Creepy? This guy inspires people?!?! He sounds like Charles Manson and he looks super scary.

Well, this has been one of the saddest, most depressing days on SLOG. Between this, the cinder block droppin' daddy and the weeping, mentally disabled folks I pretty much just feel like checking out for the day.

Jesus H. Christ on a cracker, that man is completely unhinged. I wonder how much gay porn he has on his computer?

Well, he's right in a way. The queers I know ARE funny, smart and popular.

AMEN, Dan ! These people need to speak up and say that hatred in the name of Christ will not be tolerated - on ANY level. If they don't, then you are 100% correct: they are part of the problem.
C'mon christians - put your money where your mouth is!

Well, the bible clearly states in several places that God hates fags. And if you believe in God and are a Christian you really don't get to cherry pick what to believe and what not to believe.

And really...you think the good Christians will do anything about this guy?!? HA HA HA!!!

Wow. He sort of sounds like this guy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Xuvcpjf1…

Christians don't have an obligation to protest every bigoted fringe zealot who claims to be a Christian, just as Muslims don't have an obligation to protest every hateful bigoted zealot who wears that cloth either.

And, of course, atheists don't have an obligation to go protest the human rights abuses of the atheist Chinese government. You can, but you aren't "part of the problem" if you don't.

HERE HERE, Paul!

@ 6, except that that's exactly what almost every Christian does.

@5 I agree and all but Paul posted this, not Dan.

Dear Paul Constant,

I don't have sound on my work computer, but I'm vicariously enraged anyway and promise to rant about this on wtfwouldjesusdo.com ASAP.

And by the way, you used to have WTFWJD? of your 'friends of Slog' list but now you don't. Since the whole premise of that blog is a Christian using the Bible to prove immoral the behavior of the religious right, it seems like you might want to put it back up there. You know, to prove we exist and are not, in fact, a part of the problem.

Oh, and you might want to talk to a friend of mine who is a minister and also actively worked to help legalize gay marriage in Iowa.

Love,
Jocelyn

@9: Good point! Except, no, it's not. American atheists don't claim to be in the same boat as the Chinese government. Yes, we all lack a belief in gods, but that's not much to build a friendship on.

You wonder where the crematoria come from? Wonder no more!

Oh, the Christians pick and choose passages in the Bible: few now sell their daughters off to slavery, stone their neighbors for watching football on Sunday, or feel compelled to impregnate their dead brother's wives, as they're exhorted to do in the Old Testament.

Along with other abominations they ignore, is the "abomination" of mixed fiber clothing. Polyester/cotton blends equally abominable as homosexuality, if you count Leviticus.

Also, other than apostate Mormons, few Christians practice polygamy, another approved Old Testament practice. (And let's not forget Noah's incest with his daughters.)

All and all, so-called Christians ignore much of what the Bible tells 'em to do, saving up all their hate and bile for a couple passages on homosexuality.

Kinda leads one to believe they're bigots, with no good biblical excuse, even.

@9

Atheism is as broad a category for belief system as is theism. All the manner and ways in which one might claim atheism (often merely as an aside) do not, amalgamated form a coherent belief system. Apples and oranges.

@14, exactly. American atheists have as much in common with the cabal who runs the PRC (or Stalin, Pol Pot, etc.) as the vast majority of the world's 2 billion Christians have with the idiot in this video. Or about as as much as the vast majority of the world's Muslims have with the leaders of al-Qaida.

You're associating people based on a simple label not their actual stated beliefs. Knee jerk anti-Christianism is just as silly, immature, and, yes, bigoted as any other form of ignorant intolerance.

@17, I assure you the diversity of beliefs that come under the heading "Christianity" is just as varied as those that constitute atheism and agnosticism.

There are dumb Christians, smart Christians, compassionate Christians, bigoted Christians. Christians who put out on the first date and Christians who wait until marriage. Christians who are happy to take up arms and Christians who are devoted pacifists. In short, an enormous diversity among this large subsection of humanity.

