...by, again, our homicidal fantasies:

"If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. They should be put to death. 'Oh, so you’re saying we should go out and start killing them.' No. I’m saying the government should. They won’t, but they should. You say, ‘Oh, I can’t believe you, you’re horrible. You’re a backwards neanderthal of a person.’ Is that what you’re calling scripture? Is God a neanderthal, backwards in his morality? Is it His word or not? If it’s His word, he commanded it. It’s His idea, not mine. And I’m not ashamed of it. He said put them to death. Shall the church drag them in? No, I’m not saying that. The church has not been given the power of the sort; the government has. But the government ought to [kill them]. You got a better idea? A better idea than God?"

That's from a sermon preached by Curtis Knapp, Pastor of the New Hope Baptist Church in Seneca, Kansas. I'd say there's not much hope for any gay kids sitting in the pews at at New Hope Baptist—and there are gay kids in the pews at New Hope Baptist—and the straight kids at New Hope are unlikely to be kind to any gay kids they encounter in their schools. (Their pastor told them that gay people should be killed, after all, so how could it be wrong to push a queer kid down the stairs and call him a faggot?)

Pastor Knapp justifies his hate with a famous passage from the Old Testament—Leviticus 20:13—which reminded me of a tweet I received during Bullshitgate:

I responded to John Mac:

Sorry, John Mac, but the Old Testament is germane. Anti-gay Christian hypocrites—and not all Christians are anti-gay; not all Christians are hypocrites—are constantly citing passages in the Old Testament to justify their persecution of LGBT people. We are far likelier to hear about Leviticus 20:13 and Sodom & Gomorrah in an anti-gay sermon than we are to hear about Corinthians or Timothy. And when conservative Christians toss Leviticus 20:13 in our faces—or get it tattooed on themselves (in violation of Leviticus 19:28)—we have a right to confront them about everything in the Old Testament that they choose to ignore, from the "abomination" of eating of shellfish to God giving dads the okay to sell their daughters into slavery. ("Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve" is a popular an Old Testament reference too.)

But it's only when gay people bring up a passage like Deuteronomy 22:20-21 that you hear anyone say, "Oh, that stuff about stoning daughters to death on their wedding nights if they're not virgins is in the Old Testament, you goof! That's not in the New Testament!" If it's out-of-bounds—totally not kosher—for gay people to bring up what the Old Testament says about clams and farming and personal grooming and tattoos and menstruation and virginity and adultery, then it shouldn't be kosher for conservative Christians to bring up Leviticus and Sodom & Gomorrah. Which they do. Constantly. And it's not like they have to: there are, courtesy of Paul, plenty of anti-gay verses in the New Testament. But those verses aren't anywhere near as hateful or murderous as what you'll find in Leviticus, of course, which is why they're nowhere near as popular with anti-gay bigots who call themselves Christians.

For those so inclined:

Pastor Curtis Knapp
New Hope Baptist Church
882 US Highway 36 Seneca, KS 66538
(785) 336-6251
New Hope Baptist on Facebook

Keep it civil.