Statue of white supremacist will be replaced with one of man who said AIDS is God's punishment

[Behind the Aegis]

The U.S. Capitol may soon display a statue to evangelist Billy Graham, who devoted his life to converting people to Christianity and promoted anti-LGBTQ sentiment when he was alive.

Every state gets to pick two people to honor with a statue in the U.S. Capitol’s National Statuary Hall, and the North Carolina legislature just approved a model for a statue of Graham – who was born in North Carolina – to replace the statue of a white supremacist.

Graham was perhaps the most influential American evangelist in the twentieth century and gave “spiritual counsel” to every U.S. president from Harry Truman to Barack Obama before his death in 2018. Through what he called his “crusades” – basically revival meetings – he preached to 210 million people, according to one book on his life.

But he wasn’t known for welcoming all people into Christianity. In 1973, he said that homosexuality is a “sinister form of perversion” in his advice column, responding to a girl who wrote in and said she was in love with another girl.

“We traffic in homosexuality at the peril of spiritual welfare,” he wrote. “Your affection for another of your own sex is misdirected, and will be judged by God’s holy standards.”

more...

Sounds about right. Let's see if people rage against systemic heterosexism.

[luv2fly]

1. Oh hell no

Franklin gets on the tube around here now and then in a commercial and tells us all to call some number and pray. Fuck him and fuck his father, money grubbing fake Christians who surely do and will rot in hell. "Religious" figures my ass, just more con artists preying on the gullible.

[Alliepoo]

2. Yep-his commercial plays here on occasion around supper time.

There are quite a few ads from churches and religious organizations that air around the same time each day- local evening news time- and surprisingly it’s not on the Sinclair owned station (because I won’t watch that channels news) I never noticed them before the covid “stay at home” order a few months ago.

[BasicallyComplicated]

3. Actually..."Real Christians"

sorry but anti-homosexuality is text not sub text in Christian teaching. Not a fan of those teachings myself but it is orthodoxy. Billy Gram is an complex choice... but most people are. Michael Jordan would have been my pick from NC or the Wright Brothers but Billy Gram whatever.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

17. The Wright Brothers are from Ohio. n/t

[Mariana]

27. The poster seems to believe that only non-Christians can be horrible people.

Therefore, horrible people who are Christians, like Billy Graham and Franklin Graham, have to be "fake Christians".

[ananda]

4. I can't say I'd be sorry if ..

Graham’s statue were torn down also.

[Solly Mack]

6. K&R

[djacq]

7. Where Billy Graham 'missed the mark';

"Graham accepted segregation at some of his crusades, criticized marches and sit-ins, and would not risk his popularity by confronting segregation head-on."

https://amp-cnn-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/02/22/us/billy-graham-mlk-civil-rights/index.html?amp_js_v=a3&_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQFKAGwASA%3D#aoh=15967125198736&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&_tf=From%20%251%24s&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F2018%2F02%2F22%2Fus%2Fbilly-graham-mlk-civil-rights%2Findex.html

[StarfishSaver]

13. Sat in silence as Nixon spewed racist and anti-Semitic slurs

[MFGsunny]

19. YESSSSS! "The appalling silence of the good people" as MLK said. n/t

[ToxMarz]

8. Someone should do one of Franklin Graham too

With his pants half down, holding a glass of Jesus Juice, and his arm around a young hottie.

[Tanuki]

10. That would be Jerry Fallwell, Jr

[ToxMarz]

28. Probably, I don't know which is which

Just that they all creep me out

[RVN VET71]

15. A young hot whose pants were also open

But good ole boy Billy was not only a segregationist homophobe. He also didn't think highly of them jews who he felt were causing the nation to go down the drain:''This stranglehold [of the jews on the news] has got to be broken or this country's going down the drain.''

He apologized for it later -- much later -- and said he didn't say it or didn't mean to say or was getting a bj when he said it, or something equally convincing. All you need to do is look at the son created by Billy's jizz to know there was something un-christlike in the man.

Wasn't Andy Griffith born in North Carolina? Why in hell not pick him, the man who gave us Andy Taylor AND Lonesome Rhodes.

