The Sin of Deception

It is always sad to see the lengths that conservative Christians will go to in order to deceive people about the consequences of their condemnation of GLBTQ people and our lives.

Like this quote from David Brody from the LA Times:
"Whatever stereotypes people have of Christians as hateful, intolerant — all those words — I'm here to say, 'You have a totally wrong perception. Totally wrong,' " Brody said. "Maybe people will realize that Christians are not so bad after all."

Totally wrong. Hmmm. Let's look at that.

The dictionary defines 'totally' as "wholly; entirely; completely". For Brody's claim to be accurate and honest, there can be no example, whatsoever, of any Christians ever who have done hateful things, intolerant things, or espoused hateful or intolerant ideas. Christianity, completely, entirely, wholly, must be free of anything hateful, for Brody's statement to be accurate.

Let's look first at some history.

There's the Inquistion. This remains synonymous with torture, including:

"Men had their genitals cut away, crushed or burnt off with balls of flaming brimstone.
Woman had their nipples torn out with cold or red hot pincers; or their entire breasts sliced off with shears.
Vaginas and rectums were mutilated with the "pear" - a device that, on insertion, was expanded by means of a screw causing the cavity to rip apart, often with fatal results. "

More about "the pear"

"Used during Medieval Times, the Pear of Anguish was an extremely painful device used to punish homosexuals, witches and women accused of inducing a miscarriage.The Pear of Anguish had the shape of a pear; As a handle was turned, the spoon-shaped lobes opened; increasing pain. - - - Causing severe pain, after this torture was employed on the mouth; the victim's teeth would get destroyed; making blood pour out of the victim's mouth often causing death. - - - The Pear of Anguish was rarely washed, thus causing infections very frequently. If the victim didn't die by an infection however, he would die by other diseases caused by the severe damage of his or her intestines."

Maybe I'm too kind-hearted, but that sure sounds like hate to me. The Inquisitions targeted Jews, "heretics" and "witches" and homosexuals - fitting the definition of intolerant.

But there's more. Conservative Christians denominations have a long history of torturing and killing homosexuals, among others. I want to draw particular attention to this passage from the linked essay:
"Laws criminalizing homosexuality may also encourage law enforcement officials to disregard the humanity of the detainee whose very identity is criminalized. By institutionalizing discrimination, they can act as an official incitement to violence against LGBT people in the community as a whole, whether in custody, in prison, on the street or in the home. By stripping a sector of the population of their full rights, they also deprive lesbian and gay victims of torture or ill-treatment of access to redress and allow their torturers to continue abusing others with impunity."

Emphasis mine. I'mgoing to return to this particular concept shortly. Let it sink in.

One last example from the past:
"Church-inspired mutilation, torture, and burning of "sodomites" in sixth-century Byzantium, medieval France, Renaissance Italy, and in Spain under the Inquisition. But Protestant authorities were equally committed to the execution of homosexuals in the Netherlands, Calvin's Geneva, and Georgian England."

In a future post, I'll detail at length the causal connection between anti-homosexual theology and hate crimes targeting gays and lesbians. If you are still reading at this point, you've been through enough for one day. On to the analysis.

Brody says that the perception of Christians as hateful and intolerant is 'totally wrong'. As he put it, he's here to say that, it is his purpose. Completely wrong, wholly wrong, entirely wrong, not a single example or case wrong.

Now had he said that such perceptions are not accurate regarding all Christians, that would be a different story. It would recognize that some Christians have, in fact, done hateful and intolerant things, while others have not. But he argued that the perception is totally wrong, asserting that the perception is completely false. And Mr. Brody is a professional writer; nuances like modifying the correct noun are kinda important in that line of work.

The evidence of history disproves his claim. Sadly, there is a huge element of truth to the aforementioned perception - many Christians have done hateful and intolerant things, many continue to do hateful and intolerant things to this day. Christians who are serious about following Christ's teachings in their lives have little choice but to acknowledge the abuses inflicted on others in the name of Christianity. People who are more interested in other people's lives, may of course exercise other priorities.

So, let's look at what that word, hateful, means. Maybe there's some loophole in the definitions that would make torture, or murder, or persecution, something other than hateful.