I second Jocelyn @13's motion that WTFWJD should be reinstated as a Friend of Slog. It's a great blog.

Thanks for posting about the Catholic-school/rainbow controversy in Toronto, Jocelyn!

From his website:

"God has quickly raised up Damon to be a part of a great spiritual awakening in the United States and throughout the world. He has seen revival break out in churches large and small, from a kaleidoscope of races and cultures, resulting in a phenomenal harvest of souls."

Strange language there. He's harvesting souls? Even if I agreed with him, I would be wary.

@22: yes darling, but here is one thing you overlook: CHRISTIANS ARE ABSOLUTELY RESPONSIBLE FOR EVERY SCRAP OF BIGOTRY I HAVE EVER ENDURED AS A HOMOSEXUAL, AND CONTINUE TO BE, AND SHOW NO SIGN OF STOPPING. so give it a fuckign rest. so please take your "subsection", and drive it off a cliff.

Hmmm... This guy seems a tiny bit goofy, eh?

So does that funny troll who posts the condescending and easily refuted comments to all Dan's gay related posts ONLY post when it's Dan, or will he be contributing to the comical, bigoted ignorance of his movement here as well?

um, he started to seem gay right about with "fire is everywhere."

@16 Right on, nicely put. Not a single Christian on earth follows the Bible to the letter. So what we have with people like Damon Thompson are Christians who, as part of the picking and choosing process that they all go through, have decided to let themselves and their lives be defined by hate.

That's what NALTs have to admit if they want to counter Christians like this, and it's probably why so few of them do. Some Christians choose to follow the parts of the Bible that encourage them to help others and live at peace with the world. Others, like Damon Thompson, choose to follow the parts that justify fear, anger, and hate.

@22 No. All atheism is, is not believing in gods. That's it. As the saying goes, calling atheism a religion is like saying not collecting stamps is a hobby. Where as the vast majority of Christians worldwide believe Jesus was a real historical figure who died for their sins and rose from the dead, along with many, many other assorted beliefs. The label "Christian" ties people together in ways not believing in deities never could. This is why many atheists choose to identify as humanists and skeptics, so to have actual positive value systems to define themselves by. Not believing in deities defines a person just as much as not believing in leprechauns does. Self identifying as Christian, for the vast majority of people who do, (if the word Christian is to have any meaning at all) means you believe in the supernatural, life after death, the resurrection of Jesus, and the bible as a source for holy truth.

And if by "anti-christianism" you mean the belief that Christianity is fucking retarded, it's certainly not silly, because as soon as someone labels themselves a person who takes the existence of a magic sky daddy on faith, you have incredibly good grounds to think that person must not be willing to apply critical thinking to that question, which makes them a moron.

Watching this guy, my immediate thought is, "The lady doth protest too much, me thinks."

Once again, this is like demanding that Americans apologize for everything stupid that other Americans do. We could go off on some random idiot preacher and all feel smug and self-righteous and self-satisfied for a while, or we could carry on doing the long haul work of building a more just and ethical society for queer kids and everyone else.

Frankly, the anti-religious sentiment from some in the pro-queer corners makes it quite a bit more difficult for kids growing up queer who are seeking to reconcile their faith and their sexuality.

@16, @28:

also, this dude has a tat.

Ovtave, how do you explain the clear cut difference between christians and atheists in that the former have a book of rules to follow (many of these rules are bigoted and/or unethical). Atheists have no such book. So the comparison is quite ridiculous. Your argument hinges on some christians just being bad at being christian (and following the ruled laid out for them).

@ 31, we don't have a choice about being American. But we do about our faith.

The whole reason Dan and Paul are challenging good Christians about this is because they're the ones who come here apologizing for the majority of Christians who support this to one degree or another. (Also, it's worked in the past - Civil Rights workers were all the good, real kind of Christian and they challenged the haters who wielded the Bible as their tool to suppress racial equality.)

octave*

This twinky-bear needs to lay off the bath salts.

