The Southern Baptist Convention elected its first African-American president on Tuesday, a mere 17 years after it got around to apologizing for its past support of slavery. (Can’t be too hasty in these matters, you know.)
Fred Luter, a former New Orleans street preacher and a survivor of Hurricane Katrina, has a galvanizing style that the Baptists clearly hope will help reverse five years of membership decline.
It’s also a clever move in the Southern Baptists’ fight against the LGBT community: Although the organization is predominantly white, having a black president will bolster the group’s argument that gay rights are not civil rights. And Luter, 55, can serve as a counterbalance to President Obama by encouraging socially conservative African-Americans to back marriage-equality bans.
It’s a kind of modified version of the National Organization for Marriage’s strategy. NOM hoped to drive a wedge between blacks and gays by forcing gays to out themselves as racists. “Find, equip, energize and connect African-American spokespeople for [traditional] marriage, develop a media campaign around their objections to gay marriage as a civil right; provoke the gay-marriage base into responding by denouncing these spokesmen and women as bigots,” NOM rather idiotically said in a paper leaked earlier this year.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Except for the provocation (well, maybe), that looks a lot like the Southern Baptists’ strategy. In fact, Luter did his part by lumping gays in with racists and sexual predators in his acceptance speech:
“Only the Word of God can change the heart of a racist; only the Word of God can change the desire of a child molester. The Word of God can change the lifestyle of a homosexual. The Word of God is the only hope for America today.”
Needless to say, Luter had the crowd on its feet, cheering. It’s the same sermon, just a different preacher.
MikeE
I wonder if the “word of God” would cover the Southern Baptist Convention’s back taxes if their tax-free status were revoked?
Marc
I wonder if the “word of god” will undo all the child molestation of the catholic church? I wonder if the “word of god” will undo the wasting of billions of dollars on fighting equal marriage when people are starving, homeless and sick – not being used as their jeebux commanded them to do. Asshats.
Randy
“Unity through hate” seems to be the christian way.
Fuck em.
1equalityUSA
This generates hate-inspired dollars. It’s all about the money. By being so malevolent, harm is being done to Christianity. Latching onto a political form of power breeds oppression, rather than transformation. Entwining Church with State and politics will eventually harm the church, as compromise will not be achieved through discovery, but rather, through political whim. The church is chasing after money, not hearts. The church is practicing oppression, not liberation through the Word of Christ. Christ avoided using this form of power and so should the church of today. The motives of religious organizations dabbling in politics are not based in the concepts of Jesus, but worldliness and darkness. Any Pastor, Preacher, or Priest beseeching politicians have very little faith in their own Father’s Word. Ensnared by the fickle hands of this form of worldly power, the church will be exploited, used to oppress and digress from the message of Jesus. Dressing up in robes and vestments does not make a Christian true to the Word of God. Wolves in sheep’s clothing. “Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves (Matt. 7:15). Love is greater than hate. Operate in love. Politics is not love and has no true power except to oppress.
Fred Luter,
Wherever healing is, Christ is. You can tell what quality of spiritual soil one’s roots are planted in by the fruit that one bears. The fruits of the Spirit are love, patience, kindness, goodness, and truth. You know it when you see it and so will Christ. Love, above all else, is the objective. The fruits of the Spirit are easily recognizable. As for the man who is a weak believer, welcome him (into your fellowship), but not to criticize his opinions or pass judgment on his scruples or perplex him with discussions. One (man’s faith permits him) to believe he may eat anything, while a weaker one (limits his) eating to vegetables. Let not him who eats look down on or despise him who abstains, and let not him who abstains criticize and pass judgment on him who eats; for God has accepted and welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on and censure another’s household servant? It is before his own Master that he stands or falls. We will be given the same measure of mercy that we’ve shown to our brothers and sisters. Love, above all else, is key to being in Christ.
Don’t fall into worldly snares and politics. God’s Word has the power to transform hearts, not temporary laws that stand to be overturned in time. Don’t throw the flock’s money down a rathole and waste the churches funds and resources fighting a futile fight that will eventually succumb to civil laws. Do as you were instructed to do. Love.