Hatred is defined as "the emotion of intense dislike; a feeling of dislike so strong that it demands action" The word Hate brings up concepts like hostility, extreme aversion, and hateful is defined as "full of or expressing hate; malignant; malevolent".

Sorry, but sticking the Pear of Anguish into someone's body counts as expressing hate. There's no loophole. Anyone who wants to prove otherwise need only cheerfully volunteer to experience it first-hand to prove it is not hate.

I doubt there'll be any volunteers.

Of course, torture is near the extreme, along with pistol-whipping someone. What about something a bit less bloody, like denying people basic civil rights? How about preventing them from protecting their families from material ruin through the use of a basic civil contract?

I'd call such things hostile, malignant, malevolent. I think deliberately and willfully hurting other people is at least malevolent.

Now, David Brody says that his values matched those of Focus on The Family, an organization with a long history of persecuting GLBTQ people.

"After two years of unemployment, he took a job as a radio reporter at the conservative ministry Focus on the Family, which fights abortion, pornography and homosexuality. "Their values and my values matched up," he said."

Focus on the Family's harassment of GLBTQ people is grist for many, many posts, and includes not only promoting lies and stereotypes about GLBTQ people, but actively campaigning to deny us basic civil rights, including freedom of religion. Remember, that chosing not to believe that homosexuality is sin - is a religious belief, one that is supposed to be protected. Every attempt by conservative Christians to deny us rights because they believe homosexuality is sin, intrinsically forces their religion into our lives, and abrogates our religious freedom to enforce their religious beliefs.

Mr. Brody is an employee of CBN, the Christian Broadcasting Network, founded by Pat Robertson. Pat Robertson's statements about homosexuals include:

“When lawlessness is abroad in the land, the same thing will happen here that happened in Nazi Germany. Many of those people involved in Adolph Hitler were Satanists. Many of them were homosexuals. The two things seem to go together.” - 700 Club, 1-21-93 (source: People for the American Way Foundation)

“...What kind of craziness is it in our society which will put a cloak of secrecy around a group of people whose lifestyle is at best abominable. Homosexuality is an abomination. The practices of those people is appalling. It is a pathology. It is a sickness, and instead of thinking of giving these people a preferred status and privacy, we should treat AIDS exactly the same way as any other communicable disease...” - 700 Club, 6-6-88 (source: People for the American Way Foundation)

“You know, one of the great misnomers in our society is the term `gay.’ That somebody who is involved in something that is leading to suicide, where the V.D. rate is 11 times that of others, which are almost driven and ashamed and fearful and confused and psychotic and all the others that we read about plaguing this part of our society. The term gay is the most serious misuse of the English language. They’re not gay, they’re very, very depressed and miserable.” - 700 Club, 5-6-82 (source: People for the American Way Foundation)

And worse.

Sorry, but the statements above qualify as hate. The ban on same-sex marriage is a manifestation of hate. The discriminatory laws still in force in states across the U.S., which penalize homosexuals for failing to live up to other people's religious beliefs, are manifestations of hate. Anyone who would wish to make a convincing argument to the contrary, need simply sign a legal statement irrevocably and permanently barring his or her self from the contract of marriage with anyone of any gender.

Again, I doubt there will be any volunteers. The legislative actions mentioned just above, which penalize and coerce GLBTQ people, are primarily the work of conservative Christians. The perception Mr. Brody dismissed is far, far, far from "totally wrong".


Now, here's the moral problem in Mr. Brody's statement. Either its author is not telling the truth, making a deliberately false claim, or

he doesn't consider torture, discrimination, persecution, abuse, murder, coercion to be hate when directed at certain kinds of people. What would that concept be called?

How about "disregarding their humanity"?

The point is, Brody's claim, patently false, not only disregards, but actively discards the very humanity of GLBTQ people, among many, many others.

It totally isn't hate, apparently, because we aren't people. Not totally.


I don't know about you, but I feel sinned against by David Brody. I feel lied to, and lied about. If you agree, you can email him and invite him to repent, his email is available at the last link. Be sure to extend your forgiveness to him for his sins against you or your family or friends.