Giving Christians a Bad Name

It never seizes to amaze me how ignorant and intolerant people can still be. Throw religion into the mix and you have the makings of one fine orgy of hatred. This was clearly illustrated by the response to an “Opinion” piece that was published in local newspaper on Monday. The author questioned this particular newspaper's hesitance to publish anything positive about the GLBT community, citing South Africa’s win of the Mr Gay World competition as an example. The responses that followed was nothing less than disconcerting and this led me to wonder, do all Christians condemn homosexuality or are these people just giving Christianity a bad name?

We have all heard the phrases “Turn of Burn”, “God made Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve”, been quoted Romans from the Bible, referred to Sodom and Gomorrah and been told homosexuality is a choice. Needless to say I wasn’t surprised that all these subject matters and more were covered in the hateful comments by some “Christians” (and I use this term loosely). It seems there are people out there who appear to be able to read and interpret the Bible with much better comprehension and spiritual insight than their religious leaders. Furthermore, these people’s God also appear to be vengeful, discriminating and intolerant.

I must admit I am not a very religious person and I do have some problems with organized religion. When incidents like this happen my apprehensions are further stirred and my willingness to participate or associate myself with such religious groups wanes. It strikes me that some people choose to use their religion (Christianity in particular) to openly discriminate against groups of people. In South Africa the Apartheid government use to do this too. It seems all too convenient and all too easy. But let me tell you - it is nothing but bigotry!

The same people who call themselves Christians refer to homosexuals as dogs and cockroaches. These “Christians” goes further and elect themselves to be judge and jury and empower themselves to condemn as if they are without flaws or sins. They quote Bible verses, out of context I may add, that suits their draconian small minded and Oh So judgmental set of beliefs. They think they speak for God, but I have one question for them – What would Jesus do?

If you want to be an asshole, by all means be one but do so but on your own accord. Don’t use your religion to hide behind when you spew your own personal biases, hatred and small mindedness. Don’t use your religion to justify your own intolerance and then seek to generalize that all people of your religion hold the same ignorant view as you. Because they don’t! And don’t pretend to know what God, Jesus or the Holy Ghost’s view and/or stance is on the GLBT community. I am sure there are much more serious condemnable sins occupying their interest than our small community that were created in their likeness as every other human being.

For people who call themselves “Christian” their behaviour and attitude is in direct contradiction to their religion. I will go even further to state that what they are doing is in fact sinful; there must be a verse in the Bible that would substantiate this perhaps somewhere in Romans or Leviticus. I would recommend they look it up! Who knows, this exercise may even encourage them to understand the bigger context out of which they so frequently quote from incorrectly.

Having read through the now 277 comments I am pleased to see that there are some true Christians out there. Christians who are sane and objective people who can apply their minds and exert sound judgment; Christians who are embarrassed by the hateful comments and uninterrogated thinking behind them. So it seems that not all Christians condemn homosexuality after all. Some people are leaving the judging for judgement day, as it should be. As for the rest, I hope when they sit in church this Sunday they have a good long hard look at their own lives, their own sins and own flaws and rather focus their attentions on bettering themselves instead of judging others.

Till next time.