brent childers
02-22-2007, 04:39 PM
I attended the Wednesday seminar entitled "Is There Really A Gay Agenda" presented by Michael Brown at the Booth Playhouse in Charlotte.
I attended the seminar as a representative of Faith of In America, a Raleigh-based organization working to end the injustice of religion-based bigotry against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.
My goal was to simply listen to Brown to learn what the lecturer would identify as the "gay agenda."
Brown's use of language and how he played the term "gay agenda" was somewhat masterful in the way he used it to create a backdrop that painted GLBT people and the various organizations that work to advocate GLBT issues as deceitful liars right from the start.
For those not as schooled in language as Brown – he holds his doctorate degree in Near Eastern language from New York University – it would be easy to miss the semantic slight of hand.
Brown began his lecture by pointing out how various gays and lesbians on web sites and individuals within certain gay rights organizations have for years said there is no "gay agenda." He then methodically listed on the video screen comments that appeared to contradict that – statements from a variety of gay activists talking about the goals of their organizations or just issues they would like to see addressed.
But Brown knows that "gay agenda" can mean one thing when referred to in general terms (gays seek to take over the world) and it can mean something different when referred to in specific terms (the goals of a particular person or organization).
Here's another example: Ask your Sunday School if there is a Christian agenda at work in North Carolina. The person likely will answer no. Ask Coalition for Conscience (which bills itself as a Christian organization) if it has an agenda. Of course.
Ah ha. Your Sunday School teacher lied. No. It's a play on semantics.
Brown's definition of the gay agenda was little more than some of the same language that for years has been disseminated by certain so-called Christian organizations on the Religious Right. I sat there watching Brown post a list of goals (the agenda) that various gay rights organizations either advocated for in the past or are advocating today – things like gay marriage, schools where kids are taught to respect those with different sexual orientation, a hate crime law that includes crimes committed against GLBT people. (Brown opposes the federal legislation)
Then he began posting on the viewing screen comments from certain gay activists who reportedly had said things like they wouldn't be happy until they were completely integrated in every part of our culture – our homes, schools and even our conservative Christian churches.
I began getting alarmed. They really do want to take over our society and rape our young children – as much of Brown's posts on the video screen implied either directly, indirectly or satirically.
I could see the grimaces of a middle-age couple city in front of me as they looked at each other with raised brows.
And then came the closer in Brown's presentation: The gay and lesbian advocate organizations will not stop until they force our fundamental Christian pastors and other Bible-believers to reframe from treating homosexuals as morally inferior. The day is coming very soon, Brown said, when the freedom to condemn gays and lesbians as sinners will be no more.
It's almost come full circle, he said: Gays are out of the closet and Christians who believe same-sex relations is a sin are on the way in the closet.
Despite supporting an organization working on behalf of GLBT equality, as a Christian I had begun getting a little alarmed myself by the time Brown presented his closer. I mean, come on, this America. If I can't stand on the corner and yell that gay and lesbians are doomed to hell, what has this great country come to?
Brown stated he had been compared to the Ku Klux Klan in an email he had received Wednesday. Can you imagine the gall of these gays and lesbians, he asked his audience, in comparing him to the Klan when all he was doing was giving a lecture on the fact that the Bible says same-sex love is an abomination to God?
In no way will they enter heaven, he implied to one young woman during the question-and-answer period when she told him she had a friend who was saved when young and is now lesbian. Can she still be saved, she asked?
The question seemed somewhat difficult for Brown to answer. His final summation to the young woman was that there are people who once may have made a profession of faith but their current sinful lifestyle would suggest to him that the person was never saved in the first place or has lost his/her salvation.
I sat there in amazement at his statement to that young girl.
I wonder if church leaders – including the Rev. Mark Harris of the First Baptist Church in Charlotte who reportedly has ties to Brown's Coalition of Conscience – are reading this. Read again what he told the girl: you can be saved at one point and then not.
As someone who has spent 40-plus years in fundamentalist Baptist churches, I can most assuredly state that there is no doctrinal truth that is held more dear than "once saved, always saved."
I suppose the fact that this doctrinal statement came from a New York City native with a degree in language shouldn't have surprised me so had I not known that his organization is comprised of area Charlotte churches and ministers.