[PCIntern]

9. Clay feet.

I am not at all surprised by this event. I recall my father saying to me when I was fairly young the equivalent of: where the hell do you think you’re living? This is America. This is what it is. Half the people have an IQ in two digits by definition so what do you think you’re going to do? What you do is the best you can, you take care of those around you, you do the best you can at your job, you try to remain stable and a thinking person through all this.

I think he found it unfortunate in a crazy way that people did not get to serve in some corps like the armed services, though he was certainly no warmonger, because in that arena You get to meet people of all backgrounds, of all educational levels, of all beliefs, and all capabilities. Of course he was virulently anti-Vietnam war, He himself had served four years in the Pacific theater, often in combat, so he was no flower child. But he firmly believed in a significant rationale in order to have Justification for military combat, but he himself came of age in the service since he had come from a home which was extremely sheltered in its own regard with respect to the outside world.

He despised people like Billy Graham and knew they were just profiteering from peoples fears and insecurities which of course, they helped stoke. But he understood that this was the way of the world and the nature of religion not only in America but universally. He has been raised in an Orthodox Jewish home And was a great scholar in his later years of history and political science, and he understood the machinations of the charlatans who preach righteousness but live like King Midas.

[GoCubsGo]

11. My dad couldn't stand him, either.

He saw Graham as the living embodiment of Elmer Gantry that he was. It sickened him to see Graham elevated the way he was, as it does me. He was just another con man, one who used people's religious faith as his con.

[Buckeyeblue]

16. I like your dad's advice

I tell my kids all the time that fighting ignorance is an uphill battle. I also tell them complex problems require complex answers. I think a lot of people want simple answers. They get that from Trump. The answers are wrong. But they are simplistic.

It's interesting: I'm adopted. My parents are good people but not overly intelligent. As they've gotten older they've moved far to the right. When I try to explain to them that without my dad's union job they wouldn't have the excellent retirement benefits that they do, and that Republicans hate unions, they tell me that doesn't matter. I frustrated them growing up, not because I got in trouble, but because I thought different than them. It's interesting how nature trounces nuture.

[CaptYossarian]

12. Hate is hate, no matter how it's packaged.

Love thy neighbor? Turn the other cheek? Judge not--lest ye be judged?

These holy scam artists can all go 'STRAIGHT" to hell!

[634-5789]

14. Jesus never said ONE WORD...

... about homosexuality. Not one word, so how does these so-called religious types feel that they can promote what's not in the bible? If they start spewing old testament 'facts', a gentle reminder that they're going to hell for wearing a shirt that contains 2 different fabric types, or that if you eat seafood, you're on a rocket sled to hell. 'Nuff said.

[3Hotdogs]

20. Nuthin' 'bout homosexuality. But HE was good at "Suffer the little children.'

and his messengers sure go after that one, bigly.

[Silent3]

18. Wouldn't Roy Cooper have to sign off on this?

If so, I sure hope he wouldn't.

Besides the horrific example Graham sets as a human being, if the choice is specifically being made to promote his religious views, I would think there are some serious church/state issues here as well.

[jaxexpat]

21. Why not a statue to the "unknown hero"? Or none at all?

Every other candidate carries baggage. When characters like Graham inevitably believe their own hype they no longer try to live up to their lofty philosophies. They get pretty transparent about then. Still the legend lives beyond the truth and people tend toward gullibility.

[OneGrassRoot]

23. Exactly. I've never understood putting humans, literally, on pedestals. n/t

[jaxexpat]

24. yep, a wasteful display of individual delusion and social insecurity.

There are no heroes, only survivors.

[Lonestarblue]

22. No, no, no, and no again.

The Constitution clearly promotes separation of church and state. A statue of Graham clearly puts the Christian faith above all others. Will there also be a statue of Mohammed? Of Buddha? Of Indian gods? Of Joseph Smith? Of someone representing atheists?

Far better to have statues representing ideas, such as equality, rather than divisive figures like Graham.

[edhopper]

25. And he hated Jews

https://www.usnews.com/opinion/thomas-jefferson-street/articles/2018-02-28/dont-forget-billy-grahams-anti-semitic-turn-with-richard-nixon

[octoberlib]

26. He's also an anti-Semite . There's tape from Nixon's

office. This needs to be pulled down ASAP.