Holy merit badge! Divine retribution?

[fgoodwin]

Holy merit badge! Divine retribution?

 

http://www.advocate.com/exclusive_detail.asp?id=19260

 

If God hates gays, why do his harshest punishmentselectrocutions, heat waves, hurricanesseem to be directed at antigay bigots? The Boy Scouts should take note.

 

By Karel

 

I remember it vividly. It was very early in the morning for me, around 6. My friend Don Hobkirk called to see if I was up and already on my way to the radio station. I asked why, and he said to turn on CNN. I did, and I saw one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center burning. They said a plane had hit it.

 

I got up and started to get dressed, knowing I would be called to my station to go on the air. I called my good friend Larry Flick in New York City. He worked at Billboard back then, in a high-rise. While we were on the phone, another plane hit the trade center. I told him to get home. We hung up.

 

There was a lot that happened in the aftermath of 9/11. People began to ask, Why? And then Jerry Falwell told them, the answer was obvious. It was the fault of abortionists and gay people. Well, of course it was. After all, so many of the 19 terrorists were gaynot!

 

I sat back and listened. Soon, with just a little research, I found that Falwell was indeed cracked but not alone. Gay people have been blamed for hurricanes destroying coastlines, for earthquakesin fact, for almost every major disaster, it would appear. Then theres the moral decay brought about by obviously gay subversive tools like SpongeBob, Tinky Winky, and that rabbit on PBS.

 

Absurd, you say? Well, yes, but lets take a minute to apply that thinking to current events.

 

God hates Boy Scouts.

 

It couldnt be clearer. God hates the Scouts policy of discrimination against gays. Thats right, God is pro-gay, and he/she/it is letting that be known, beginning with some good ol fashioned smiting of those who are blatantly going against his laws and discriminating against his creation, gay men.

 

The evidence? Just look at the 2005 Boy Scout Jamboree, a 10-day event held in Virginia for tens of thousands of Boy Scouts and their leaders. Now, remember, this is the same organization that blatantly said no homos, homos are bad, homos will influence our children or worse, attack them. And while I support their right as a private religious-based organization to keep homos out (thats another editorial), Im not God. And it appears God is angry.

 

First came the tragic death of four scout leaders, setting up a dining tent. By all accounts, it was biblical carnage at its best. Scouts watched as a metal pole at the center of the large, white tent touched power lines, electrocuting four adult leaders and injuring others. According to accounts published in the July 29 Guardian Unlimited, Screams rang out as the tent caught fire and the men burned.

 

Thats downright Old Testament.

 

Then, within a day or two, record heat and humidity sent scores of scouts to the hospital. Yes, once the deaths occurred and the scouts decided to press onward, the weather turned against them and oppressive heat and humidity hospitalized many and caused almost 300 scouts to seek treatment. From the Guardian Unlimited again, quoting 15-year-old scout Jeremy Loftness of Denver: Yesterday was ridiculous. I, myself, saw 50 people either passed out or being carried away.

 

In fact, the weather was being used as a shield, an impenetrable barrier to keep away another entity with which God is obviously upset, President Bush. He has been scheduled twice to speak to the Boy Scouts at the Jamboree, and twice the weather, a traditional act of God, has dissuaded him.

 

Outrageous? Preposterous? No more than any claims made against gays by good, God-fearing men of the cloth. How dare I, a gay personand therefore by many standards a godless heathenmake such a claim? Well, why not? The evidence certainly is mounting in my favor. As this column was being written, another act of God against the Boy Scouts was reported by AP: Lightning struck a group of scouts gathered in Sequoia National Park in California, killing a scout leader and critically injuring a 13-year-old.

 

More Old Testament smiting. Get the message?

 

Why wouldnt God do this? While under the law the Boy Scout stance on gays may be justifiable, socially, morally, its just plain wrong. They do it in Gods name, so maybe God is just sick and tired of people doing things in his/her/its name.