As I left the Booth Playhouse, I began reflecting on the two-hour session and how Brown skillfully had couched his attack on gays and lesbians with what he said was "a heart of compassion." He was mouthing the words but love for gays and lesbians wasn't what I was hearing.
I reviewed my notes to see that he had linked gays and lesbians to pedophiles on at least three occasions and had implied an association to bestiality on another occasion. He compared them to adulterers on another. And of course all this was set against his backdrop of gay and lesbians being liars about their agenda. I also could see how those subtle references had attempted to play on my emotional responses to solicit thoughts of loathing, fear and prejudice.
I also began thinking about that reference he made about someone associating him with the Klan.
I imagined an African-America man sitting in some lecture hall in the 1920s listening to a religious leader espouse the belief that the Bible said "colored" people were morally inferior or perhaps listening to some religious leader espouse the belief that interracial marriage was an abomination before God. I wonder what would have happened if we had put religion-based discrimination against African-Americans in the closet at lot sooner than we did.
I think of how so many older African-Americans possess such a loving, kind and forgiving nature, despite the great injustice enacted upon them – that often came with the blessing of many a conservative Christian church.
I thought about a passage that Brown had posted from Mel White, director of Soulforce and who used to ghostwrite for Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and Billy Graham. White, a Christian, is gay and his most recent book, "Religion Gone Bad," talks about how so many GLBT people that he knows possess a similar kind, gentle and passive nature. Perhaps, White surmises, it's time GLBT people become much less passive in their opposition to discrimination – that seems to come with the blessing of a lot of fundamentalist Christians.
Of course, Brown saw this as evidence that the GLBT community was going to become more active in their stance against religion-based bigotry.
Let's hope they do.
I once was one of the Christians who would have been cheering Brown and the Coalition of Conscience on for their condemnation of gays and lesbians (And remember Brown will say he never condemns anyone). Several years ago I walked away from the GLBT prejudice that I so often justified with misguided religious teachings. I put that religion-based bigotry against GLBT in the closet and locked the door.
It's proved to be a great spiritual blessing.
And one last word for Dr. Brown as to something I was poignantly reminded of during his lecture:
There will be homosexuals in heaven.
Brent Childers is a journalist and serves as vice president of Inform Inc., a marketing and publishing firm in Hickory, N.C., which is a proud supporter of the Human Rights Campaign.
I attended the seminar as a representative of Faith of In America, a Raleigh-based organization working to end the injustice of religion-based bigotry against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.
My goal was to simply listen to Brown to learn what the lecturer would identify as the "gay agenda."
Brown's use of language and how he played the term "gay agenda" was somewhat masterful in the way he used it to create a backdrop that painted GLBT people and the various organizations that work to advocate GLBT issues as deceitful liars right from the start.
For those not as schooled in language as Brown – he holds his doctorate degree in Near Eastern language from New York University – it would be easy to miss the semantic slight of hand.
Brown began his lecture by pointing out how various gays and lesbians on web sites and individuals within certain gay rights organizations have for years said there is no "gay agenda." He then methodically listed on the video screen comments that appeared to contradict that – statements from a variety of gay activists talking about the goals of their organizations or just issues they would like to see addressed.
But Brown knows that "gay agenda" can mean one thing when referred to in general terms (gays seek to take over the world) and it can mean something different when referred to in specific terms (the goals of a particular person or organization).
Here's another example: Ask your Sunday School if there is a Christian agenda at work in North Carolina. The person likely will answer no. Ask Coalition for Conscience (which bills itself as a Christian organization) if it has an agenda. Of course.
Ah ha. Your Sunday School teacher lied. No. It's a play on semantics.
Brown's definition of the gay agenda was little more than some of the same language that for years has been disseminated by certain so-called Christian organizations on the Religious Right. I sat there watching Brown post a list of goals (the agenda) that various gay rights organizations either advocated for in the past or are advocating today – things like gay marriage, schools where kids are taught to respect those with different sexual orientation, a hate crime law that includes crimes committed against GLBT people. (Brown opposes the federal legislation)
Then he began posting on the viewing screen comments from certain gay activists who reportedly had said things like they wouldn't be happy until they were completely integrated in every part of our culture – our homes, schools and even our conservative Christian churches.
I began getting alarmed. They really do want to take over our society and rape our young children – as much of Brown's posts on the video screen implied either directly, indirectly or satirically.
