A North Carolina pastor’s plan for the gays.
After a great month of progress in gay rights, the backlash is heating up. Hate speech is starting in southern churches and making its way across the internet.
First, there’s Charles L. Worley’s rant from the pulpit. Taking a page from the recent Women as Livestock bill, the pastor of Providence Road Baptist Church in Maiden, North Carolina, has a great idea: Put all gays and lesbians in an electrified pen, throw down food occasionally and wait for them to die. His theory? Without the ability to reproduce with one another, all gay and lesbian people will all die off.
Only, there are a few loose nails in this fence (not the least of which is that the plan evokes images of Nazi Germany). What about the bisexuals? Do the bisexual men go with the gay men? What if a really butch woman gets in there and, for survival’s sake, makes a bunch more gay babies? What about the gender-benders, trannies and cross-dressers? Does a man dressed in lady gear go with the girls? (If so, see earlier problem.) But wait. This still won’t solve the gay problem long-term because most gay people were made by straight people. I think he’s gonna need a bigger pen because gay isn’t going away.
And neither are the homophobes. The next generation is being trained in Indiana. Check out this video of a kid singing, Ain’t No Homos Gonna Make it to Heaven to a cheering congregation. Ain’t no kids gonna make it to high school unless the adults in their lives stop focusing on teaching their kids to hate people and start focusing on teaching them grammar. But seriously, isn’t religion supposed to be about love? Where is the love in this?
Then there’s Ron Baity, founding pastor of Winston-Salem’s Berean Baptist Church and head of the anti-marriage equality organization Return America. He suggests that we legally prosecute all lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. So, kind of the same idea as the electric fence but with more cost to the taxpayer — clearly, he could have innovated more like his pal Charles if he really wanted to woo his base.
And let’s not forget Sean Harris, another North Carolina pastor. He’s also concerned about the children. In a sermon, he suggested that parents “punch” effeminate boys and “crack that [limp] wrist.” That’s right, a less subtle form of child abuse than the one displayed by the adults who stood and applauded a child’s hateful song —a song that it’s likely he didn’t understand because, I assume, his parents aren’t cool with him learning anything about homosexuality (0r evolution) in school. Oh, and Harris now says he was joking. Not sure I get it.
Despite the volume of these hateful voices, I feel fairly confident that these people do not represent the majority. But just knowing that they are out there — to quote pastor Worley himself — “makes me pukin’ sick to think about.”
Photo: FredoAlvarez