Study: Gays not ‘godless Christian bashers’

This breaking news in from The Barna Group — a chronicler of religious life and habits, particularly of the Christian variety: Gay folks’ attitudes about spirituality aren’t much different from straight folks. These and other “surprising insights” were in Barna’s spiritual profile of gays released Monday. In it was a bit of a political heeding for gay-bashers:

“People who portray gay adults as godless, hedonistic, Christian bashers are not working with the facts,” wrote George Barna Monday. “A substantial majority of gays cite their faith as a central facet of their life, consider themselves to be Christian, and claim to have some type of meaningful personal commitment to Jesus Christ active in their life today.”

“It is interesting to see that most homosexuals, who have some history within the Christian Church, have rejected orthodox biblical teachings and principles — but, in many cases, to nearly the same degree that the heterosexual Christian population has rejected those same teachings and principles,” Barna said. “Although there are clearly some substantial differences in the religious beliefs and practices of the straight and gay populations, there may be less of a spiritual gap between straights and gays than many Americans would assume.”

Now there will be some quibbling with a couple of Barna’s assumptions. Like how Barna pegs the LGBT population at about 3 percent of the adult population. No, he doesn’t believe in the 1-in-10 stat, but then again, LGBT population scholar Gary Gates says it’s more like 5 percent, depending how you count.

That aside, the Barnanians found that “out of the 20 faith-oriented attributes examined in the Barna study, there were just a few in which there were no significant differences between the heterosexual and homosexual populations.”

Hmm. “No significant differences between the heterosexual and homosexual”(s)? Does Donald Wildmon know about this?

One big diff, according to the study: “While seven out of every ten heterosexuals (71 percent) have an orthodox, biblical perception of God, just 43 percent of homosexuals do. In fact, an equal percentage possesses a pantheistic view about deity — i.e., that ‘God’ refers to any of a variety of perspectives, such as personally achieving a state of higher consciousness or maximized personal potential, or that there are multiple gods that exist, or even that everyone is god.”

Another diff: “Heterosexuals were twice as likely as homosexuals to strongly agree that the Bible is totally accurate in all of the principles it teaches.”

And in the timeliness is next to godliness (OK, and cleanliness) dept: On Monday a crew of organizations supporting same sex marriage are launching their Get Engaged Tour of California — a pump-priming tour of the state in advance of an expected 2010 ballot measure campaign expected later this year. We told you about it a while back. Faith leaders will be prominently featured on this tour, as opposed to last year’s anti-Proposition 8 campaign, when they were largely invisible.

“Our faith-based values require us to love our neighbor as ourselves,” said Pastor Samuel Chu, of California Faith for Equality. “Gay and lesbian people are our neighbors and they should be able to enjoy the dignity, respect and commitment that come with marriage.”

Posted By: Joe Garofoli (Email) | June 22 2009 at 12:25 PM

See Study: Gays not ‘godless Christian bashers’ 5:12 PM

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Another lie from the far right: “All Violent Crimes Are ‘Hate Crimes”

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins is claiming “All Violent Crimes Are ‘Hate Crimes” after approval by the House Judiciary Committee of a proposed federal “hate crimes” bill, H.R. 1913.

We offer these two photos to rebut his fatuous claim.

In the upper photo see Sydney gay man Chen (Anthony) Liuas he looked before being set upon by gay bashers who killed him and left his body to decompose.

The lower photo shows what gay bashers do: it is an x-ray showing how they used a nail gun to kill this man. The decomposed body of 27 year old Mr Liu was discovered floating in the Georges River last November, the body been bound with electrical wire and wrapped in a rug. He had been shot in the head 30 times with a high powered nail gun. The nails embedded in his skull were up to 85mm long.

See how many nails they shot into his skull?

This is typical of a hate crime: a level of violence that far exceeds that of a robery or mugging.

Does Perkins get that? No: he claims “All violent crimes are hate crimes, and every victim is equally important. All of our citizens deserve equal justice under the law. Do we somehow care less about victims violently assaulted because of robberies or personal disputes than we do about those assaulted because they belong in a federally designated category?”

Any criminal act is hateful, but only some – those against people because of their color or orientation – are hate crimes. We can be sure that Perkins would be singing a different tune if those who followed his brand of “Christianity” were subject to the same level of hate crimes that LGBT people face every day.

It is un-American for Perkins and his ilk to use LGBT as cannon fodder in their effort to generate fund raising dollars and build political power.

