This article was first published at Patheos and is reprinted here with permission of the author.
It seems like we are seeing more and more Fundamentalist Christians losing their minds because of homosexuality.
A few of the ?sky-is-falling? statements flying through cyberspace lately include: homosexuality is worse than genocide; all gays must be put to death; and, wait for it . . . if the Supreme Court strikes down state bans on same-sex marriage, we will all be facing the WRATH OF THE ANTI-CHRIST by the end of the year!!!
Good times.
No, really.
I love this.
Here’s the thing: When you have power and are maintaining it around a particular situation, when what you want is happening, you tend to play it pretty cool. When people challenge you, you really don’t do much more than get bothered. Sure, they are annoying, but they are no threat.
But, when you feel the tides start to shift, when that control over the conversation and situation that you once enjoyed so much begins to slip away, frequently, so too does your sanity.
These wild ?prophecies? from the Evangelical right about LGBT rights embody the death throes of those who see themselves as the guardians of all that is pious and holy.
And, I don’t lightly suggest these folks are losing their ?sanity.?
Comparing two people loving and supporting each other to genocide?
That’s insane.
Saying we should fence in all the gay men in one place and gay women in another so that they can’t reproduce and create gay babies (yep ? a minister really said that)?
That’s insane.
But, these folks who keep ?crying wolf? about LGBT marriage are actually showing us a sign that the struggle to value and recognize the equality of all people and all marriages is finally coming to an end.
Besides, as I’ve written about quite a lot, the conservative bias against LGBT folk isn’t biblical, it’s based on culturally-embedded fears and self-imposed ignorance.
It turns out, the nutty-cuckoo anti-LGBT bashing that we are hearing from fundamentalist pulpits is a sign that ?the end is near.?
But it’s not ?the end? the bashers want us to believe is coming.
We’re nearing the end of fear overcoming love and marriage. The end of false religious precepts being used to impose rules that hurt people who love one another. The end of one faction of one religion dictating our nation’s laws about marriage. The end of conservative Christianity trumping our Constitution when it comes to marriage.
It is the beginning of the end of the religious right owning the government.
And they see it.
So, they are freaking out.
Death throes.
But this doesn’t mean the end of Christian hate.
It’s not end of the ?hate the sin, love the sinner? perspective. It is not the end of bullying, shaming and violence based on a person’s sexual orientation. It is not the end of discrimination against LGBT folks.
As I’ve said before, we still have a lot of work to do.
In the meantime, the pulpit freakout sessions we’re seeing on YouTube and around social media?
They are a sign of the end of times ? a very dark time when a nation founded on the self-evident principle that all people are created equal did not treat each other equally in love.
So, fundamentalist preachers, preach on with your message of hate; while the rest of us celebrate love, just like Jesus taught us to do.
What it is actually saying is music to my ears.
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