 

Take Florida, for instance. God obviously hates Florida. This year alone, nature, and thus, under many beliefs, God, has sent storms early and fast right into the peninsula that has caused so many problems. Perhaps God was mad about Terri Schiavo and how people purporting to be his followers created such a terrible debacle, right down to that annoying little friar in the Frangelico liquor outfit constantly telling us how Terri was alive, aware. (Sorry, Brother, she never was.) Perhaps God was mad at Senator DeLay for his God delivered us Terri comments. Lets be real, God had turned half this girls brain to liquid, seen to it that she was blind, and was all ready to take her up to heaven and then Bushs brother and Terris parents and a bevy of religious zealots intervened and kept her body alive at all costs and against her and her husbands wishes.

 

Well, vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord. So bam! Take that hurricane, Florida! Bam! Have all this rain! Bam! Winds! Bam! A tornado in Miami! Its right out of an Irwin Allen film.

 

And this was nothing compared with last year. Four massive hurricanes in less than two months. It was an election year, you see, and Florida had really made God mad with the 2000 debacle, so he was trying to send them a message to get it right in 2004. They didnt listen. So bam! They got it again.

 

Maybe the Christians are on to something. Maybe God is angry, and smiting things left and right. But maybe the right-wingnuts are not picking up on the real reasons: Maybe its not gay people the Omnipotent is after, maybe its not we who are just living our lives the way the Almighty made us (if you believe in that sort of thing). Maybe instead its those people who are calling us, his handiwork, somehow less than human, ungodly, unholy.

 

Who is man to call another man less than godly? Because while man can make a mess, only God can make a homo.

 

And God likes it that way. After all, Massachusetts has legalized same-sex marriage, and God has kept most natural disasters away from that state. Nor has he destroyed Canada, Spain, the Netherlands, and other countries that allow same-sex marriage or something close to it. When was the last time you heard of an act of God harming gay-friendly New Zealand, for instance?

 

So, Boy Scouts, if I were you, Id be seriously looking at policies you may have as a group that are upsetting to God.

 

Who am I to speak for God? Well, Im just as qualified as any of those who say God attacks cities or states for their pro-gay stance or as some sort of divine signal of his disapproval. After all, Im ordained. I am. I am an official member of the clergy, ordained by World Christian Ministries. And it only cost me $80 and some time on the Internet. They never even asked if I believed in God.

 

Heres the thing: Speaking for God and believing in him are two separate things altogether. Doing Gods work versus his biddingagain, separate. There are many who do Gods work. They are those who help their fellow humans instead of dividing them. They are those who give of themselves selflessly, to everyone, not just to people who believe the way they do. They are people who accept all of Gods creations, not just the ones that ideologically or biologically fit some mold of what is normal. They are ones who would never waver from their own beliefs but would never legislate them either.

 

Yes it seems speaking for God and truly believing in him never, ever shall meet.

 

I dont believe in God as written. Im one of the 5% of people in the United States brave (or stupid) enough to say that, because there is a lot of societal prejudice against those who dont associate with any religion or belief.

 

But it doesnt take a devout follower to see that if there is a God, hes pissed. At the Boy Scouts. At Florida and, oh yes, Indonesia. In the United States recently weve had record heat waves killing people in our cities, flooding, lightning striking people, tornadosacts of biblical destruction. And never in West Hollywood. Never in Chelsea. Never in the Castro. Usually in the Bible Belt, in the red states, in places where bigots flourish. Even the disease allegedly sent to destroy homosexuals, AIDS, has now killed more nongay people worldwide than gay people.

 

Its official. God hates bigots and is making bigoted America pay. If it keeps up, gay meccas could become Noahs Arks of sorts, because it would appear those are the only areas the divine is leaving alone. (Key West may be the exception, but it has the unfortunate fate of being part of Florida, and God, as we know from the Old Testament, has no qualms about taking out a few thousand bystanders when smiting the wicked.)