Nikko
This jackass forgets that the “word of god” also approved him to be a slave. Has he forgotten how slavery was(is) justified by the bible?
Aiden
What does his race have to do with anything. Where you reporting on the other white homophobic presidents?
HM
What does his race have to do with anything? Joke…right?
The man’s skin color…something he didn’t choose… can get him hunted by rednecks in Florida, dragged behind a truck in Texas, or subtly denied housing in half the gated communities in America. That injustice is something gay Americans would rise in solidarity with him to be the loudest voices against….
…and yet this man, who, based solely on the things I just listed and more, should know better, invites and praises injustice against US.
Yeah. It matters. Here in the real world, you damn well better believe it matters.
James
@Aiden: I was thinking the same thing.Black homophobes seem to get extra hate around here and other gay blogs.
John McLaren
This is not the first time the Southern Baptist Conference has been on the wrong side of history. In fact the Southern Baptists broke away in 1845 because they believed slavery was divinely ordained:
“Slavery forms a vital element of the Divine Revelation to man. Its institution, regulation, and perpetuity, constitute a part of many of the books of the Bible …. The public mind needs enlightening from the sacred teachings of inspiration on this subject. It is necessary for ministers of the gospel to teach slavery from the pulpit, as it was taught by the holy men of old, who spake as moved by the holy Spirit. Both Christianity and Slavery are from heaven; both are blessings to humanity; both are to be perpetuated to the end of time Their Maker has decreed their bondage, and has given them, as a race, capacities and aspirations suited alone to this condition of life.”
Sounds like biblically supported argument for “traditional slavery” to me.
Alexi3
@Aiden: His race has everything to do with this particular story because of the racist history of the Southern Baptist Convention. It supported segregation in the South, standing shoulder to shoulder with Lester Maddox and other Southern Governors, using the Bible to prove that segregation was ordained by God. It legitimized slavery in the South using the Scripture to bolster its arguments. It is within recent memory that the SBC finally got around to apologizing for its stand on slavery. Electing an African-American as its President is a cynical political move. I lived in Texas for 21 years and I know how these “Christians” actually feel about Black People.
Chitown Kev
Since the Southern Baptist Convention was founded due to a schism regarding slavery, given that the southern Baptist Convention supported Jim Crow, segregation, and fought against every civil rights advancement of every minority group, the fact that they have their first black president isd newsworthy.
And it’s newsworthy that he is black.
PBCliberal
The original schism that created the Southern Baptists allowed them to contend that it wasn’t really racism that was the base issue, it was the right of the individual church to have autonomy over its affairs. Baptists were “neutral” on the issue of slavery, but the skirmishes between the north and the south broke out in specific cases where slaveowners were nominated for positions of authority in the church and opposed by anti-slavery factions. This is why their 1995 apology for racism was so weasel-worded.
LGBT issues and the ordination of women caused the Southern Baptist Convention to reverse itself on its “cover story” that local churches really held the power (which let it sidestep the race issue beginning in the 1840s). For the first time, over gay and women’s issues, the SBC actually forbade their churches from interpreting scripture on their own.
So the apology to LGBT and women, if there are any Southern Baptists left to offer one, is going to have to be a real apology for its own actions, not just a “some of us did this and we’re sorry” mea culpa.
This church has torn itself apart over hate for nearly 200 years, always trying to argue that it wasn’t really hate through some technicality. That is why it finds itself in steep membership decline. It is so unable to see the big picture that its attempts to gloss over its own history only serve to focus attention on the bigotry it so jealousy protects today.
James M. Martin
Don’t you just LOVE those Baptists! Are they still anti-liquor? Show me four baptists and I’ll show you a fifth.
B
No. 1 · MikeE wrote, “I wonder if the “word of God” would cover the Southern Baptist Convention’s back taxes if their tax-free status were revoked?”
