Monday, May 21, 2018

Franklin Graham believes 'religious freedom' should be used to justify homophobia, but not LGBTQ acceptance

Franklin Graham exposes the lie of 'religious freedom

Conservative evangelicals are all about "religious freedom." That's the buzzword they use to give a gentler tone to their desire to businesses and agencies denying services to the LGBTQ community while in some cases still receiving tax dollars.  They claim that people and organizations shouldn't be made to sacrifice their "deeply held personal beliefs."

Don't be fooled. It's a lie. A spin. A cynical bit of dishonesty on their part.  Take Franklin Graham for example. He gone on and on several times about "religious freedom," even to the point claiming that Christians are under attack and being "persecuted" by the so-called LGBTQ agenda.  Franklin has even praised Trump as being a defender of "religious freedoms."



So imagine my surprise (or rather non-surprise) at reading the following on Graham's Facebook page today:



I have many friends in the Episcopal Church and I was saddened when I recently learned that the church wants to remove the terms “husband” and “wife” from their standardized marital vows. They want to replace the phrase the “union of husband and wife” with the “union of two people.” I’ve got news for them–just changing their words in their ceremony won’t make it right. You cannot change what God has defined. Through the centuries, people have tried to reinterpret, repackage, or rewrite God’s laws to suit themselves and their own evil desires. It’s nothing new; but the end result is always the same. It’s called disobedience—it’s called sin. And sin brings God’s judgment. All of this is caving to the gay agenda. I read that the Church of England’s Secretary-General William Nye has been an outspoken critic of this change—good for him. More Christians and more people in church leadership should speak up about the sins that are within the church and stand against things that would not be aligned with the authority of God’s Word. Do you agree? The Bible tells us, “the word of the Lord remains forever” (1 Peter 1:25).

Franklin is raising a fuss over the Episcopal Church's decision to do away with the words "husband" and wife" from its marital liturgy. Apparently the church is attempting to be more LGBTQ-inclusive.

But Graham is not an Episcopal, so who the heck is he to put his two cents in? And more importantly, whatever happened to the idea of "religious freedom" that he claims to push so much. Doesn't the Episcopal Church have a right to make decisions on its own deeply held personal beliefs?  Franklin Graham seems to be saying that people should have religious freedom to discriminate against the LGBTQ community, but not to accept the LGBTQ community.

Also, with his need to jump into another denomination's religious business, Graham seems to be also saying that "religious freedom" is simply a less threatening way to say "conservative evangelical supremacy."


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