Per the church's (The Ramp, Hamilton AL) website, the congregation views itself "as an offensive army imposing the kingdom of God." Put some emphasis on "offensive army" and "imposing" = YIKES.

@25, I'm very sorry to hear that. It's inexcusable. And a very common experience, I realize.

But no doubt you grew up in a country that is overwhelmingly Christian. I'm guessing if you grew up in an overwhelmingly Hindu, Muslim, or, yes, atheist country at the same time you'd have faced some of the same unforgivable bigotry. That bigotry is an ugly aspect of human nature, not innate to a belief system. Today you live in a country that is still overwhelmingly Christian and still has many miles to go but now polls majority support for gay marriage.

This subsection you want to drive off a cliff is two billion people and growing. Including millions of bigots but also many more people who are not. To call these people, as a whole, idiots, morons, etc. is to make oneself ridiculous.

This mentality of "they're all the same" is repugnant no matter where's it coming from (Imagine a black person who lived through Jim Crow who might feel inclined to hate all white people--should they?).

We live in a world inhabited by a wide range of religious people and we always will. Attacking huge, loosely labeled groups of them with rhetorical guns blazing is ignorant, close-minded, and self-defeating.

Man, I said most of what I have to say on Dan's thread. I agree with Octave and Kevin Erikson. I don't stand with this hate-monger, or the people mongering hate right back at him. I stand with the folks forgiving and loving one another. Because I'm Christian.

I don't care if they protest the haters. I'd settle for them being as enthusiastic about endorsing and supporting pro-life causes as the haters were. I mean, look at Prop 8. There were a few Christian groups paying lip service to the "no" side, but it was the "yes" side that really had the momentum. Liberal churches don't seem interested in taking action; they seem content to let the conservatives define them.

My theory about this is that organized religion, in some basic way, is really about hate, and without hate it has no energy.

Gah, bad typo there. I meant "pro-equality," not pro-life.

you're worried about this guy? the world is full of nuts, religious and otherwise - from the video it looks like maybe 20 people there with him. I get it, you can trot out a Christian nut pretty much on demand, but no amount of "good Christian" intervention is going to change these people - they're NUTS - and they'll just get nuttier the more you push at them - I say just deny them the oxygen of attention at every opportunity, including Slog

@38 - I have never met an anti-gay athiest. Maybe they're out there, but almost all anti-gay bigotry comes from religion.

I'll stand up as one of those good Christians. I'm a Pastor in the Metropolitan Community Church. A church created so that LGBT folk would have a welcoming and accepting place to worship. Here's a link to an article about my recent work to end bullying of LGBT teens.

Some of us are good! :) (And you can know that because we love Dan!)

http://www.csindy.com/colorado/snubbed-i…

@ 38 Well said.

@#9: Christians might not have a "responsibility" but it shouldn't be that hard to get a well-known Christian to denounce this (all-too-common) shit. There weren't choruses of boos during his rant. Instead, he was being encouraged by the crowd to continue. Would you expect a similarly enthusiastic response from an atheist crowd at a Richard Dawkins talk? Say he casually said something like, I dunno, "You know, those Christians that are persecuted in China really had it coming for being so damn abnormal." The analogy isn't perfect, but atheists don't typically traffic in this kind of viciousness, and their "leaders"--if there is such a thing in the atheist community--certainly wouldn't be applauded if they did. The fact that he wasn't booed off the stage is why Christianity itself is the issue.

Oh, and please don't call this "fringe." The anti-gay sentiment itself is not at all fringe. He simply said what way too many of them were evidently thinking and feeling already.

On the next episode of Doctor Who....

Rory and the Doctor get down and NASTY!!!!! I mean it's on every TV show right?

It's true, I never hear atheists harass homosexuals. But right now I'm reading quite a few atheists harass Christians.

