A “Christian” extremist group has decided to take their anti-gay message on the road and try to shake some sense into renegade churches that dare to be gay-affirming.“Jesus loves the homosexual, but he doesn’t love homosexuality. This is about holding each other accountable.”
– Dave Daubenmire, the founder of Minutemen United and Pass the Salt Ministries, who thinks breaking into church services torail about the homosshare “the word of God” is appropriate. (more on him below)
Members of the organization, Minutemen United, have crashed services at the First Baptist Church in Granville, Ohio every Sunday since July when, the church landed on the Minuteman hit list for hosting “Love Makes a Family,” the Family Diversity Project’s traveling photography exhibit of LGBT families. (Columbus Dispatch):
On one of the first Sundays, six people came to the church’s 11 a.m. service and addressed the congregation during a time designated for prayer requests and comments.The other church on the Minuteman list was Columbus’s King Avenue United Methodist Church in Columbus where the Rev. John Keeny said: “They rebuked me as a pastor for preaching that God’s love is for everyone.”[Senior pastor Rev. Kathy] Hurt said a man, who introduced himself as a minister from the New Beginnings Church in Warsaw, Ohio, started to give a sermon about how the church was acting against God’s word by accepting homosexuals.
Alex Blaze of The Bilerico Project hits the nail on the head about these “Christians”:
But this comes down to respect for people’s religions, and the Religious Right always declares themselves on the side of religious freedom promulgating paranoid fantasies of police rounding up pastors after hate crimes legislations gets passed or school teachers locking away students with Bibles or whatever. But then when it comes to anyone who disagrees with them, suddenly the word “freedom” gets exposed for the window dressing that it is.And about that Daubenmire fellow. Let’s just say that he shouldn’t cast stones, as his son was convicted on a child pornography charge.
Not only that, he’s yet another fundie with a very odd fixation on homosexuality. He forced himself to attend a Gay Pride parade in Columbus and made these keen observations (something I blogged about back in July):
The homosexual leadership, those who work iniquity, has done a great public relations job. They have convinced us that Tommy and Billy who live down the street are the real face of homosexuality. Sadly, as those who walked into the den of iniquity with us on Saturday can attest, the under-belly of sodomy is a despicable thing to see. A friend once told me that I should never go to a meat packing shop and watch hot-dogs being made. If I did, he warned me, I would never eat another hot-dog as long as I lived.The same can be said for the sodomite parade. The “meat” on display will forever change the way you view homosexuality. Sin has no boundaries, no clutch, and no emergency brake. Once you dip your toe into the pool of sin, especially sexual sin, there is a magnetism that will not let go. The debauchery parading down our public streets is abominable.
Hat tip, PageOneQ.
30 Responses to “Ohio church services crashed by homobigots”
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I wonder if they can be prosecuted for trespassing. Or harassment. Or “possession of religion with intent to be an asshole”.
Something.
No, that writing is abominable. Debauchery is fun.
I hope that there is some network by which churches that might be targeted by these morons can communicate with one another. It’d be awesome to hear a report that a congregation drowned out one of these “exhortations” with loud singing or chanting of a song or scripture about the love of God.
That last blockquote seems to confirm a theory I’ve been mulling over about all the vicious homobigots who end up, y’know, being homosexual.
They view homosexuality as a vile sin. But when they’re confronted with their own “sinful urges,” rather than questioning the belief that their orientation or desires are evil, they just revert to the view that everyone is a fallen sinner. For all their blathering about individual responsibility, deep down they really want to institute a legal regime that will scare/oppress them enough that they themselves won’t act on their own “sinful urges.” It’s like Odysseus lashing himself to the mast to save himself from the Sirens (an oddly appropriate image in this context, I think).
The more they “sin” the more they pursue a legal regime to “scare them straight.”
To them, their own homosexuality doesn’t demonstrate the injustice of their reactionary, hateful agenda. It’s the very reason they want the agenda enacted.
Granville is a perfect target for the bigots as it is also home of–gasp!–a fine liberal arts university in Denison! Those awful leftist professors!!
It even produced Hollywood liberal Jennifer Garner!!
