or too old, with too few degrees or too many.
In my opinion, AndrewW is still deeply consumed by internalized homophobia, revealed by his phrase “That Christian belief has define us – it has branded us” which indicates that his identify is, for him, determined by the homophobia some people of faith teach.
His demands about faith statements have to meet his criteria because the party in this dynamic who really needs to renounce ‘homosexuality is wrong’ is AndrewW.
He is really demanding that organizations he is not a part of, that he maligns and vilifies, fix his internalized homophobia. Until his internalized homophobia is gone, he’ll never accept the reality of GLBTQ friendly, supportive, nurturing, congregations and denominations that denounce ‘homosexuality is sin’ no matter how much evidence is presented.
How does he communicate this? By completely missing the fact that ‘acceptance’ implicitly means rejecting ‘homosexuality is sin’. Anyone who has truly rejected the notion understands that acceptance is the result of rejecting condemnation, not a stepping stone on the way. Rejection of condemnation comes first, then acceptance. Acceptance does not take place until the condemnation is discarded. AndrewW doesn’t get that because he hasn’t yet experienced self-acceptance because he hasn’t yet really discarded ‘homosexuality is sin’.
Want another example? How about his responses to the public activism regarding DADT. He has no real reason why they are wrong, and no proposal for what could be done instead. It is just that anything GLBTQ people do in public to achieve equality is wrong in AndrewW’s eyes. As someone pointed out recently, he was just a convinced that HRC was doing everything wrong, now he’s defending their do-nothing approach as a reason to criticize what other GLBTQ people are doing. No matter what GLBTQ do, its the wrong thing in AndrewW’s eyes – guess why. The common denominator – gay people are doing it.
It is easier for AndrewW to be prejudiced against Christians, much more satisfying, than to rid himself of his own self-hate and internalized homophobia. All of his derogatory dismissals, like ‘That’s just marketing’ are really projection, his emotions about his own external pose vs. his real internalized homophobia projected onto people who really have rejected ‘homosexuality is sin’.
He’ll keep telling the same lies about Christians until he finally accepts himself.
schlukitz
No. 9 · Cassandra
“That there is no evidence that any atheist group supports civil equality for GLBTQ people – well, that doesn’t matter either.
Here is some evidence:
In a brilliant move, the American Humanist Association responded by offering to hold a private, LGBT-friendly prom for Constance’s school in which everyone would be welcome, regardless of sexual orientation. This was made possible by a $20,000 grant from Todd Stiefel, an atheist philanthropist who serves on the advisory board of the Secular Coalition for America.
“The fact that the majority of all people in the U.S. who support civil equality for GLBTQ people are Christians”
Do you have a reliable source to document that claim?
“Hypocritically, anti-Christian bigots, like AndrewW….”
Yet attacking atheists with the fervor you displayed in your post no. 15 is not hypocritical?
And, last but not least, was it you who kept flagging me unmercifully and which resulted in Queerty moderating each and every one of my post for the past few months now?
I too, am anti-Christian…and an atheist. From your flagrant posts against AndrewW’s sins”, in your eyes that would make me as unwelcome on this site as you hold him to be.
schlukitz
No. 14 · PopSnap
“Name one prominent atheist who has helped us with our rights, who has campaigned in our name, who has fought for us tooth and nail.”
Magnus Hirshfield
http://paganpressbooks.com/jpl/MAGNUS.HTM
A Google or Bing Search will reveal others as well. Let your fingers do the walking.
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
@SugNight: This is a man who should avoid any mention of dogs or puppies at all costs…….maybe people should begin to question him about the arrest of his 300lb pig of a son who was arrested for hanging a puppy at summer camp……..hanging and torturing animals is a pretty good indicator the person is on their way to being a serial killer……………
Cam
Oh I’m sorry, I thought this was a post about Huckabee, I wasn’t aware that it was battle ground for Atheists v. Religeon.
Look, get over it, if folks in here are going to churches that do not hate gays, then that is fantastic and there are a lot of them. Ther are several churches right in my local area that are causing giant rifts in their national offices because they are adament about performing gay marriages.
However, Cassandra, and others, by yourselves not admitting that the leadership of most of the large mainstreem religeons, Catholicism, Islam, Mormonism teach anti gay bigotry you hurt your cause as well. Our rights in CA. were overturned in large part because two of the largest religeons in the country worked together and coordinated efforts against us.
Now back to Huckabee, I think that the reporter from that college magazine needs to sue him for slander. huckabee said the guy lied about him and didn’t report his answers truthfully, the tape shows that this was not true. Make him explain that to a judge.
AndrewW
@PopSnap: “More nurturing” is fine, but it is the teaching that “homosexuals are wrong, sinful and deviant” that has to be rejected. I’m not an Atheist, but I support their right to believe whatever they want.
Name the Christian Denominations that have officially rejected that 2,000 year traditional Christian belief. “Gay-friendly” churches in the US are less than 1% of ALL Churches. So far, that’s just marketing.
You don’t need to be “accepted,” there is nothing wrong with you. Christian denominations will eventually reject the teaching that branded us for 2,000 years. Get your church to do it.
Robert
AndrewW, you asked ‘Name the Christian Denominations that have officially rejected that 2,000 year traditional Christian belief’
UCC, Unitarian/Universalist, Society of Friends.
What do I win?
