...Or at least that's what I gather.
Almost every time I read in the papers, see on television, or hear in person something come out of the mouths of religious fundamentalists regarding gays and lesbians, they generally refer to homosexuality as a behavior -- something that one "does". This denotes choice. However, gays & lesbians, mental health professionals, the majority of the scientific community, many religious liberals and various other groups generally refer to homosexuality as an orientation -- something that one is -- a state of being. It seems, however, that the Fundamentalists have decided they can solve this issue once and for all.
Most religious conservatives reject genetics or hormonal causes as a cause of homosexuality. They view homosexual
behavior as an abnormal, unnatural, chosen and changeable disorder, condemned by God, the likes of which has serious, negative, moral implications. Most of their legislative wishes derive logically from their ideas and teaching regarding homosexuality. The most important of these beliefs may well be that homosexuality is a conscious choice by the people "afflicted with the disease". Religious conservatives often feel that anything that encourages more people to choose the
"homosexual lifestyle" , and thus fall prey to the "disease" is to be fought. Methods that make the " homosexual lifestyle " less desirable are to be practiced and encouraged. This may include any of the following: shock therapy, aversion therapy, intense religious counseling, prayer, physical abuse to discourage the behaviour, etc...
But there is a growing number of deep fundamentalists that make it patently clear that the above methods are not only a waste of time, but that a final and permanent solution is readily at hand.
It is a simple and eloquent one, in fact: just put them to death.
Among the hardest core of the Religious Right are those who embrace "Reconstructionism" or "Dominionism," which advocates imposing a radically fundamentalist interpretation of "Biblical law" onto American society. On the September 4, 1998 Armstrong Williams talk show, Colorado talk-radio personality Bob Enyard called for the death penalty for gays and adulterers. Last year, a Christian radio talk-show host in Costa Mesa, California said,
"Lesbian love, and sodomy are viewed by God as being detestable and abominable. Civil magistrates are required by God to put people to death who practice these things."
The announcer urged listeners to contact legislators and ask that they enact capital punishment for homosexuality. The uproar was immediate from some of the public, but the station manager defended the program calling it "an honest dialogue concerning Christian beliefs."
Frankly, Reconstructionists and Dominionists say that putting homosexuals to death is a more efficient solution, and this way less time is spent on worrying about "them" and "their" possible influence. Plus it has the added benefit of being completely ordained by God! After all, the Bible says so, according to Robert T. Lee, founder of the organization "Society for the Practical Establishment and Perpetuation of the Ten Commandments" as well as his web site . This enlightened and enlightening man believes that the time is right for the religious right to finish to work that God has ordain them to do, and bring back the death penalty for homosexuals.
Mr. Lee writes:
"Not only has God defined the true nature of crimes, but He has also prescribed what the punishment for them should be. The natures of the divinely prescribed punishments imply how heinous the crimes are. Although a particular crime is a different kind and have different characteristics to other crimes, yet it may be equal or greater in heinousness. Thus God has not prescribed that homosexuals should merely be spoken against, rejected, discriminated against, or banished from the nations, but He requires that they be put to death by every government under which they reside (Leviticus 20:13) and no sorrow should be had for them."
He further asserts:
"All homosexuals should be regarded by every society to be just as much criminals as are cold-blooded murderers. Although homosexuality is at least as heinous as the crime of murder, it can be and is often more heinous than murder. When a person commits the crime of murder, he may not murder but one person and may never commit the crime again. Or even if he murders 10 or a 100 people, at some point his murders stop. But homosexuals often remain such their entire lives and they may commit the act hundreds of time. They may also spread the AIDs virus to many innocent people who may die from the AIDs."
He also feels that the U.S. Constitution needs to be done away with, and that the Jews deserved what they got during the Holocaust because Jesus was punishing them for not accepting Him, but I digress...
Fred Phelps, minister and founder of The Westboro Baptist Church and the web site God Hates Fags had this to say:
"I am inclined to the view that the closer man's laws come to God's laws, the better off our race will be."
This was a response in reference to his matter of fact statement that his belief that homosexuality should be a crime punishable by death based on the "proper" interpretation of the Bible.