But to mislead people about the need for hate crimes legislation to generate fund raising dollars and build political power is more of a ‘sin’ than anything two gay men can do to each other.

Shame on those seld-appointed “Christians” who pervert Christ’s teachings into a cover for the kind of homophobic violence that killed Mr. Liuas.

* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual

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Anti-Women and Anti-Gay “Walk for Life” will March Through San …

On January 24th, an anti-women’s rights and anti-gay march will take place in San Francisco. The Bay Area Coalition for Reproduction Rights (BACORR) is calling on human rights supporters to protest the so-called “Walk for Life” led by religious conservatives.

The “Unite to Fight the Right Wing” counter-protest will begin with a rally at San Francisco’s Music Concourse at Embarcadero and Market Streets at 10:30am. More Details

As part of this year’s protest, BACORR is also calling attention to the ICE raids against immigrant communities. Anita O’Shea, BACORR spokesperson writes “The ‘Walk for Life’ is part of a multi-pronged rightwing movement that includes bigots in suits as well as armed, vigilante Minutemen, clinic bombers, and gay bashers…..We must stop the blame game against women, immigrants and queers before the ultra-right gains momentum.”

In recent years the Catholic Church has helped push through two discriminatory acts, the “Conscience Rule” and Proposition 8. The “Conscience Rule” allows health care providers to refuse to fill a birth control prescription for “moral” reasons. BACORR co-chair Gemma Mirkinson responded to the institution of the Conscience Rule asking, “What’s next: refusing service to people with AIDS, or immigrants or transgender folks? This is nothing but bigotry sanctioned by the highest office of the land and applauded by the people who will trek through our city January 24.” See Anti-Women and Anti-Gay “Walk for Life” will March Through San …
Bay Area Indymedia, CA

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Truth Wins Out Fights Back Against Lie Campaign With Hard-Hitting Full Page Ad In The Salt Lake Tribune

‘We Refuse To Allow Anti-Gay Activists To Rewrite History and Pose As Beacons of Religious Tolerance,’ Says TWO

NEW YORK, NY — Truth Wins Out (TWO) unveiled a hard-hitting full-page ad today that will be published in The Salt Lake Tribune on Thursday, under the headline, “Lies in the Name of the Lord.” TWO’s provocative advertisement is in response to an ad by anti-gay activists in last Friday’s New York Times, that falsely portrayed protests against Proposition 8 – a ballot measure in California that prohibited same sex couples from marrying – as mob violence. The TWO ad also criticized the culture warriors who ran the Times ad under the name, “No Mob Veto,” for their disingenuous claim of religious tolerance and their posture as staunch defenders of the Mormon Church.

“These anti-gay activists are crying wolf on the Proposition 8 protests, but they actually are a wolf in sheep’s clothing that preaches religious tolerance while practicing the most defamatory form of religious bigotry,” said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out. “We refuse to permit this orchestrated campaign to rewrite history, nor will we allow some of the most notorious Mormon bashers in America to pose as friends of the Latter-day Saints.”

TWO exposes “No Mob Veto’s” hypocrisy, after the group wrote in the Times, “Beginning today, we commit ourselves to opposing and publicly shaming anyone who resorts to the rhetoric of anti-religious bigotry, against any faith, on any side of the cause, for any reason.” In its ad, TWO agreed to take the signers of the “No Mob Veto” ad at their word, including convicted felon Chuck Colson, Prison Fellowship; Rich Cizik, National Association of Evangelicals; and William Donohue, The Catholic League, and remind America of their past incendiary statements against other religions, particularly the Mormon church.

“Activists like Colson, Cizik and Donohue must decide if they are ‘people of faith’ or ‘people of fibs’ – they can’t be both,” TWO proclaimed in its ad. “Lying is wrong, especially when it’s done in the name of God.”

“There is a concerted and ongoing effort by anti-gay forces to portray peaceful marchers exercising their First Amendment rights as violent troublemakers,” said Besen. “We hope to set the record straight and refuse to let No Mob Veto get away with their blatant lies.”

Singer Pat Boone contributed to the “Big Lie” this week when he wrote a column in World Net Daily that compared nonviolent Proposition 8 protesters with the terrorists who wantonly murdered nearly 200 innocent people in Mumbai.

Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that counters right wing propaganda, exposes the “ex-gay” myth and educates America about gay life.

Web: www.TruthWinsOut.org