I could see the grimaces of a middle-age couple city in front of me as they looked at each other with raised brows.
And then came the closer in Brown's presentation: The gay and lesbian advocate organizations will not stop until they force our fundamental Christian pastors and other Bible-believers to reframe from treating homosexuals as morally inferior. The day is coming very soon, Brown said, when the freedom to condemn gays and lesbians as sinners will be no more.
It's almost come full circle, he said: Gays are out of the closet and Christians who believe same-sex relations is a sin are on the way in the closet.
Despite supporting an organization working on behalf of GLBT equality, as a Christian I had begun getting a little alarmed myself by the time Brown presented his closer. I mean, come on, this America. If I can't stand on the corner and yell that gay and lesbians are doomed to hell, what has this great country come to?
Brown stated he had been compared to the Ku Klux Klan in an email he had received Wednesday. Can you imagine the gall of these gays and lesbians, he asked his audience, in comparing him to the Klan when all he was doing was giving a lecture on the fact that the Bible says same-sex love is an abomination to God?
In no way will they enter heaven, he implied to one young woman during the question-and-answer period when she told him she had a friend who was saved when young and is now lesbian. Can she still be saved, she asked?
The question seemed somewhat difficult for Brown to answer. His final summation to the young woman was that there are people who once may have made a profession of faith but their current sinful lifestyle would suggest to him that the person was never saved in the first place or has lost his/her salvation.
I sat there in amazement at his statement to that young girl.
I wonder if church leaders – including the Rev. Mark Harris of the First Baptist Church in Charlotte who reportedly has ties to Brown's Coalition of Conscience – are reading this. Read again what he told the girl: you can be saved at one point and then not.
As someone who has spent 40-plus years in fundamentalist Baptist churches, I can most assuredly state that there is no doctrinal truth that is held more dear than "once saved, always saved."
I suppose the fact that this doctrinal statement came from a New York City native with a degree in language shouldn't have surprised me so had I not known that his organization is comprised of area Charlotte churches and ministers.
As I left the Booth Playhouse, I began reflecting on the two-hour session and how Brown skillfully had couched his attack on gays and lesbians with what he said was "a heart of compassion." He was mouthing the words but love for gays and lesbians wasn't what I was hearing.
I reviewed my notes to see that he had linked gays and lesbians to pedophiles on at least three occasions and had implied an association to bestiality on another occasion. He compared them to adulterers on another. And of course all this was set against his backdrop of gay and lesbians being liars about their agenda. I also could see how those subtle references had attempted to play on my emotional responses to solicit thoughts of loathing, fear and prejudice.
I also began thinking about that reference he made about someone associating him with the Klan.
I imagined an African-America man sitting in some lecture hall in the 1920s listening to a religious leader espouse the belief that the Bible said "colored" people were morally inferior or perhaps listening to some religious leader espouse the belief that interracial marriage was an abomination before God. I wonder what would have happened if we had put religion-based discrimination against African-Americans in the closet at lot sooner than we did.
I think of how so many older African-Americans possess such a loving, kind and forgiving nature, despite the great injustice enacted upon them – that often came with the blessing of many a conservative Christian church.
I thought about a passage that Brown had posted from Mel White, director of Soulforce and who used to ghostwrite for Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and Billy Graham. White, a Christian, is gay and his most recent book, "Religion Gone Bad," talks about how so many GLBT people that he knows possess a similar kind, gentle and passive nature. Perhaps, White surmises, it's time GLBT people become much less passive in their opposition to discrimination – that seems to come with the blessing of a lot of fundamentalist Christians.
Of course, Brown saw this as evidence that the GLBT community was going to become more active in their stance against religion-based bigotry.
Let's hope they do.
I once was one of the Christians who would have been cheering Brown and the Coalition of Conscience on for their condemnation of gays and lesbians (And remember Brown will say he never condemns anyone). Several years ago I walked away from the GLBT prejudice that I so often justified with misguided religious teachings. I put that religion-based bigotry against GLBT in the closet and locked the door.
It's proved to be a great spiritual blessing.
And one last word for Dr. Brown as to something I was poignantly reminded of during his lecture:
There will be homosexuals in heaven.
Brent Childers is a journalist and serves as vice president of Inform Inc., a marketing and publishing firm in Hickory, N.C., which is a proud supporter of the Human Rights Campaign.