I visited the web page of Neil Horsley , a major figure in the anti-abortion movement, which calls upon all God fearing Christians to arrest all "faggots". Mr.Horsley makes the claim that his website is the "The Best Known And Most Visited Christian Web Site On Earth. I decided to email him, let him know I found his web site to be "interesting" and to pose a point : if it is true that by today's estimates that 4%-10% of the population of the world is homosexual, how would we pull off such a fantastic feat? Considering that the number of homosexuals could run into the hundreds of millions, what would we do with all of them? His reply:
"While it is true that building facilities and intering(sic) these abominations will be extremely expensive and time consuming, that is the cross that we have to bear in order to do what God demands of all of us. I am certain disposing of them would be a fairly quick process. We may have to raise taxes to help pay for it, but I know all God loving people will willingly give whatever money is needed. Remember, we have no choice in this. The End Times are near and if we don't get our houses in order none of us will be saved!"
Please note that I never asked anything about "disposing of" homosexuals in my email to Mr. Horsley; his response obviously took it to its "logical" conclusion.
Ah, good ol' genocide. Sound familiar anyone?
Or take the growing influence of the Rev. D. James Kennedy's Reclaiming America for Christ movement.
"The amazing thing about Kennedy is that he teaches a theology of hate and fear," contends Rob Boston, a spokesman for Americans United for Separation of Church and State. "He's one of the premier gay bashers on the Christian right today. His theology, when taken to the extreme, divides families. He would like to see his version of Christianity favored by the government and be the basis on which the law is built.
"The problem with our side, the progressives, is that we've gotten lazy. We're used to letting these crazy ideas get passed and then letting them go to court and get struck down. In five or six years, if things keep going the way that they are, we're not going to have that trump card anymore. People need to understand that this is serious."
Indeed, the fundamentalist faithful are no longer political outsiders. Take Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention and a speaker at the Reclaiming America conference. In 2001, Bush appointed Land to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, of which he is now chairman. Land has the ear of Karl Rove, the president's closest adviser. In other words, he's essentially part of the administration.
O'Neal Dozier, who founded the Worldwide Christian Center in 1985 in Pompano Beach has his own opinions. Dozier freely mixes politics and religion in the pulpit.
"I do not teach people to become Republicans, even though I am a Republican," he says. "I do not teach people to become a Democrat. I teach them to know and understand the issues at large. And I know they're going to do the right thing in the voting booth. We want to be very, very careful as Christians not to 'cancel out our salvation' as we enter into the voting booth. Many Christians are doing that. They're praising God on Sundays, then on election Tuesdays, they are 'canceling out their salvation' because they are siding with the enemy, with the devil."
Dozier expounds on a few "issues at large." Homosexuality is clearly foremost in his mind. Quoting from the Old Testament book of Leviticus, he declares that it is "an abomination," which he defines as "something so nasty and disgusting that it makes God want to vomit."
"Why is it one of the paramount of sins?" he poses. "Well, it is a very bad kind of sin because it really hurts society in so many ways." God, however, found a way to punish the homosexuals through HIV-AIDS, he says. "It is a type of judgment for such a sin as this one, homosexuality."
Then there's the matter of the death penalty.
"Listen, God is 100 percent for capital punishment for homos," Dozier pronounces slowly and emphatically. "Oh, yeah, God knew some were going to slip through, a few innocent ones. He knew that. But you cannot have a society without capital punishment
Dozier sees one sure way to ensure that these lofty ideals become the immutable law of the land: take over the world's economy. " We ought to be the ones in charge of economics on this Earth," he says. "Secondly, we as Christians must take control of the government. We should be the ones in charge of the government. Wouldn't you agree with that? We should take control of every facet of society," he says.
It would be easy to dismiss this as far right radicals speaking within their own Fundamentalist Movement and that they have no traction in the political arena
You would be wrong.
The Reconstruction Movement has burrowed deep into the Religious Right. How about the most recent Constitution Restoration Act of 2004 co-sponsored by no less than 37 congresspeople, several of which identify themselves as Reconstructionists or Dominionists? Take a look at the article written by Katherine Yurica speaking about this. Other articles of Ms. Yurica's speak about the growing political influence within this country of the Dominionists and Reconstructionists and how they plan to find a "final solution" to many issues that currently vex them. I personally find this chilling.
According to Jeffry Sharlet, Hitler's Mein Kampf and William L. Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich are studied as textbooks in a particular leadership training group for Dominionsts and Reconstructionists he wrote about in Harpers Magazine.
It begins slowly and imperceptably. First those in power find a group to become a target to project hate upon, fires up the "troops" into a feeding frenzy over the issue, and all the while whittles away at the freedoms that they view as "illegitimate" and not in keeping with the "proper order of things". Seems history is a poor teacher after all.
I am worried and frightened but the enemy has been identified...
...and I will keep looking over my shoulder.