Liberty University's Director of Cultural Affairs for the school's conservative legal action group, Liberty Counsel Matt Barber had this to say recently about the tragic string of suicides among our gay youth:
Now we all know just how capable of cruelty these people can be, but this went far beyond the pale for this type of hate speech as far as I'm concerned. From the very people who are always bitching "think of the children", this asshole representing them has a funny way of keeping them in his thoughts. What he is basically saying here is that they fail to live up to his standard of morals and for that they deserve death. While his statement made me sick and very angry, I still do not wish the man physical harm. Apparently there are others who felt differently and, according to Barber, he received death threats because of it. This was his response today:
You know, scripture says ‘woe to those who call evil good and good evil.’ When homosexual activists and other ‘progressives’ in the pro-sin movement are exposed to biblical truth, their reaction is invariably visceral and loud. There’s ‘nothing new under the sun.’ This ‘kill the messenger’ strategy is age-old and knee-jerk. These folks, as a matter of course, call evil good and good evil. Of course their gripe isn’t with me. I’m nothing. I’m nobody. Their problem is with their Creator, the natural order and the fallen state of mankind. They’re just lost. I merely repeated what God’s objective truth about sexual sin has always held: That heterosexual fornication, to include adultery, is sin and that homosexual behavior is always immoral and unnatural. Scripture is unequivocal on these points throughout both the Old and New Testaments. So, essentially I said nothing new. As you know I’ve never been one to mince words or sugarcoat things. That’s how God hardwired me. I also shared my opinion that many of those caught-up in the homosexual lifestyle intuitively know that such conduct is sin – that it’s both immoral and unnatural behavior. Scripture warns that ‘the wages of sin is death.’ Homosexual behavior is demonstrably destructive physically, emotionally and spiritually.
So basically he's double downing on his assertion that our youth who are struggling with their same-sex attractions deserve to die. If it's by their own hands, then so be it. I never, ever think violent rhetoric and death threats are okay, but given his utter disregard for the safety of our most vulnerable, I can understand why he has received them, however misguided the people making them are. I put in bold his quote "I'm nothing. I'm nobody." It would be easy to agree with him here that he's nothing, however he is wrong. He has a pulpit and he has an audience. He has influence. It is up to us to counter that influence and say loudly and clearly that this is unacceptable. This causes grievous harm. What he says matters.
There are other ways to express your outrage other than threatening this man. Perhaps threatening his purse strings might be more effective. I urge you to contact Liberty University and/or the Liberty Council today to let them know this man's rhetoric is unacceptable.
Liberty University phone: (434) 582-2000
Liberty University media inquiries: news@liberty.edu
Liberty Council phone: (800) 671-1776
Liberty Council e-mail: Liberty@LC.org
Update: As was pointed out in the comments below, contacting these people is probably useless. I'll take my lumps by donating to the Ali Forney Center in NYC, a gay youth shelter that is under dire budgetary threat at the moment. Probably a much more useful thing to do.