What is interesting to me is how he stresses how much being "queer" is not normal. That's true if you consider normal to be a synonym of "average" but it is most definitely normal if you think that world means naturally occurring in biology.

The emphesis on being normal and fitting in regardless of who you are is exactly where the self hatred the pastor spoke about. It looks to me he is the self loathing closeted homosexual stereotype.

Below is a link from pubmed of a peer reviewed study showing an objective link between homophobia and arousal to gay porn!

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/87720…

@49: Yes, Christians are such an oppressed class. Why, maybe, with luck and effort, we someday might have a Christian president!

@43,

But have you met a pro-gay Christian? I'm guessing you have, though perhaps they didn't introduce themselves that way.

As for atheist homophobia, consider booking your next vacation to China, North Korea, or Russia, or find yourself some dedicated Randian Objectivists to chat with.

I know, I know. Those aren't real atheists, they're Chinese people! (Or Ayn Rand nuts, or whatever). That's the point. Those people don't necessarily represent the kind, compassionate atheist friend of yours any more than a ranting, frothing bigot represents that kind, compassionate Christian friend you might meet.

The world is full of assholes, wearing all sorts of hats. It's also got plenty of nice people in it too, some of whom believe in heaven and all that stuff. Don't hold it against them.

@52: My problem is with the silence and apathy of liberal Christians. Politicians hear the noisy conservative Christians, then they see the statistic that 76% of Americans are Christian, and they act accordingly. By remaining silent in the face of bigotry, the liberal Christians make themselves part of the problem, not part of the solution.

@51 Hence, why I said they're being harassed, not oppressed. Being in the majority does not make one deserving of harassment any more or less than being a minority does.

"calling atheism a religion is like saying not collecting stamps is a hobby."

That's a fine point & all, but you should seriously SEE the collection of stamps I don't have! I love not collecting stamps -- it's practically a religion to me.

@55: Fair enough. I just have little sympathy seeing as so much of the harassment and intolerance goes the other way. When atheists like me aren't constantly derided as immoral and unfit for public office, and aren't constantly told they have a "God-shaped hole in their life," I might be more sympathetic.

wow, that guy was scary

@58,

You're not immoral and you're fit for public office. And it sounds like you don't have a God-shaped hole in your life. If you don't want to go to church, don't go. It's kind of boring sometimes.

See? Not constant. Now get out there and run for Port Commission.

@42 - I looked at the pictures on his website and other videos. There are ton of people there, actually, and he preaches at an "organization" (can't bring myself to call it a church) that claims to be training people for ministry.

In poking around the website, his "ministry" has cult written all over it.

Nevertheless, and even though it will do no good, I'm sending an email as on Christian to another...though of two very different kinds.

@58 Which is understandable. But those are individuals, not an entire population. And more importantly, those people are assholes who likely have some serious personal issues with themselves and they're just taking it out on someone else. Kinda like Ted Haggard a few years ago.

@62: Maybe so, but polling consistently shows majority support for those opinions about atheists. (Most people would rather elect a Muslim or gay person as president than an atheist, according to polls.) You know why? Because Christians have set themselves up as the moral authority in this country, and the loudest, most active Christian groups keep saying those things while the others appear to lend their silent support.

What is a Christian, anyway? It seems like any asshole with a mouth can claim to be a Christian, or even a Christian leader. Yet, the concomitant philosophies and lifestyles vary so widely that it's really hard to recognize these as all being the same thing. There are more variations in so-called Christians than there are in the AKC pedigree book, from Chihuahuas to Great Danes, not to mention some very ugly mutts, like this guy.

Does simply claiming to be something make you one? Not in most other fields.

Any Christian who believes in equality, community, charity and living a loving, modest and nonjudgmental life might not see this man or his congregation as Christian at all.

Would I write to him and tell him this? What would be the point? He wouldn't recognize me as any sort of authority, either. Such is the conundrum.

