On Rooting for the Gays Chick-Fil-A Edition

Any so-called Christian movement that inspires or coddles hatred is a debasement of the values Christ stood for and ultimately died for.

Recently there has been some controversy over Dan Cathy’s anti-gay statements and his support for organizations that target our LBGT brothers and sisters. I have very little to add to the controversy other than to support my LBGT brothers and sisters who have been targeted by organizations, e.g. the Family Research Council, that Cathy supports via donations from Chick-Fil-A; and to make some biblical observations.

Because of debates with my fellow Christians who oppose the LBGT communities equality agenda, I would question whether my view of how the Bible treats gays for fear I was being self-serving and imposing myself on the Word. And then I see the following and I wonder how I could have ever questioned God whispering to my conscience.  Any so-called Christian movement that inspires the following nuggets, pun intended, is a debasement of the values Christ stood for and ultimately died for.

  • Gabriel Aguiniga, a gay employee at a Chick-fil-A in Colorado, also said the hardest part hasn’t been hearing Cathy’s comments. Instead, “[it’s] constantly having people come up to you and say, ‘I support your company, because your company hates the gays,’” Aguiniga, 18, wrote in an email. “It really takes a toll on me.”
  • On the one hand, there is the customer who came in and said he supported Dan Cathy and then “continues to say something truly homophobic, e.g. ‘I’m so glad you don’t support the queers, I can eat in peace,’” the employee, who is 23 and has worked for Chick-fil-A since he was 16, wrote in an email.
  • Last week, when [Andrew Mullen] went out to the parking lot to help a trucker (not directly employed by Chick-fil-A) unload a shipment of goods, the trucker turned to Andrew confidentially and said, “If I see one more faggot at a Chick-fil-A protesting, I’m going to be sick.”

Obviously these are some pretty nasty comments and you might be inclined to say they don’t reflect the general sentiment of the folks who came out in droves to appreciate Chick-Fil-A. And you would be right to a degree. But what is inescapable is that the people who made these comments felt at peace and at home in this so-called movement. More directly, their hatred found joy and comfort. That for me is the truest indictment of this movement. Christ does not inspire or welcome hatred.

A Tree Known by Its Fruit.

Luke 6:43 “A good tree does not bear rotten fruit, nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit. 44 For every tree is known by its own fruit. For people do not pick figs from thornbushes, nor do they gather grapes from brambles. 45 A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil; for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks.”

Fear Is the Path to the Dark Side

Ta-Nehisi Coates on Fear Is the Path to the Dark Side: “

Fear leads to anger…

It’s no surprise that the former Navy pilot sees himself as a champion of the military, and he chides Obama for inexperience in pushing to lift the ban on openly gay service members. But McCain is indulging in semantics when it comes to Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. 

In 2006, he said on MSNBC that ‘the day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says, ‘Senator, we ought to change the policy,’ then I think we ought to consider seriously changing it.’ Now that Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, supports the Pentagon’s move toward junking DADT–and even McCain’s wife, Cindy, has appeared in a gay rights group’s video opposing the policy–the senator is blocking Obama’s plan.
Anger leads to hate…

‘I understand that’s his commitment to the gay and lesbian community,’ McCain says. But while a Pentagon study released Tuesday found more than two-thirds support for the change among service members and said disruptions would be minimal, McCain wants a broader study that would focus on combat readiness.

Hate leads to suffering…

His explanation: ‘The Marine commandant is opposed to [dropping] Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. I know for a fact the other three service chiefs have serious reservations.’

As for their superiors, McCain casually mentions the commander in chief and defense secretary, ‘neither of which I view as a military leader.’

 

H/T to Andrew.

(Via Ta-Nehisi Coates :: The Atlantic.)

More Reasons Why I’m not Conservative

In the 20th century, it was conservative intellectual William Buckley who defended white supremacy in the South. I hear people talking about how National Review–a magazine that speculated that the Birmingham bombing was the work of a “crazed Negro”– has, of late, betrayed its holy intellectual roots and I wonder what planet they’ve been living on. People mournfully claim that conservatism has “died,” and I wonder if they’ve forgotten what “conservatism” had to say to black people in apartheid South Africa. Meanwhile, conservative intellectuals are attacking gay marriages because it might reinforce “black social failure.” These are the intellectuals.

There is a fundamental problem here, one that can’t be elided by pointing out the differences between “true” conservatism and Republicans. A bias toward time-tested, societal institutions almost necessarily means a bias toward institutional evil. Likewise, a skepticism of change almost necessarily means a skepticism of those who seek to expand democracy beyond property-owning white men. Taken in sum you have an ideology, whatever its laudable merits, that will almost always, necessarily, look charitably upon those with power, or those who control the institutions, and skeptically upon those without power, or those who seek to change those institutions.

As a black person, I find that really hard to take.

via Conservatism And Power – National – The Atlantic.

Exactly.  Even though conservative has it’s purposes in democracy, I prefer loving justice than institutions, than what is.

More on Prop 8 – Ta-Nehisi Coates

More on Prop 8 – Ta-Nehisi Coates:

“But if you believe black people are not just receptacles for bigotry, not just automatons programmed by centuries of racism, if you believe they consume oxygen like the Irish, that they ingest solid food like the Italians, that they enjoy a good drink like the denizens of Appalachia, that they like to party like gays of any color, that they like to dance like white women, then you understand that no group, anywhere, ever was ennobled by oppression.”

(Via The Atlantic.)

Embarrassing on a day we should be about freedom.