Lisa Miller writes about changing attitudes toward gay people among evangelicals…

He is the nicest right-wing evangelical powerhouse you’ve never heard of. Jim Daly grew up the last of five children in what anyone would call a broken home. His mother died when he was 10 and he lived with, in turn, a stepfather, a foster family, his own alcoholic father and his divorced brother. He came to Jesus in high school, under the guidance of a football coach. His recent memoir, "Finding Home," has barely made a dent on the best-seller lists. Nevertheless, in 2005, Daly got the job of president and CEO of Focus on the Family, and although he denies this, it’s clear that he was picked to be the yin to James Dobson’s yang. While Dobson continues to threaten in the press, Daly chats amiably with a reporter about the fall weather. He sticks to the hard line on policy issues—gay marriage is bad for families, he says—but his presentation is all soft edges. "I’m sure there are wonderful gay parents out there; there’s a poster child for everything." If one of his boys turned out to be gay, he says, "I’d love him."

Sure he would.  He’d love him right into an ex-gay camp.  It’s telling of the relentless animus the religious right has toward gay people, that Miller considers a Pew study showing opposition to gay marriage has crept down a tad among white evangelicals under 30, to 76 percent, as a sign of growing tolerance.  Yes.  And mount Everest is still growing too but I wouldn’t try watching it. 

But there’s this little tidbit also…

According to a new study by the Barna Research Group, 80 percent of churchgoers between the ages of 16 and 29 believe that the term "anti-homosexual" describes Christianity, and they complain that they don’t get enough guidance from their pastors in how to apply Christ’s message of love to their gay friends.

I’ve seen this statistic cited elsewhere recently.  Well I just can’t imaging why young people would describe Christianity as "anti-homosexual"…

Straight allies and LGBT citizens reach out to protestors in Greenville, SC

One of the Seven Straight Nights for Equal Rights gatherings was held on October 8 in Greenville, South Carolina, and Faith in America has passed on photos and coverage of what transpired there, as those at the vigil faced protesters from a local church.

When the voices of straight allies unite with those of their gay and lesbain friends, family and co-workers, the shrill voices of religion-based bigotry can’t stand up against reason and heart-felt conviction. That’s what happened last Monday in downtown Greenville, S.C.

It was a beautiful night for Seven Straight Nights for Equal Rights in Greenville, S.C. on Oct. 8. But when a van full of anti-gay protesters from a Greenville community church showed up, the special event’s celebratory mood was maligned by the anti-gay group’s attitudes of  intimidation and confrontation.

The good men and women of faith arrived at the protest bearing signs that read God Abhors You.  There’s a video over at Pam’s House Blend.

Strolling back and forth yelling out that gay and lesbian people were doomed to hell, one of the leaders of anti-gay protesters continued his booming tirade of hate toward gay and lesbian citizens. 

After the initial intimidation – which is what the protesters were all about – several of the people gathered for the Seven Straight Nights event approached the protesters and began questioning the message and their tactics. 

Jon and Dawn Kennedy were two of those people at the celebration. Their brother, Sean Kennedy, died May 16, 2007 in Greenville, S.C., after being struck by a man who reportedly called Sean a faggot before striking Sean with such force that it crushed the bones in his face. Sean died from the one fatal blow. 

Sean’s mother was present at Seven Straight Nights and was one of the event’s several speakers, including Faith In America Executive Director Jimmy Creech. 

When Sean’s brother and sister politely told the leader of the anti-gay protesters that their brother was killed and that their hateful speech promotes violence toward gay and lesbian people, the protester flatly and unemotionally told Jon and Dawn Kennedy that their brother "was burning in hell right now."

I realize that these people are not representative of the whole of Christianity.  But the silence in the pews toward this kind of thing is telling.  

If you have friends who seem to think that violence against gay and lesbian citizens isn’t pervasive in our society, you need to introduce them to Erin Davies and her Fagbug. 

Erin Davies, a student at Sage College in New York, was targeted by anti-gay vandals when her VW Beetle was sprayed with the words "U R gay" and fag" in mid-April, most likely because the vehicle has a rainbow sticker affixed to its bumper. The incident occurred on the national "Day of Silence" in which students across the country use silence as a means to bringing awareness to intolerance and homophobia.

Instead of having the car cleaned up, Davies says she plans to use it to spread a message of tolerance and take it on a cross-country trip this summer with the hateful messages still emblazoned across its windows.

Erin attended the Seven Straight Nights for Equal Rights in Greenville, S.C. last week and it was there that she reported the awful news that she had been the victim of another painful – and potentially serious attack – in her hometown of Tampa, Fla. 

On Oct. 4, just a week before arriving in Greenville, S.C., someone threw a brick through the window of her home in Tampa and the back window of her car parked there. 

This is what Love The Sinner, Hate The Sin buys you.  Not tolerance for the homosexual, but tolerance for bigotry. You cannot arouse religious passions against couples in love, without giving license to hate.  This isn’t murder we’re talking about here.  It isn’t violence.  It isn’t theft.  To denounce acts of violence, crimes of greed, the hurtful, harmful, things people to To their neighbors, is to condemn hatefulness.  To denounce couples in love is to condemn love itself and that gives hate free reign to do what it will, because only love can stand against hate.   Once you have destroyed love, you have unchained hate and hate obeys no one.  It throws the brick through Erin Davies automobile.  It laughs in Jon and Dawn Kennedy’s faces, and tells them their brother is burning in hell.  It ties a 112 pound college student tied to a fence, tortures him, then leave him to die alone on the cold Wyoming plains.  That is what Love The Sinner, Hate The Sin buys you.  Not absolution, but blood.  On your hands.

I’m terribly sorry if all this puts you in a theological bind.   But the bible says…  Yes.  And it says we shouldn’t suffer witches to live either.  And then it turns around and says Love Thy Neighbor.  Over here is God flooding the earth, killing everyone and everything on it, including by the way, all its little children.  Over there is Jesus, warning people not to harm a hair on a little child’s head or face the wrath of God.  The bible can have its cake and eat it too.  Unfortunately, you can’t.  Those people vitriolically condemning homosexuals and their families and friends, Are the face of Christianity in America, until you give it a better, more loving one.  And you can’t.  Not until you start loving your gay neighbor.  And as long as you hold to the belief that the love between same sex couples is a sin, you don’t.  All you can do is watch impotently, while they are eaten by wolves you cannot speak out wholeheartedly against.  Or you can wash, wash your hands of it all, and look the other way.