I'll be marching with the Quaker contingent in the NYC Pride parade again this year, as Quakers have every year, starting with the first one. (Hey, Dan & Terry! Wave to us!) Last year we had at least another dozen denominations march in their own contingents.

You want us to get more press, more public attention? How about hooking us up with a good publicist? We don't have the chops or connections to do this ourselves.

@43 http://friendlyatheist.com/2011/06/10/th…

They're out there, and the atheist community is calling them out on their idiocy. I've seen this atheist homophobia condemed on our own local Ask An Atheist radio show based out of Tacoma, The Atheist Experience tv show out of Austin, and on PZ Myers blog Pharyngula. How unchristian of them, eh?

The longer video on the kid who posted the original's blog is even more appalling.

http://ashtonelijah.wordpress.com/2011/0…

So, what shall we say is the over/under on this pastor's gay private life being exposed? I'm going with Feb. 2013. You know, for Valentine's Day.

@64: Well, judging from Prop 8, the conservative groups' approach seems to be the one that actually gets results. So from a purely practical standpoint, I'd say I'd rather have you doing the screaming.

@54: I don't know where you get that liberal Christians are silent. I actually prefer me a touch of apathy, churches and communities where being gay is okay without plastering a rainbow flag out front that's bigger than the cross. One of the things I valued about growing up in my suburbanite Roman Catholic church was the heterogenity--church was a place where I got a little bit of liberal and conservative, old and young, rich and poor, white bread suburbanite and immigrant.

I get that gay-friendly churches kind of have to make a big deal about it in the current (yet changing) political and religious environment. They most certainly do make a big deal about it. Their voice seems to me at least as loud as the pro-gay atheists. Maybe louder, because the liberal Christians actually have, y'know, churches to hang the rainbow flags in front of. They've got communities of friends and family bound by a common faith to welcome gays into. And they've certainly played a huge role in tilting public opinion in favor of gay marriage.

@38 “This subsection you want to drive off a cliff is two billion people and growing. Including millions of bigots but also many more people who are not. To call these people, as a whole, idiots, morons, etc. is to make oneself ridiculous.”

For the record, I don’t want to murder or eradicate the religious population of the world, that’s simply barbarous and it’s incredibly disparaging and a lie to insinuate that calling a group stupid should be equated with calling for their extermination. And what does the size of a group matter, when determining them fools? Truth isn’t determined by majority vote. Once the majority of people on the planet thought the Sun revolved around the Earth. And one upon a time (now) a majority of the people on the planet thought a magic sky daddy monitored our every thought. Here’s to the day when the majority of the world realizes just how silly both of those ideas are.

That guy is not normal...

Dear Paul et al,

I agree with you that this guy is a poor representative of Christianity, and that his views need to be countered. However, I don't think protesting, in the classical sense, would help. I do think it might help in the case of the two men at the pool in Kentucky--that's a government facility that has an obligation to treat everyone equally, and if the pool managers and county government officials don't make this right, they should hear about it, loudly, from NALTS and others.

But this guy and his ilk are carrying out their constitutional rights to free speech and assembly. I don't like what they do with those rights, but as a liberal person who appreciates such freedoms, I know that the same laws that protect him protect me. That's not an excuse to do nothing, but it does mean thinking carefully about how to respond. I do not need to prop up his victim complex (oh, the poor, persecuted "true" Christians). That will do nothing but reinforce his worldview for him and his followers. More generally, I don't think every problem should be addressed with protesting.

Liberal Christians should do what they should be doing anyway: Live the Gospel in the open, inclusive, social-justice loving way they think it should be lived. Make it visible that your church disagrees with this guy. Make sure your preacher is talking about it from the pulpit. Make sure your community knows that there are alternatives to preachers like this guy. As I've said before, the correct answer to bad speech is more speech.

