This was mentioned in
peterbernard209's diary, but I figured it was so outrageous that it deserves a diary by itself.
Bill Shanks, pastor of a church in suburban New Orleans and (according to several searches) a prominent activist for Operation Save America, suggested that Katrina was a good thing for New Orleans because all the Big Easy's sin got washed away.
The pastor explains that for years he has warned people that unless Christians in New Orleans took a strong stand against such things as local abortion clinics, the yearly Mardi Gras celebrations, and the annual event known as "Southern Decadence" -- an annual six-day "gay pride" event scheduled to be hosted by the city this week -- God's judgment would be felt.
"New Orleans now is abortion free. New Orleans now is Mardi Gras free. New Orleans now is free of Southern Decadence and the sodomites, the witchcraft workers, false religion -- it's free of all of those things now," Shanks says. "God simply, I believe, in His mercy purged all of that stuff out of there -- and now we're going to start over again."
Good bleepity-bleeping grief. The biggest natural disaster to hit our country ever, and this guy is jumping up and down over it. I have to assume this guy is a charismatic Christian--and as a charismatic myself, I'm particularly ashamed.
To give you more insight into what kind of guy we're dealing with, I did a Google on "Bill Shanks New Orleans"--and turned up this article in which he actually defended a guy who set up a phone number for a fake abortion clinic.
Graham deserves much credit, if you ask the Rev. Bill Shanks of Metairie's New Covenant Fellowship, a familiar face on the Causeway clinic's picket line. "How many people live their whole lives and never save another human being?" asks Shank. "And here this man has saved I don't know how many. Little babies are alive because of what he did."
Shanks goes on to say he didn't entirely approve of Graham's methods ... but hey, it doesn't matter, lives are being saved. What a jerk.
Can't find any contact info--once I do, though, he's getting a letter from me.