Well, Jesus was supposed to have said, “Give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” and Caesar wasn’t into tax-free status for countries that the Romans had conquered. Making them pay taxes like everyone else would simply let them feel like the early Christians they revere. One might consider throwing in a few lions as well or at least lion dancers (to make the point in a way that is both legal and multicultural).
DMWN
@HM:
Apples and oranges. Just because a minority group has its own history of suffrage and social battles/injustices to overcome doesn’t mean that they all relate to one another, are allies, or must be willing to pull out a chair for the other. It’s annoying as hell when a white homosexual tries to use the horrors of racism to condescend or equate the two vastly different and totally UN-relatable struggles. You never see the reverse. It’s no secret that racism runs ramped in the gay community, but when do black people ever wag a finger at gay people and try to use their own struggles to shame them for that attitude? Virtually never. Why? Because by and large, the black community couldn’t care less about what attitudes are running ramped in the gay community, unlike gays who constantly bitch and bemoan over the supposed homophobia in the black community. You can have your racism, now please get out of my face about not being gay-friendly.
It all boils down to this:
You don’t know me, I don’t know you…so let’s not pretend that we’re brothers just because we’ve both been kicked, because we’re not.
1equalityUSA
DMWN, We are one.
Alexi3
@DMWN: What makes me sad about your statements is the fact that thousands of, by necessisity back then, mainly closeted, gay men and lesbians went on marches, participated in sit-ins, helped in voter registration drives and generally fought for the rights sought by the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s. As the 91 year-old, African-American elder statesman of the fight for civil rights recently expounded: “Even though I can’t say that I understand same-sex attraction; Equality for some is an oxymoron; either one stands for full equality under the law or one doesn’t, I can’t say that I have spent my life fighting for equality and now deny that same equality to another oppressed group”. This is the bottom line and everything else is a smokescreen to hide bigotry; to deny fellow citizens the full protection of the law and is, in fact,a sham. Why would you want to oppress any group of people, in the 21st Century, simply because they are different from you. Is it so hard to see the total bankrupcy of such a position?
Blah, bla..huh?
What if a Southern Baptist actually had some kind of contact with the creator of all. Suddenly they would have to actually care about this magic bullshitter who’s just outside of reality, where only they can see. No more okey-doke scumbag screaming out unprovable self-serving lies, he’d know better and have to answer for his parasitic ambitions. The rest of the church would have to kill him, of course. I’m just saying.
Blah, bla..huh?
@Alexi3: For a guy like that, yes. Yes it is. Not having a leg to stand on means he’s a martyr and might never ackowledge another as human at all. It all depends on one’s most childish whim. According to the theology going around Baptist circles, he might even be a perfected being. That shit is like crack to some people. Plus, it’s tax free. You have to recognize a moribund culture for what it is sometimes, the value added is always negative.
ProudDad
You want to know how homophobic black people can be? Just read some of the comments on here by black apologist. They want us to not even mention hateful black bigots simply because they are black. NO YOU DON’T GET SPECIAL TREATMENT BECAUSE YOU’RE BLACK!
If anything, we constantly have to hear about how “hard” you blacks have it, when you’re the first to turn and promote bigotry. Prop 8 anyone?
Kyle
Lol it’s so amusing how black LGBT will go out of their way to defend or overlook the homophobia of a fellow black man, simply because he shares their skin color. Not only is that (reverse) racist but extremely homophobic. Don’t expect those of us who aren’t black to adopt the same indifference that many of you black LGBT have adopted.
Truth
Imagine if gay people voiced disdain for the African American community as much as the African American community stands in the way of our rights. Just imagine.
CJ
Why to LGBT of color always choose to stand and defend homophobes who share their skin color? You always demand we not address homophobia in your community, why? what makes you all immune to being challenged for your ignorance when your community has shown a great amount of ignorance toward gays? Seriously, that speaks volumes of the homophobia within AA community when even gays of color don’t stand up to homophobia because they are to busy pulling the race card and calling everyone racist.
