Why relig people are agast gay marriage.

Contents:

• WHERE CHRISTIAN CHURCH, OTHER RELIGNS STAND ON GAY MARRIAGE
• GROUPS OPPOSED TO GAY RIGHTS RAKE LNS AS STAT BATE ANTI-LGBTQ BILLS

WHERE CHRISTIAN CHURCH, OTHER RELIGNS STAND ON GAY MARRIAGE

” At s 2010 natnal nventn, the LCMS rpond to the Evangelil Lutheran Church Ameri’s 2009 cisn (which gave ELCA ngregatns the optn to support lifelong, monogamo, same-sex relatnships) by rtatg the LCMS posn that homosexualy is a s “ any and all suatns” and by enuragg the ELCA to rensir s cisn. The measure, which failed, would have add language to the state nstutn listg homosexualy, along wh pedophilia and masochism, as “abnormal behavr.” Lively later served as California director of the Amerin Fay Associatn, another particularly hard-le anti-gay group (see below). In a 2007 open letter to the Rsian people, he asserted that “homosexualy is a personaly disorr that volv var, often dangero sexual addictns and aggrsive, anti-social impuls.” In 2009, he went to Uganda to speak at a major nference on the evils of homosexualy, sayg, among other thgs: “The gay movement is an evil stutn.

The AFA seeks to support “tradnal moral valu,” but recent years has seemed to specialize “batg the homosexual agenda.” In 2009, hired Bryan Fischer, the former executive director of the Idaho Valu Alliance, as s director of analysis for ernment and policy. Takg a page om the anti-gay fabulist Stt Lively (see Abidg Tth Mistri, above), Fischer claimed a blog post last May 27 that “[h]omosexualy gave Adolph Hler, and homosexuals the ary gave the Brown Shirts, the Nazi war mache and 6 ln ad Jews.” (Ironilly, the elr Wildmon was wily nounced as an anti-Seme after suggtg that Jews ntrol the media, which the AFA says “shows a genue hostily towards Christians.”) Fischer has scribed Hler as “an active homosexual” who sought out gays “bee he uld not get straight soldiers to be savage and btal and vic enough.” He proposed crimalizg homosexual behavr another 2010 blog post and has advoted forcg gays to “reparative” therapy.

A one-time reporter for the nservative Washgton Tim, LaBarbera has been an energetic mpaigner agast “the radil homosexual agenda” sce at least 1993, when he lnched The Lambda Report, which claimed to do first-hand reportg to expose s gay enemi.

GROUPS OPPOSED TO GAY RIGHTS RAKE LNS AS STAT BATE ANTI-LGBTQ BILLS

LaBarbera himself, 2002, pared the alleged dangers of homosexualy to those of “smokg, alhol and dg abe.” Siarly, AFTAH’s webse rri says scribg homosexualy as a “lethal behavr addictn,” a “dangero” practice that is “neher normal nor benign.”. DeMar has modified that dictum slightly the past, sayg that homosexuals wouldn’t all be executed unr a “renstcted” ernment, but that he did believe that the ocsnal executn of “sodom” would serve society well bee “the law that requir the ath penalty for homosexual acts effectively driv the perversn of homosexualy unrground, back to the closet.” More recently, while hostg Amerin Visn’s “The Gary DeMar Show” December 2009, Joel McDurmon, the group’s rearch director, agreed that the Bible do ll for killg homosexuals. Rhdoony supported the ath penalty for homosexuals, among other “abomators.” He also opposed what he lled “unequal yokg” — terracial marriage — and “enforced tegratn,” sistg that “[a]ll men are NOT created equal before God” (the Bible, he explaed, “regniz that some people are by nature slav”).

It has lled the ia of allowg gays to serve openly the ary “evil”; opposed hate crim legislatn (which many relig-right groups falsely assert would make easy to send pastors to prison for nmng homosexualy); and raged agast a judge’s overturng of California’s Proposn 8, which had validated same-sex marriag. Although is somewhat benign by parison, the CADC has an advisory board that clus some of the untry’s most hard-le anti-gay activists: Lou Sheldon, head of the Tradnal Valu Coaln (see below); Donald Wildmon, the founr of the Amerin Fay Associatn (above); and O’Neal Dozier, a pastor who wrote his 2008 book that “[h]omosexualy not only spreads disease and ntraliz God’s mand,” but also “stroys fai.” The board also clus Carmen Mercer, a former top official of the Muteman Civil Defense Corps, a now-funct nativist group that once ran s own armed civilian borr patrols.