Franklin Graham appeared on Fox News Tuesday night to claim that he is not homophobic. He has been getting a lot of negative attention due to his attempt to provide help in New York during the coronavirus pandemic. And adding catches to his help:
According to Religion News Services.
On a group of LGBTQ activists stood several yards away from the Samaritan’s Purse field hospital on the East Meadow lawn and blasted city and state officials and Mount Sinai Hospital for partnering with the evangelical humanitarian relief organization treating overflow patients suffering from the coronavirus.. . . The LGBTQ coalition is the latest in a series of barbs aimed at Samaritan’s Purse since it opened a 68-bed field hospital in Central Park two weeks ago. The conflict pits the country’s growing acceptance of LBGTQ rights with the conservative values of a premier evangelical relief organization. The hospital is staffed with Christian doctors and nurses experienced in treating infectious diseases. But Samaritan Purse's policies require most contractors and some full-time volunteers to sign a statement of faith that includes a declaration that “we believe that marriage is exclusively the union of one genetic male and one genetic female.”
So on the Ingraham Angle, Graham attempted to deflect the controversy via a soft interview with host Laura Ingraham:
Laura: Why are you being attacked for opening a field hospital?
— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) April 15, 2020
Franklin Graham: We believe marriage is between a man and a woman... We have a statement of faith that we require our employees to sign and in that is a marriage is between a man and woman... I’m not homophobic pic.twitter.com/eE0fv4Ree6
Oh that's so wonderful, except for one thing. It's also a huge lie. No matter how much Graham - and Ingraham - can dodge the controversy and pretend as if Graham is being persecuted, his past statements give justifiable reasons for concern. This, boys and girls, is called a paper trail. Or in common vernacular, I'm pulling out receipts.
In the following video from 2014 - and you don't even have to watch the entire clip - Graham accuses gays of "recruiting and exploiting children" because supposedly we can't have them biologically. And he supports Putin's crackdown and persecution of LGBTQ Russians (which includes beatings, kidnappings, harassment, and open discrimination against the LGBTQ Russian community under a vague and false guise of protecting children):
In the following video from 2014 - and you don't even have to watch the entire clip - Graham accuses gays of "recruiting and exploiting children" because supposedly we can't have them biologically. And he supports Putin's crackdown and persecution of LGBTQ Russians (which includes beatings, kidnappings, harassment, and open discrimination against the LGBTQ Russian community under a vague and false guise of protecting children):
Graham has gone on record more than once vouching for Putin's campaign of discrimination and violence against LGBTQ Russians:
Isn’t it sad, though, that America’s own morality has fallen so far that on this issue—protecting children from any homosexual agenda or propaganda—Russia’s standard is higher than our own? In my opinion, Putin is right on these issues. Obviously, he may be wrong about many things, but he has taken a stand to protect his nation’s children from the damaging effects of any gay and lesbian agenda.
I’m not against homosexuals as people. But God commanded that marriage should be between a man and a woman. And I very much appreciate that President Putin is protecting Russian young people against homosexual propaganda. If only to give them the opportunity to grow up and make a decision for themselves. Again, homosexuals cannot have children, they can take other people’s children. I believe that President Obama (and I’ll repeat, he’s a very nice person) is leading America down the wrong road. He’s taking a stand against God.
In 2016 (you can hear the audio clip from this link), Graham linked the LGBTQ community with Satan and pretty much told people to keep gays out of their churches and away from children:“
We have allowed the Enemy to come into our churches. I was talking to some Christians and they were talking about how they invited these gay children to come into their home and to come into the church and that they were wanting to influence them. And I thought to myself, they’re not going to influence those kids; those kids are going to influence those parent’s children.” “What happens is we think we can fight by smiling and being real nice and loving,” he continued. “We have to understand who the Enemy is and what he wants to do. He wants to devour our homes. He wants to devour this nation and we have to be so careful who we let our kids hang out with. We have to be so careful who we let into the churches. You have immoral people who get into the churches and it begins to effect the others in the church and it is dangerous.”
He has also said in 2012 that gays can't make a family:
Mr. Graham can talk about Scripture all he wants to, but it doesn't take away the fact that he is a craven liar. Putting God's name out there before every lie told about a group of people doesn't make the lies true and it shouldn't make them palpable. If he had said the same things about African-Americans, people of the Jewish faith, or any other group, there would be no question that his statements would be considered bigoted. And there would definitely be questions about the credibility of his organization to provide adequate and fair medical care.
I fail to see why things should be considered any different simply because the LGBTQ community is the target instead of other groups I mentioned. Graham is not an innocent lamb nor he is a victim. He is a self-righteous homophobe who is apparently too ignorant to realize that having a such a high profile includes having a paper trail of the statements you made and positions you have taken. No interview from some cloying, lying propaganda artist (who has a sordid history of homophobia herself) will hide or diminish that fact. Nor will the support Graham will most likely receive from pathetic sycophants praising him for his "Christian" stance and pointing to the imagined halo on his head while holding their noses and pretending not to smell the sulphur and brimstone reeking from his Bible thumping body.
The truth is Graham is sad and deluded. He can live in his imaginary world while receiving the praise from imaginary Christians and having interviews with imaginary journalists. But when all that's done and through, there is the world in which his talk of gays recruiting children are false and LGBTQ family are real and numerous and the rest of us LGBTQ people don't conduct ourselves based upon his Biblical wishes.
That is the real world. When Graham steps into the real world, he is going to have to face us because we aren't going away and we aren't going to take his crap. As long as he supports dictators and tyrants who persecute LGBTQ people while turning a blind eye to violence caused by their edicts, as long as he falsely accuses us of "recruiting children," as long as he diminishes our families, as long as he connects us to prime evil, Graham should to expect to hear our angry voices at every turn.
Because he will.
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