Mike Collins
Black people have convinced themselves they are the only group who suffers or has suffered. They have monopoly on playing the victim card and boy do they play it. Be it getting a job or in school, they use situations from decades ago to justify their undeserved advancement in society today. Make no mistake about it, playing martyr has been all too lucrative for the black man.
MusicGraphic
Let’s just say it: blacks attribute for most incarcerations, violence, drug use, high school drop out rates an teen pregnancy. I would think if there’s any group of people who should work on themselves insteading of preaching so much, it would be them. But I’ve slowly began to realize the very group who has the most vices preaches the most so to deflect from seeing the short comings of their own actions. I’ll take my gay community, how well adjusted it is and how we better communities we move into any day over a black ‘leader’ playing opression olympics.
Blah, bla..huh?
I noticed that the last few posts were all “concerned homos” posting against BLACK PEOPLE just as the thread started honing in on Southern Baptist religion, and not only the blacks in it.
Interesting, a new memo fired around the GOProud troll headquarters maybe? You guys must be picking up donations in between chicken hawk runs down at the junior high, because it used to take you months to work up timely narrative. Hmmm, it wouldn’t surprise me if this “Preacher” wasn’t there with you right now, hanging over your shoulders and spinning lies with you turds.
Nikko
@MusicGraphic: And they (blacks) almost never judge or criticise their own. It’s always racism they claim. Sorry, but calling someone out on bad behaviour is not racism: it’s our moral duty.
1equalityUSA
Maggie Gallagher is using both hands to hold her jiggling intestines for the giggle-fest she’s earned with her race baiting. The rancor and pure ugliness expressed between us tonight has not been our finest hour. NOM should be ashamed, we all should be. Let’s take it easy on each other and not be played by hate-groups.
Nikko
@Aiden: Have you not read my post? His race was used in slavery and justified by the bible
n America? That same book he claims condemns homosexuality. Hypocrite much,Fred Luter?
1equalityUSA
Nikko, Don’t give ’em any ideas, after one set of Americans have been oppressed by the majority, who is next?
Dewd
Gee, when I was a kid it was a sin for a black to marry a white, or drink from the same water fountain, or God forbid go to the same Church. I don’t think there were black Mormons then either. And of course they certainly weren’t gay.
IonMusic
Not all of us who recognize the double standard between what the black community preaches and what they exercise are trolling Conservatives. I’ve never voted Republican and never ever will. Conservatives are the devil. But they are consistently the devil. A person who screams about how hard their people HAD it, while turning to the face of someone who HAS it hard and says “you’re not worthy of equal rights” will be the topic of discussion.
To request the gay community to ignore the many, many, many times black people tell us we haven’t struggled nearly as much as they have is insulting. It’s downright INSULTING for black people, in a climate where gays are being killed for who they are, to turn and tell us we don’t have it hard enough to attain their rights. OF COURSE any self respecting person would say “who the heck are you? and who made you God?!” it’s that God like complex within the African American community, where they truly feel because they experienced adversity, no one else can even claim to have experienced adversity that creates such tension. THEY are to look in the mirror. Not gays. The gay community being spit on, then told to go do some soul searching as to why we’re being spit on is pure evil. And that’s the exact message being advocated by many black leaders and many of us are sick of overlooking it all in the name of being politically correct.
Wonderboy
Its fascinating. Black citizens constantly want to hold people accountable for their precieve racism. Harping on it for ages. When confronted with their homophobia, they some how manage to turn the narrative again to how they are being discriminated. You want to make hateful commentary about a group of people and when that group responds to you, your rebuttal is that THEY are the discriminatory ones? Well, how calculating.
JJ
Maybe African Americans wouldn’t be called out for their hypocrisy if they didn’t always wave their opressed banner in one hand and a sign reading “no equal rights for gays” in the other? Yeah, something to think about. Telling gays to not talk about and ignore rampant homophobia from one area doesn’t make the homophobia disappear from that area of people.
