Trump loving pastor gets verbally roasted after blaming Obergefell decision and LGBTQ community for decline in marriage

Trump loving pastor Robert Jeffress gets schooled on marriage

Longtime readers of this blog know that from time to time, I like to refer to the religious right "news" webpage One News Now to point out the inaccurate notions or cherry-picked facts of the anti-LGBTQ industry. On Friday, I missed a doozy.

Apparently, according to one article, marriages are on the decline:

The marriage rate in the United States has dropped to its lowest point since someone began keeping records, and anyone who is not a man-hating feminist knows that is a bad sign for the future. A new report from the National Center for Health Statistics shows marriages fell 6 percent from 2018 to reflect an average 6.5 unions per 1,000 people, the lowest number since the federal government began keeping records in 1867. 

 And guess who or rather what is to blame for this, that is according to Donald Trump-loving pastor, Robert Jeffress. The answer is relatively easy:

Dr. Robert Jeffress, who leads First Baptist Church in Dallas, says one reason for the drop in marriage can be traced to the landmark Obergefell decision in 2015 that legalized same-sex marriage in all 50 states, including in states where it was banned. 

 “Whenever you counterfeit something, you cheapen the value of the real thing,” Jeffress says. “And if you expand marriage to, basically, any definition you want – two men, two women, three men and a woman – I mean, if marriage is what you want it to be, why bother to get married at all?”

 Jeffress points to a turn-of-the-century Hoover Institute study of Scandinavian countries, where marriage was “dying” in Sweden in Norway but 60 percent of children were born out of wedlock. The study by Howard Kurtz, which generated a 2004 commentary by Dr. Albert Mohler, predicted the United States would eventually experience a decline in traditional marriage as the populace embraced a more liberal definition of what marriage means and what it represents.

First of all, the author of the study was Stanley Kurtz. Someone seems to have gotten him mixed up with a Fox News personality.

Secondly, the study in question came under fire, particularly during a 2004 Congressional hearing when, after being questioned by a Congressman, Kurtz made a big admission about his work. I wrote about it in 2011:

In 2004, Kurtz, who was affiliated with the Hoover Institute (a right-wing think tank) at the time had written a theory that said when gay marriage was introduced in the Netherlands, it destroyed marriage in general by leading to more out-of-wedlock births. However, during testimony in front of the House Judiciary Committee later that year, Kurtz admitted he had no proof that same-sex marriage led to out of wedlock births in the Netherlands. When pressed by Rep. Jerome Nadler (D-NY), Kurtz admitted that he was merely making a systematic argument. In other words, he took two events and said that one (same-sex marriage) led to the other (out of wedlock births) without providing any evidence of such.

But the usage of the bad Kurtz study isn't the most astounding thing about Jeffress'  quote in the article. Instead, it's how readers who chose to send in comments called out Jeffress for his nonsense. One the whole, folks commenting on One News Now articles generally act like sheep, agree with narratives that gays and trans people are evil and want children,  abortion is murder, Congresswomen Omar and AOC are subversive agents, and Donald Trump should be as popular as Jesus.

However, not this time. The one other time I can remember readers revolting against a One News Now article was when the writer chose to criticize former quarterback Tim Tebow. This revolt wasn't as explosive, but it certainly came close and was a joy to read. Below are just a few of the comments. (Click on the graphics to make them bigger.)