Unfinished Lives

Remembering LGBT Hate Crime Victims

Osteen Broadcasts Fundamentalist Homophobia on CNN

Joel Osteen, best-selling author and religious entertainer, says “Homosexuality is a sin” in an interview with Piers Morgan which will air on Wednesday, January 26.  “Piers Morgan Tonight” previewed the Wednesday interview two days early in which Osteen, the pastor of mammoth Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, toes a fundamentalist, homophobic line on the interpretation of the Bible. In response to Morgan’s questions about his condemnation of LGBTQ Americans, Osteen retreats into the same literalist interpretation of a very few passages of scripture that right wing preachers have used to bash gay people for generations:

MORGAN: Say a friend of mine like Elton John watching this at home, who with his partner – a civil partner, David Furnish – have just had a surrogate child which was born on Christmas day. They’re going to be pretty angry what they hear. They’re going to think who are you to call them a sinner.

J. OSTEEN: Yes.

MORGAN: But why are they sinners in your eyes?

J. OSTEEN: Well, it’s strictly back to what the scripture says. I mean, I can’t grab one part and say God wants you to be blessed and live an abundant life, and not grab the other part that says, you know what? You know, live that kind of life. So it comes back to the scripture. I’m not the judge. You know, God didn’t tell me to go around judging everybody.

Osteen tries to have it both ways in the interview with Morgan. Though he clearly condemns gay and lesbian people for parenting children, seeking marriage in monogamous relationships, and for forming same-sex loving families, Osteen claims that he is not a “gay basher.”  The distinction will surely be lost on queer folk and their families when the widely popular preacher has just clobbered them with the Bible.  “The scriptures shows that it’s a sin,” Osteen says to Morgan in the CNN interview. “But you know, I’m not one of those that are out there to bash homosexuals and tell them that they’re terrible people and all of that. I mean, there are other sins in the Bible too…I don’t believe homosexuality is God’s best for a person’s life.”  Osteen has repeatedly peddled his own brand of “soft homophobia” as recently as November 2010 on television shows like ABC’s “The View,” as previously reported by the Unfinished Lives Project. Osteen betrays a simplistic form of Bible reading and interpretation that begins from a heterosexist and homophobic set of beliefs alien to the vast majority of reputable scholars and Bible teachers throughout the world. The Houston mega-church preacher apparently relies on a literalistic, legalistic reading of two texts in the entire Bible to arrive at his claim that God considers homosexuality a “sin.”  In the Hebrew Testament, only two passages in the priestly code of Leviticus (selected verses in Leviticus 18 and 20), and one primary text from Paul’s letter to the Romans which is actually about idolatry and not homosexuality in any modern sense (Romans 1:26-28) are available to Osteen and his ilk to make such a universally condemnatory argument against a marginalized group of people. The consensus of progressive and moderate Jewish and Christian biblical scholars is that fundamentalist interpretations of these passages are off base at best, and dangerous at worst. Opinions driven by cultural bias and read back into the Bible such as Osteen’s have proven to be used to justify their religious intolerance and violence by those who attack LGBTQ people both verbally and physically. For a responsible and accessible book on the Bible that teaches biblical respect for LGBTQ people, see Dr. Peter J. Gomes, “The Good Book.” While Osteen seems to think he can appeal to his conservative base with condemnatory statements like those on “Piers Morgan Tonight,” and at the same time soften his rhetoric enough to convince the gullible that he is the very nicest of gay bashers (so they can be “nice” gay bashers, too!), his use of the Bible is irresponsible, uninformed, and contributes to the suffering of millions of people whose only offense is whom they love.

January 25, 2011 Posted by | bi-phobia, Bisexual persons, CNN, Elton John, gay bashing, gay men, harassment, Hate Crimes, hate speech, Heterosexism and homophobia, Lakewood Church, Lesbian women, Media Issues, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Peter J. Gomes "The Good Book", religious hate speech, religious intolerance, soft homophobia, Texas, transgender persons, transphobia | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Bigot Watch: Rush Limbaugh on ‘Gay Gene,’ Abortion and Gay Babies

How many groups does this screed by Rush Limbaugh injure and offend?  Limbaugh pontificated in 2003 on how the hypothetical discovery of a “gay gene” would cancel LGBTQ support for women’s right to choose.  On the 30th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion, Limbaugh launched this broadside (see Joe Kovacs, World Net Daily.com:

    “Imagine we identify the gene – assuming that there is one, this is hypothetical – that will tell us prior to birth that a baby is going to be gay. Just like a baby is gonna be redheaded and freckled and maybe tend to be overweight and so we tell the parents that, and the parents say “Nope, don’t wanna give birth to that child, [it’s] not gonna have a fair chance. Who wants to give birth to an overweight, freckle-faced redhead?” Bam. So we abort the kid.“Well, you add to this, let’s say we discover the gene that says the kid’s gonna be gay. How many parents, if they knew before the kid was gonna be born, [that he] was gonna be gay, they would take the pregnancy to term? Well, you don’t know but let’s say half of them said, “Oh, no, I don’t wanna do that to a kid.” [Then the] gay community finds out about this. The gay community would do the fastest 180 and become pro-life faster than anybody you’ve ever seen. … They’d be so against abortion if it was discovered that you could abort what you knew were gonna be gay babies.”

Limbaugh climbed up the ladder of notoriety on the backs of African Americans, women, and gay people.  As L.A. Progressive documents, “The Lyin’ King” compared White House staffers to pedophiles, feminists to “lesbian spearchuckers,” and in this choice quote from the Minneapolis Star Tribune, he draws a bead directly on LGBTQ people:  “When a gay person turns his back on you, it is anything but an insult; it’s an invitation.” In June 2010, Limbaugh made news by securing gay entertainer, Elton John, to perform at his fourth wedding, leading some to suggest that the conservative icon had become ‘gay friendly.’  Hardly.  He was a dangerous demagogue before sealing the deal with Elton John, and he remains one after.  The only thing that is put in doubt by the ‘wedding singer’ incident is the quality of Mr. John’s judgment.  Rush Limbaugh sets the tone for his legion of Dittoheads and for conservative opposition to all things LGBTQ.  The cynicism of his scenario on gay genetics, women’s right to choose, and gay babies is boundless, in our opinion.  Women have been and remain the chief allies of the LGBTQ community in the struggle for equal rights in the United States.  Lesbian scholar Suzanne Pharr got it exactly right when she wrote that “homophobia is a weapon of sexism.”  Limbaugh may love women enough to marry four of them in a row, but he advocates the second-class status of the gender he claims to love “till death do us part.”  When rhetoric dehumanizes people, robbing them of the dignity of their full personhood as Limbaugh routinely does to gay people, his is culpable for setting the conditions for hate crimes against the very gay babies he demagogues about on the radio.  When LGBTQ people grow up, face discrimination and irrational hatred, Rush simply washes his hands of any violence done them.  And, in the case of the gay baby scenario he set forth, we must ask the nagging question he left unanswered: “If a test were devised to ID a baby as LGBTQ before birth, Rush, how quickly would you and your supporters flip and become advocates of abortion?”   ~ The Unfinished Lives Team

July 4, 2010 Posted by | abortion, bi-phobia, Bisexual persons, Elton John, gay gene, gay men, Hate Crimes, hate speech, Heterosexism and homophobia, Lesbian women, Media Issues, Politics, Popular Culture, Racism, Roe v Wade, Rush Limbaugh, Slurs and epithets, Special Comments, transgender persons, transphobia | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments