Hypocrisy, thy name is Peter LaBarbera

One of our favorite anti-gay spokespeople, Peter LaBarbera, responded today to a letter sent to him by a young man accusing him of hate. This is the young man's letter:

Yes Peter, AFTAH and all other hate groups in America have complete freedom to publish, preach, and teach all the hate they choose to publish, preach, and teach. The Constitution holds for all. What hates [sic] groups such as AFTAH can not do is discriminate based on sexual orientation, gender expression, sex, race, or religion in public accomodations, employment, and other areas of public life. It is really rather simple: in public act civilized, in private hate anyone you wish as hatefully as you wish. I note you never publish nor reply to my rational and truthful letters. Odd, that is.

Naturally Peter pushes a long answer that evades the question. He brings up the usual ridiculous talking points and phrases such as about "intolerant gays," "how dare you attack me when I only trying to uphold Judeo-Christian values," and my favorite, "there are no ex-blacks, but thousands of ex-gays."

Then LaBarbera has the temerity to say this:

Let me leave you with this plea: repent of your sins and follow God. He will wipe your slate clean. Jesus Christ loves sinners, but He does “hate” sin, and died in our place so that we could spend eternity with God, and not face the judgment we surely deserve as sinners who constantly fall short of His righteous and holy standard. I will ask AFTAH readers to pray for you.

Coming from Peter, that has to be the oddest thing I have ever read. I simply had to write him the following:

Dear Peter,

I read your letter to Richard and I find it so hypocrtical on so many levels.

But the main level is how can you tell Richard to repent of HIS sins when you have sinned so many times when you tell lies on gays and lesbians. Just because you don't bring up what you have done doesn't mean God does not see it. To demonize an entire community (and knowingly relying on distorted or bad studies) is tantamount to lying. That makes you a liar. And it also makes you a sinner. The fact that you refuse to address your own sins while judging someone else on their supposed sins makes you a hypocrite.

Face it. You have no moral authority to talk about anyone's sins when you don't address your own.

In other words, before Peter starts praying about someone else's supposed sins, he needs to pray about his own.