And druggie and liar James Frey!! (I don’t mean to downplay what he did do wrong but I had to laugh at some of the self-righteous criticism of Frey; every memoir makes stuff up and it’s naive to think otherwise, it’s just that Frey made the unfortunate mistake of making stuff up that could be easily checked, i.e. his arrest record.)
“Let’s just say that he shouldn’t cast stones, as his son was convicted on a child pornography charge.”
LOL, reminiscent of how Scott Heldreth, one of the Operation Rescue/Save America protestors who led the efforts to “save” Terri Schiavo and is also active in anti-abortion efforts…is a convicted rapist, who failed to register when he changed states. AND he let his 10-year-old son get arrested during the Schiavo incident.
“Once you dip your toe into the pool of sin, especially sexual sin, there is a magnetism that will not let go.”
That really says it all, doesn’t it?
Let me put it this way: The straight guys I know who visit the Gay Pride parade do not describe it as having “a magnetism that will not let go.”
In Maryland, there is (or was on my last look) a specific statute criminalizing the disruption of a worship service. While I don’t know that I favor such statutes (meaning a special one for church services as opposed to generalized disorderly conduct), Ohio may have something similar.
Scott Heldreth … (laughing). Even leaving aside the base creepiness to send your own 10 year old to be arrested you have to be a special type of slimeball (part laughable, part worthy of dropping down a deep hole), to ascribe your being a rapist to
Take a look at the guy’s sex offender registry. It just screams out “lady, make sure that you’re armed”.Darwin :
“Once you dip your toe into the pool of sin, especially sexual sin, there is a magnetism that will not let go.”
That attitude sounds awfully familiar. Hmmmm..
http://youtube.com/watch?v=NidUG88wY4o
That said, I think the good news to take away from this is that interrupting a church’s service to spread your own message of hate is likely to backfire. I don’t know any christians who appreciate having outsiders come into their church and chide them for their beliefs.
Beat. We describe it as a beat that will not let go.And, depending on how dark it is, we may also describe it as a Bear that will not let go.
Ban them from inside the church and charge them with trespassing the next time they show up. If they have a problem with the preaching at a church, they can picket outside on public property like decent folk.
6079–not only that, he was a transient unemployed bum at the time he decided to wander into Ohio U and carry through with Darwinism. Isn’t being an unemployed bum like the cardinal GOP sin?
I think a lot of homobigots envy the “freedom” they think homosexuals have in expressing their sexuality. They see homosexuals as having no guilt (cause they’re so depraved) and envy that. Plus there is the fact that strong gender roles interfer with relating to people of the opposite sex. This is especially true if you’re a man and you see women as inferior. Homosexuals can actually have sex with someone they relate to! Of course, heterosexual can have guilt-free sex with someone they’re related to, not to mention homosexuals don’t have it that easy.
I think that Pesto’s instincts are correct. The authoritarian personality, as I understand them, is outer directed. They need outside checks on their behavior because they have not internalized their morality. It all comes from the outside. Everything is external. They have the same attitude about the law, “all that is not forbidden is allowed”.
It’s the difference between being a two year old and an adult.
The Columbus area UCC (United Church o’ Christ) conference office emailed all its churches on Tuesday warning that these assholes are in the area.
My church, Westerville Community UCC, is not the most liberal Columbus congregation, but it’s liberal enough that we figure we’re a possible target. We have several gay and lesbian families in our congregation, although we are not officially an “open and affirming” congregation.
The guys who run the AV system on Sundays came up with a contingency plan if these fuckwads show up in our church. They’re gonna turn off all the mics and crank our choir’s CD over the sound system.
I told our associate minister, who happens also to be my wife, that if that doesn’t clear them out I’m going to do a Jesus and the Moneychangers routine on their asses. She gave me a look which led me to believe she would not approve, but I’m not so good at turning the other cheek so I dunno what’ll happen.
I wonder how they’d like it if someone crashed their church service and pointed out what hateful, intolerant bigots they are?