Furthermore, I don't like the idea that my Christianity should be judged based on how I respond to others' interpretations of Christianity. There are always going to be right-wing loons who use faith to prop up their (non)arguments. I cannot and will not spend my life standing outside their churches with a sign. I will spend my life offering an alternative--to my community, to my friends, to my legislators, etc. I will protest when I think it is appropriate, I will write letters when I think it is appropriate, I will give money when I think it is appropriate. But I will not express my Christianity primarily as a response to someone else's pitiful imitation of it.

I'm kind of surprised to read so many comments dismissing this guy as "fringe." Yeah, he is for Seattle, but he'd fit in real well where I grew up in Oklahoma. You'd hear this sort of thing in churches, as well as from ultra-religous *public school* teachers. Hell, this guy's rant could have been plagerized from the filth that my 9th grade English teacher spewed all the time.

I clearly remember the uncomfortable and/or shocked faces when I argued for marriage equality as part of persuasive writing class. Preachers and teachers had already pounded this crap into the minds of my classmates. It was and is not fringe. "Good, loving, open-minded Christians" were and still are "fringe" in many parts of the country.

(And that is why I bought my high school library a copy of the It Gets Better book. Hopefully the librarian will actually let it get to the shelves.)

Just want to thank OuterCow for succinctly saying a lot of the things that went through my mind while reading this thread!

@75 - I also grew up in Oklahoma and Texas (a Christian at the time) and agree: this is definitely common language and sentiment in that neck of the woods. Even the most compassionate Christians I met - across many denominations - were sincerely and vitriolically homophobic, whether outspoken about it or not.

I made it up to the phrase "because he is dealing with the demonic force of homosexu..." and I shut it off.

As a former West Virginian, I am here to tell you that those guys are a dime a dozen. And it is real Christians job to take him down. Not mine. I already survived gay teenagehood in rural xtian america.

I am exgay and a Christian. Everytime I get a chance to re-direct a man or woman who porfesses their faith in this manner, I do so. This is not the model of christianity and sounds more like a vindictive personality targeting a minority group and ranting. I apologize to anyone who sees this and thinks this is how God is.

I need to add that progressive mainliners like myself can't get media attention no matter how freaking hard we try? Neither can progressive catholics with the notable exception of Stephen Colbert. Many people in the media world are just not religiously literate enough to distinguish between an evangelical christian and a progressive mainliner, and so they lump us all together. This is not that dissimilar to people who can't tell the difference between a sunni and shiite.

it was lot, not noah, and his daughters.

@80 what is the exgay experience for you? do you now consider yourself straight? are you attracted to the opposite sex? are you dating/married? and does that person know? or are you abstinent?

I just emailed him and I bcc'ed Dan (Savage Love account). I called on him to repent.

@65: What is a Christian? A miserable little pile of Scripture! But enough talk...
HAVE AT YOU!

Hi Pastor Thompson,

I just wanted to let my voice be known: You're anti-gay rant was totally non-biblical, hateful, hurtful, and out of bounds. (http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archive…)

I urge you to retract these remarks, repent, and approach the discussion of sexuality in our culture appropriately.

Thanks,

Jimmy

sent a letter. thanks paul, you're right.

I just emailed him this:

I watched a video of you getting teenagers to "pray away the gay" in your "church". I don't think that my opinion that this is hatred disguised as religion is going to change your opinion. But I wanted to register my disgust at the psychological manipulation you employ against gay kids in your ministry. I think you are harming these kids far more than you realize.
As a former member of your "ministry" said: "I knew in my heart that these kids would only hate themselves even more a week later when they caught themselves still averting their glance from a member of the same-sex."
http://ashtonelijah.wordpress.com/2011/0…

Just so you know, I'm a happy queer woman who's been in a relationship with the woman I hope someday to marry for 3 and 1/2 years. I have a lot of friends. If you're somehow jealous of the gay people who have it good, I'm sure I don't need to remind you that a lot of straight people have it good also.

Here's hoping that someday your heart and mind get enlightened.

Sincerely,

I sent over my comments to him. In five years, he'll probably be out and hopefully will be working on repairing the damage his ministry has done. That's my hope, anyway.

@9,
Funny you should mention the whole Muslim thing because it seems that Christians and other conservatives are always bitching about how Muslims don't speak out about Muslim extremists. Of course, a lot of Muslims do speak out against extremists but apparently if they're not all constantly out in the streets over it then they're clearly in tacit support.

Thank you, Kevin, SNC, Brooklyn Reader, Octave.

Our Quaker Meeting has declined to continue holding legally binding weddings until we can do so for every marriage under our care, regardless of the couple's genders. (We continue to celebrate the religious and community side of marriage, but you'll have to go to city hall as well if you want to make it legal.) Our attenders and members spent hours talking to other protesters and to legislators during the recent debate over putting an anti-gay-marriage constitutional amendment to the vote in Minnesota. We lost, and it's going to the voters in 18 months. We just had a meeting tonight to talk about our strategy going forward.

Admittedly there aren't a ton of Quakers in the world, and not all of them identify as Christian. We don't evangelize. Even so, it seems to me that we're making all the noise we can without literally devoting our lives to standing outside other churches with signs and bullhorns. I agree with SNC--I don't want to define my religious practice as a long series of shouting matches. Given all that, what more would you like us to do? What strategy suggestions do you have for us? We could use some more good ones.

(Telling me that I'm an idiot for belonging to a religious community doesn't count as a helpful strategy suggestion, BTW.)

Dear Christians on this thread, "Take your boot off my throat." is not hate-speech. Playing the victim is transparently manipulative and dishonest (@38 made me want to puke). You aren't fooling anyone. So own up. Christian belief is the reason gay people have been beaten, murdered, and oppressed throughout American history. By choosing to be a moral person, and entirely separately choosing to be a Christian, you adopt a responsibility to try to fix your religion's fucked up shit.

A guy calls us the devil, and basically calls for our murders, we say, 'I don't want to be murdered!', and Christians say, 'That's hate speech! You're exactly the same as that guy!' It fucking insane.

@92: Christian belief is the reason gay people have been beaten, murdered, and oppressed throughout American history.

It's also the reason I had a Presbyterian support group for gays and the Archdiocesan Gay and Lesbian Outreach Mass to attend when I was in college in Chicago. It's the reason I actually had a supportive environment from the moment I stepped out of the closet in high school--I was surrounded by people who were taught by their Roman Catholic faith to love and forgive and see the good in everybody, and that's what they taught me.

The supportive environment I experienced wasn't "entirely separate" from our religion, it was deeply intertwined with it. It's our religion, the vessel of the expression of our morality. When we find it difficult for to love and accept, it's our Christian faith that points us in the *right* direction--that's why we freely choose to identify as Christian. That doesn't mean you can't be a moral person without Christianity or anything like that, and that doesn't mean that being Christian will make you moral, but for how much Christianity helps myself and many people I know be better people, I'm gonna stand up for it.

A guy calls us the devil, and basically calls for our murders, we say, 'I don't want to be murdered!'

But dude, saying that isn't what's bothering me. I don't want to be murdered, either, and I've got plenty of more productive channels to fight through to protect myself than sending an email directly to the folks who want to murder me. What bothers me is the suggestion that I should spend my time and attention writing letters to the worst bigots or I'm part of the problem and "standing with" them just by identifying as Christian. Fuck that. I'm a gay Christian man and this douchebag is threatening to murder me too and still I say FUCK THAT, and fuck the folks who would say I'm associated with this douchebag just because we both call ourselves Christians.

I'll do as I've continued to do the past eighteen years of being out of the closet--when it comes time to talk religion, I'll focus my time and attention on my fellow Christians who may have their doubts about gay people but aren't making anti-homo douchebaggery the center of their faith, and I'll continue to point out that the actual center of our faith that most of us value is love, forgiveness and communion. Because I've seen over and over that that actually works in changing hearts and minds about homosexuality.