Cassandra
Cam
“However, Cassandra, and others, by yourselves not admitting that the leadership of most of the large mainstreem religeons, Catholicism, Islam, Mormonism teach anti gay bigotry you hurt your cause as well. Our rights in CA. were overturned in large part because two of the largest religeons in the country worked together and coordinated efforts against us.”
That’s bullsh*t on every level.
First off, does every repudiation of an exaggeration or prejudice require specifically acknowledging whatever portion is based on reality? Of course not. We don’t have to acknowledge that some pedophiles (1-3% at the most) do identify as gay in order to refute the lie that all homosexual are pedophiles. Since all prejudice uses the technique of taking a failing or flaw demonstrated by some individuals in a group and then accusing all members of that group of having that flaw, acknowledging the existence of homophobes in religion is not necessary to refute the lie that all people of faith are homophobes.
I’m not disputing the fact that many fundamentalists in many faiths spread homophobia; I’ve spent a lot of my free time over the decades challenging these people and refuting their interpretations. I’m very upfront about the role that fundamentalism/dominationism, has played in spreading and sustaining anti-gay prejudice.
I don’t have to acknowledge their existence to prove that AndrewW’s lies, and those by other atheists, are lies by exaggeration and a charge of guilt by association. I don’t have to state that some GLBTQ people abuse drugs in order to prove that we don’t all abuse drugs. I don’t have to state that some apples are red to point out that many are green or yellow.
Our loss in California was the result of several factors: the utterly incompetent campaign run by Kors, particularly the decision to take a impersonal, gay-free approach, the decision by a third of voters not to vote at all, and the efforts of both religious and non-religious people who are prejudiced against GLBTQ people. We went into it with a lead, Kors and company squandered it.
In my opinion, one of the big mistakes made in California was the decision not to employ ‘divide and conquer’ against the unholy marriage of the Catholic and LDS churches. There should have been an effort to remind Catholics of all the hideous things the Mormon Church says about Catholicism and the Pope, coupled with pointing out how the LDS is using politics to persecute people it hates. And vice a versa. We should have worked to make Catholic and Mormon voters afraid to support any legislation the other side favored.
The dehumanized, de-gayed, philosophical approach that Kors and company took in California was a huge factor in our loss. Here was the opposition arguing that GLBTQ people are really less than people and so should be treated that way, and Kors and company supported that notion with that with ads that effectively communicated: ‘vote no on 8 out of principle, not because GLBTQ are human beings like you are’.
The whole ‘you hurt your cause as well’ meme is something that people use consistently use whenever someone else is actually doing or saying something powerful and convincing. Your use serves the same purpose – to summarily dismiss the facts – that most of the work in support of GLBTQ civil rights has been done by people of faith and as more people of faith re-examine and change their beliefs about homosexuality, we make more progress in attaining civil equality.
Vilifying people of faith doesn’t help us achieve civil equality, and frankly, those who do it are counting on the compassion and decency of moderate/progressive people of faith to over-look the anti-religion hate speech and continue to support GLBTQ people on principle.
But the anti-religion stuff posted here is hate speech, it is prejudice, and we should be consistent – renounce all prejudices, those that target us and those that target others.
Remember, when we embrace and nurture any one prejudice, including the one against people of faith, we implicitly, intrinsically, nurture all prejudices, including homophobia – because all prejudices are the same in purpose, only the target changes.
Cassandra
Also, Cam, your accusation “not admitting that the leadership . . . ” was simple a lie of specifity.
In Post 9 I wrote “fundamentalist atheists who defend anti-gay theology even more stridently than fundamentalist Christians do.” This statement explicitly states that fundamentalist Christians teach anti-gay theology.
I include the concept again in post 16, directly: “the faults of some Christians are used to define all Christians.” And by using modifiers like “several” to limit the scope of my remarks about pro-gay people of faith appropriately: “that several denominations”.
On another thread I pointed out that the rejection of ‘homosexuality is sin’ takes place at the individual level, on the congregational level, and on the denominational level – making it very clear that this is not an all or nothing situation.
Both Jons mention the fact that some Christians promote homophobia.
AndrewW
@Robert:
“AndrewW, you asked ‘Name the Christian Denominations that have officially rejected that 2,000 year traditional Christian belief?
UCC, Unitarian/Universalist, Society of Friends.”
UCC has NOT rejected that belief – about 7% of their churches are “open and affirming,” but they never rejected the belief that we are wrong, sinful or deviant – it’s still on the books.
U/U is NOT a Christian Denomination. It’s really a BYOB religion (Bring your own beliefs).
Society of Friends, the Quaker are the least organized Christian Denomination. They have been activists against slavery and in support of Women’s and homosexuals Rights. Even at their formation (17th Century) they didn’t see the Bible as the “literal” word of “God.” But, since they are not very organized, they have some members who continue to endorse and teach that homosexuals are wrong. Quakers vary from evangelical to Universalist. They do not have a set creed, like other Christians denominations.
MCC and ECLA will probably be the first to reject the traditional Christian belief that we are wrong, sinful or deviant. Several denominations are splitting now – because of us. They’re splitting based on whether or not members believe the Bible is the “literal” Word of “God.” So far, only about one-third of those that define themselves as “religious” believe in a “literal interpretation.” Two-thirds do not. They see the Bible as “inspired” and “helpful,” but not the literal word of “God.”
This is all very helpful for the LGBT Community. Religion isn’t what it was just 30 years ago – it has become much less influential in life and politics. That makes our equality much more likely.
accipinowcapy
xxx
asss