I thought it was interesting that the Minuteman they interviewed said he “plans to concentrate his efforts on First Baptist Church. He will be outside the church building every Sunday, as long as it doesn’t rain.”
Interesting because that was the church with the female pastor. (and Baptist too..how shocking!). I have to wonder if he doesn’t feel that gives him even more right to disrupt things, being a Holy Be-Penised One and all.
They didn’t say what that pastor planned to do, if anything, in response. I personally would just call the damn police, and not care if someone found it “unChristian.” Her parishoners have the right to worship without being harassed by this numbnut.
Though maybe a better strategy would be to have some volunteer parishoners target him the minute he walks in, surround him, and start praying and singing.
Craig,
They’d probably love it. They could all stand up and shout back at the interlopers, thus demonstrating their zealous devotion to Christ or whatever.
On one message board, I’ve often said that I wished I had a million dollars so I could issue a challenge to those who used the Bible to justify their hatred.
I’d ask them 15 Bible questions, and if they could show that they lived the commandments or the passages was of a higher order of triviality, the money was theirs.
The questions would be things like: “What does Leviticus say about Woody Allen marrying his stepdaughter?” or “When talk turns to School Prayer, do you recite Matthew 6:5, 6?”
Nobody ever said, “Go find your money because you’ve got your challenger.” No one came close.
I’m of two minds on this, being a Quaker. Our folks did a certain amount of disruption in the early days (up to and including walking into a Puritan service stark naked, “just as you stand naked before the Lord’s judgment”).
Perhaps it would be helpful for individual members of the assaulted congregation to step up to individual disruptors and try to engage them in conversation. As individual sinners rather than Crusaders in force, they might be less arrogant and more teachable.
I don’t quite get what the issue is, here?
Does the church not have ushers?
Are the gatecrashers armed, or pro wrestlers, or something?
I mean, any private property or place of business can decide that certain inviduals are persona non grata, and bar them entrance. You don’t HAVE to let people who are disrupting your service stay and continue to disrupt it.
If someone who isn’t wearing a shirt can be asked to leave a convenience store, surely the First Baptist Church should be able to boot these guys, and also keep an eye out for any return visitors.
whew! I can post again!
Oops, I mean relate to, not related to. That’s a big difference there.
Can I post too?
My partner and I attended King Methodist Church this morning as a result of this article. We figured that if it’s so inclusive that it’s a target of the religious wackos, it’s where we want to be. I liked it a lot. The pastor used “creator” instead of “father” in the prayer. There were tons of GLBT folk with lots of kids. I’ve been lazy about finding a church since moving to Columbus, but I’d love to tell those homobigot fuckwits that we came to Jebus as a result of their actions - just not quite the way they’d hoped.
Just Remember, “Everything in Moderation (Especially Moderation).”
I have always thought taking protest to churches was a good idea. Harass the harassers. But I think going inside and disrupting services will create violent reactions. These religious bigots, besmirching the name of real patriots, would probably react with violence if someone came into their churches and did what they do.
The core of dominator culture in a nutshell. We are nothing but whatever some Master or other whips into shape from our unruly and filthy clay.
Oh, when I attended the Gay Pride Fair here in Santa Rosa a couple months ago, I definitely felt a “magnetism”–currents of some kind of energy anyway–that I did not want to let go. I was mainly talking to and looking at women of course. But I loved the whole vibe, and argued in our Diversity Task Force and other such venues at the UU congregation that that’s the kind of benefit implementing our congregational committment to “diversity” and being a “welcoming congregation” might bring us.
I spent a while talking to a Catholic gay guy, too.
At any rate I was glad our congregation tabled there and I volunteered to work at it. Got some cool buttons too.
I figure the churchy homobigots consider us UUs a bunch of hellbound lost causes anyway.
But the denomiation that really showed up in force at the Fair was actually the United Church of Christ, that has congregations in Petaluma, Sebastopol, and Guerneville (on the Russian River resorts that have become a largely GLBT community) and all these were there, each with larger tabling contingents than ours. And they’re actual Christians. The best kind IMHO.
Woo Hoo! One for the U.C.C.
Or, as it is also known, “Unitarians Considering Christ.”