But y'know what convincing people Christianity and homosexuality are at odds get us? Lots and lots of people who are gonna side with their Christianity instead of homosexuals. Because for all the millions who know that their faith has done good things for them, you're setting gay rights at odds with all that goodness. That's not effective, it's a bullshit lie.

'You're exactly the same as that guy!'

No, Slog is very different. Slog, as far as I can tell, contains people who actually might give a rats ass if I speak out, folks I'd like to share a toke with if I ever make it to Seattle, folks in whom my interest *doesn't* begin and end with telling them they're wrong. It's why folks here get my attention, while hate-mongering preachers don't.

I'll tell anyone who stands a chance of listening that Christianity isn't at odds with homosexuality, that rather it teaches us to approach gay sexuality with love and forgiveness just as we are to approach everything else. I can and do tell this to Christians who stand a chance of listening, but I'll tell it to atheists, too. I don't think you have to be Christian, but the only folks you help by conflating "Christianity" with "anti-gay" are are the anti-gay Christian bigots. So hell yeah, I'll speak out against that idea here.

So I'm no longer a christian but I've got a couple things to say. First of all you guys need to watch this documentary which is called "Fish out of Water" which is lgbt friendly christians explaining how the bible verses specified to damn the homos are incorrectly interpreted. Second of all (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/…), ok so I couldn't find the better article about this but I've been saying this almost my entire life, and they've now, at least in my opinion, proven the historical Jesus lead an actively homosexual life style. So how does that sit with you?

There was a poll in the UK where they asked christians who believed homosexuality was wrong, would having it absolutely 100% proven to them that Jesus Christ lead an actively homosexual lifestyle, would it change their beliefs? Less than 1/4 said that they might be more open minded to homosexuals, 1/4 said they would renounce Christianity before they would accept homosexuality as being morally right, and half said it wouldn't change their views at all. So lets be real here, you people use the religion thing as an excuse for your hatred.

95 comments and NOTHING from the pious seattleblues.

Typical christianist homophobic fuck.

If you call yourself a Christian and you let fuckers like Damon Thompson go without saying something, you are part of the problem, because you're standing with him and his monstrous behavior.

Paul, yes, Thompson is a monster filled with hate but I'm curious...does this also apply to people who call themselves Muslims and Muslim Damon Thompsons?

Meanwhile, instead of waiting for the NALTs to act, can somebody please OUT this guy?
He's got self-hating-closet-case written across his forehead.
Somewhere out there is a rentboy who knows the truth for sure ...

jackditch, octave, brooklyn reader, et al. I also want to say thank you. You are more articulate than I am on this topic, and I so appreciate you speaking up here. I did write this guy a letter, but these sorts of posts on slog drive me absolutely nuts. Jesus and gay are not mutually exclusive.

Perfect title, Paul. And, you're totally right. Christians have the responsibility to assert that these ridiculous and offensive speeches are NOT ACCEPTABLE. So....I want to see some people standing up on the side of tolerance and love. Right now.

Whatever. "The Gays" seem to have no requirement to "fucking prove" that flaming fuck-anything-that-moves homos are misrepresenting them; in fact, anyone who uses that model to advocate, say, against gay marriage, is generally presumed to be a bigot. This is the same shit, different shoe.

99: these sorts of posts on slog drive me absolutely nuts. Jesus and gay are not mutually exclusive.

They're not mutually exclusive according to Christians who are liberal, but they are obviously mutually exclusive to Christians who are conservative. I think most people have a worldview and they will find something in Christianity (or another religion) which fits with that.

I'm of two minds with posts like this on Slog, typically by Dan. One one hand, the near-constant bashing gets tiring. But on the other, I understand where it's coming from. If I was gay and was the target of demonization and hatred and repression by conservative Christians, I'd probably feel like hitting back too, even if my punches didn't always take care to distinguish between liberal and conservative Christians.