 

Cities with big gay centers are flourishing while places where they hang homos on fence posts are dwindling economically and socially. Even the climate in many of those places is rebelling.

 

So, devout, berconservative Christians, take a note from one of your own hymns: God is trying to tell you something. It sounds a lot like, Let my people go. Give my people equality, all of them.

 

Or else.

 

If this keeps up, it might be enough to convince even this nonbeliever.

[jkhny]

I'd expect that from San Francisco - topical, ironic - from a place with a history of satire, political and otherwise (And a clearly pro-gay focus).

 

But the same topic has been raised in far more conservative and "red state" venues - places that take God and "divine retribution" a bit more seriously.

 

If someone in TEXAS has noticed and felt compelled to REFUTE it ....people ALL over have to be at least THINKING it...

 

 

From the Galveston County (Texas) Daily News:

 

http://galvestondailynews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=24562682e062dea8

 

"Is God Punishing The Boy Scouts?

 

Its funny, isnt it, that when Orlando gets hit with crisscrossing hurricanes, someone has to write in and say that God is punishing Disney for its pro-gay stance, but when the Boy Scouts have three natural disasters in a week, no connection is made to their anti-gay stance.

 

Is there some other reason God is punishing the Boy Scouts? Or are we just reading too much into things and being very selective at that?

 

Carleton W. Brown

Galveston"

 

 

 

I think God gets more peeved with hypocrisy and people using his name to justify bad behavior (like in jihads - OR the Inquisistion).

 

If God wanted to play Thor with BSA, you'd expect better accuracy, not random hits on kids.....say a tornado through Irving (or would that mean he somehow missed Crawford?....just joking Ashcroft, really).

 

Still you can't help but think God really DOES have it in for Florida - whatever the reason. Here they go again.........

 

I ran into one former Sunshine State resident (now living at Saint George) on a trail at Arches who'd had enough after last year and sought refugee in Utah. But even LDS sanctuary didn't work - they got hit with floods this spring. Sometimes you can't win.

 

 

 

 

[NJCubScouter]

OK fgoodwin, are we supposed to get upset about this satrical article too? The article is obviously a slap at Jerry Falwell and others of his ilk who tried to capitalize on 9-11 to spread their doctrine of hate against gays. In turn, the writer capitalizes on the recent misfortunes of Scouts and Scouters. It's not very courteous, but I don't think the writer is applying for membership in Scouting anyway. So, so what?

[FScouter]

How dumb.

[NWScouter]

It is interesting not dumb, in fact I can think of two spots in the Bible where we are warned not to seek the evil that someone did if he has suffered misfortune. The book of Job is one and when Jesus pointed to a disabled man and asked Did he sin or his parents sin.

[NJCubScouter]

Fgoodwin, I followed the link for this article and it took less than a second to realize that the web site from which you got this article is a "gay web site." Further clicking revealed that it is in fact, the web site of a magazine called The Advocate, which appears to be not only for gay people, but what some people on this forum would call "gay activists" (actually they would say "homosexual activists") and certainly for people who could be termed "avowed homosexuals."

 

So here is my question, fgoodwin, do you think it's reasonable to go to one of "their" web sites, where you will inevitably find the humorous articles (and no doubt the serious ones as well) not to your liking, and complain about it? I mean, what did you expect to find on this web site?

[fgoodwin]

NJCS:

 

With all due respect, where did I complain about this article?

 

As johndaigler has said in other threads, how about we focus more on the article itself and less on the poster?

 

YiS,

 

Fred G.

[Hunt]

fgoodwin, perhaps what you are doing is posting every article you find, pro or con, that deals with general Scouting policies and issues? If so, I think that's a reasonable thing to do in a forum like this, and people can discuss them or not as they see fit. Perhaps if you could explain how you find articles and how you decide which ones to post, people wouldn't take you task for doing it.