Dan Savage explains why I never waste my time watching CNN ... to CNN.
I agree.
Unlike Dan Savage, I'm old enough to remember when denying African Americans the vote was considered a respectable and legitimate political position. I can remember earnest Bible believing people carefully explaining to 10 year old me why black and brown folk were destined to be subservient to white folk, and that it was in the Bible, especially in Genesis in the story of Ham.
If someone like Tony Perkins, or even a typical Catholic Bishop or Southern Baptist preacher, said the same things about Jews or African Americans that they say about gays, there'd be a huge scandal.
When I was doing research for my doctorate (in ecumenical studies), I came across some extraordinary documents from the Federal Council of Churches (the forerunner to the National Council Churches, the largest group of Mainline Protestant churches in the US. Includes TEC.)
ReplyDeleteIn the late 1940s, the FCC addressed responses TO the Ku Klux Klan. Not ABOUT the KKK, denouncing them. TO them. In other words, the Federal Council of Churches addressed the KKK AS IF they were "just another interest group", to be responded to, when they were upset about something. AS IF the KKK had some legitimate point-of-view, besides being CONTEMPTIBLE bigots.
But then they (the FCC/NCC) STOPPED doing that. The only mentions of the KKK thereafter, were addressed to the FBI (as in, why weren't they cracking down on the Klan's organized acts of violence?)
Someday, all these (psuedo-) "Family" groups (Family Research Council, American Family Association---US Conf of Catholic Bishops!) will receive the SAME kind of dismissive contempt (from every RESPECTABLE quarter) that the KKK earned for themselves. God speed the day!
I hope you're right, JCF, and indeed, I can hardly wait.
ReplyDeleteI think the Conference of Catholic Bishops, and a lot of evangelical leaders, are already in the same league as the mafia as far as I'm concerned.