From our Department of Clueless Nitwits…

Via SLOG, The Seattle Times ran an article yesterday about how fragmented the Religious Right has become lately, and in particular over the fight against gay equality.  The general complaint among the local culture warriors, if not the big generals, is that the fight has become too negative.  Oh really?

Fuiten, senior pastor at Cedar Park Assembly of God Church in Bothell, long has been a staunch, articulate voice for conservative Christian values.

But his position on what role the church should play on gay rights is shifting, and he’s struggling to understand what God wants him to do next.

He remains against gay marriage, still sees same-sex relations as sinful, and also was against a measure passed by the Legislature this spring that expanded domestic-partnership benefits for same-sex couples.

But he has publicly opposed — and won’t sign — Referendum 71, the effort to repeal that measure, saying people are preoccupied with the economy and there’s not enough support.

More important, he said, Ref. 71 "drags us backward into a negative fight we’re not going to win."

"I don’t want the church to be viewed as oppressive, [and] as opposed to people living their lives and eking out whatever happiness they can."

Well if he’s willing to concede that gay folk are "people" now, instead of a cancer on society, God cursed abominations that want to destroy marriage and families and the very moral fabric of western civilization, I guess that’s progress.  But when you’re more concerned about how you are viewed, then the person you really are, you are going to keep missing the point of their anger. 

Senior Pastor Emeritus Jan Hettinga, 64, of Northshore Baptist Church, and an organizer of 2004’s Mayday for Marriage rally, said many at his church feel they’ve "been there and done that" on political issues, and "all we got was really, really bad press and a bad image."

The problem isn’t that you have a bad image.  Here’s the problem:

Branding the disagreement over same-sex marriage as hatred and bigotry was a smart strategy by gay-rights supporters, Hettinga said. "No Christians I know want to be considered haters.

And here’s where I just want to scream in his face.  Strategy.  Strategy.  Strategy.  You stick a knife into people’s hearts, tell them, no, scream in their faces day in and day out that they are condemned by god, call them abominations, threats to families, menaces to children, cancers on society, defilers of the sanctity of marriage, you barge into the gardens of their hopes and dreams and trash everything you can lay your hands on and when they call you haters and bigots you think that’s a fucking strategy???  No asshole, it’s called getting angry with morons who are laying waste to your inner life as if they don’t think you have one.  Still can’t see the people for the homosexuals can you?  Well…that’s how bigots are.

You don’t see people.  You see bogeymen.  You see scarecrows.  They don’t have human hearts, they have an agenda.  They don’t feel pain, they plot strategies.   They don’t love, they just have sex.  And you are not a bigot, just someone who can’t see the people for the homosexuals.  An image makeover isn’t going to solve your problem Jan.