John McLaren
The black community has historically struggled so long and hard that the civil rights movement defines who they are, in the same way the holocaust has been associated with Jews. You might recall that when the Holocaust Memorial Museum was coming together the Jewish curators fought hard to exclude gays and lesbians, even gypsies being portrayed in the national museum. They jealously protected Holocaust as their story ignoring and excluding the many homosexuals and gypsies who were also in Nazi death camps.
1equalityUSA
Pain and the years it takes to heal are underestimated. It takes generations to heal from this kind of discrimination and rejection. We must consider this when it feels incomprehensible that people who experienced this kind of hate can, then, justify it in themselves.
RilesRay
HUH? Gays experienced BRUTAL pain and suffering for as long if not longer than blacks and jews have. gays couldn’t even BE who they are, or they’d risk being killed in the most horrific manners, and still are. There’s no excuse for black homophobia and I’m sick of hearing excuses for it.
TROR
I get the feeling that a number of these racist, accusatory posts (most of which came in close proximity to each other) are from the same bitter, bored, ignorant troll, using a different name. Time for Queerty to start checking some IP addresses…
Alexi3
@John McLaren: I had forgotten all about that fight about what/who were to be included in the Holocaust Museum. This is the most reasoned explanation for why some African-Americans react in the way they do to the struggle for equality currently being fought by gay people. I don’t believe this excuses their current stand however. Some have been able to see the historical paralells and many are finding their way forward, or trying to find a way, at least from what I’ve been reading. Unless one is intends on remaining willfully blind to both scientific and historical facts, one must follow the evidence to its logical conclusion and support equal rights for everyone.
TROR
I get the feeling that a number of these racist, accusatory posts (most of which came in close proximity to each other) are from the same bitter, bored, ignorant troll using a different name. Time to start checking some IP addresses…
OrchidIslander
Clueless and classlessness knows no racial or sexual preference boundaries as evidenced by Queerty posters.
So blacks are full of homophobia, are we? Let’s see. We have an African-American President who evolved enough to recently come out in support of gay marriage. Homophobic hater!
And how about that gay hating organization – the NAACP? Isn’t that the black group that also recently came out in support of marriage equality? Bashers!
Then there is also the recent ABC News-Washington Post survey that found out that 59% of black respondents said that they want to legalize same-sex marriage, and 65% favor President Obama’s position on the issue.
Based on some misguided, bigoted and ignorant comments posted, I’m willing to bet that I know more black people than many of you and their attitudes toward gays and gay equality are no worse than that of any other group.
What race primarily makes up membership in such groups as: The American Family Association or the Family Research Council or The Republican Party? Hmmm??
I’ve never witnessed black people protesting at some deceased soldier’s funeral carrying signs saying that God hates Faggots.
If you’re white, you certainly have no reason to hold onto the notion that blacks are somehow worse when it comes to equality.
Face it. Attitudes regarding lgbt people and marriage equality are changing for the better. That includes African-Americans too.
A lot of work remains to be done with all kinds of people and “communities” but to dump on one group and blindly ignore the failings of “your group” is disingenuous, short-sighted and ignorant.
Chris
Some of you folks are being really racist right now. Don’t judge people based on a trait they were born with, you know better than that.
R.A.
Once again, you guys are indulging is race-baiting instead of directing your anger at our biggest enemy: SOUTHERN EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANITY.
That’s the religion of hate – and it’s the ONLY religion that slaves were permitted to learn.
As a result, blacks are overwhelmingly brought up in that religion. It’s the same crappy tradition of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. The Southern Baptists don’t want to be thought of as racists anymore, so they picked this joker as a figleaf, so they could continue spreading hatred of gays.
Don’t let the same SOBs who gave us fundamentalism, secession, Civil War, Jim Crow, Prohibition and every anti-marriage constitutional amendment on the books make us fall for their “new face” and blame blacks.
joe
@Aiden: Yes when prop 8 passed the gay and liberal media spent all their time complaining about white mormons, few words were said about black support for prop8. So it’s about time the gay media reports on black homophobia.
TanyaHyde
Wow….did none of your read the story’s lead in?
Black leaders just as homophobic as the WHITE ones that came before him?