Friday, October 19, 2012

Religious right leader blames marriage equality for attacks in Libya.

Scarborough
Apparently according to religious right leader Rick Scarborough, marriage equality is one of the reasons for that awful attack in Benghazi, Libya which left four American, including Ambassador Chris Stevens dead.:

In Isiah 5:5, God warns Israel of the punishment which will befall the disobedient nation: “Now I am going to tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard, I will take away its hedge, and it will be destroyed. I will break down its wall and it will be trampled.” And again in Deuteronomy 28:25: “The Lord shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies: Thou shalt go out one way against them, and flee seven ways before them: and shalt be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth.” Like Biblical Israel, America is mired in sin – 1.2 million abortions a year, the assault on God’s institution of marriage, an explosion of pornography, children robbed of their innocence, skyrocketing rates of divorce and out-of-wedlock births, the Church persecuted – need I continue? And yet we blithely go on as if there was no connection between this and the way we violate God’s commandments? Too many Americans act as it the Bible’s prophecies are charmingly poetic, but bear no relation to today’s events? How many more 9/11 attacks, how many more wars, how much more turmoil – how many more Benghazis – will it take before we finally begin to make the connection between our behavior as a nation and the horror unfolding before our eyes?


If you recognize this awful stream of thought, it's because it was the same one that the late Jerry Falwell used to partly blame gays in the aftermath of 9/11:

And, I know that I'll hear from them for this. But, throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say "you helped this happen."


It was nauseating when Falwell did it and its equally nauseating when Scarborough does it.

It's sad when anyone exploits tragedy for their own agenda. It's especially sad when so-called religious leaders do it.

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3 comments:

  1. olandp5:05 AM

    Because nothing bad ever happened before we took forced prayer out of the schools, made abortion legal, or started discussing same-sex marriage. Up until the 1960s it was the Garden of Eden, no wars, no unrest, no crime...

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  2. Anonymous7:26 AM

    How simple it must be where every tragedy and conflict can be attributed to a neglectful, temperamental, father-figure with unlimited power, who discriminates against anyone that isn't like you.

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  3. It is amazing how bad his biblical scholarship is, too. He just picks two random smiting verses, and infers they are about sexual immorality because that is what he is hung up about. But he doesn't go on to Is. 5:7:
    For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts
    is the house of Israel,
    and the people of Judah
    are his pleasant planting;
    he expected justice,
    but saw bloodshed;
    righteousness,
    but heard a cry!

    It isn't about 21st century USA, and it isn't about sexual immorality. It is about injustice. (See also Is. 1:17,21,23-26.)
    Likewise, he quotes a verse from Deut. 28. But 28:15 says "15 But if you will not obey the Lord your God by diligently observing all his commandments and decrees, which I am commanding you today...". But what commandments are those? Just flip back a page or two, they are in Deut. 27:11-26. Roughly:
    * No secret idol worship
    * Don't dishonor your father and mother.
    * Don't move your neighbor's boundary marker.
    * Don't mislead a blind person
    * Don't deprive the alien, the orphan, and the widow of justice
    * No sex with your father's wife
    * No bestiality
    * No sex with your sister, even a half-sister
    * No sex with your mother-in-law
    * Don't strike down your neighbor in secret
    * Don't take a job as a hit man
    Absolutely nothing about marriage or any of the examples of "sin" he gives. The only way this can even apply is in the honoring of parents and the way that might have been understood back then. (How many people in this country think marrying and having children is an obligation to one's family?)

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