Does God Hate Fags?

[yella_dawg]

This is a serious question.

The latest idiocy from Fred Phelps has been bouncing around the board the past few days. Someone posted a link to his website, so I clicked on it. I was amazed that the site is actually the site of a "legitimate" Baptist church. I suppose the “church” could be one of those metal shed-in-a-box things out behind the house, but the website was well done and appeared professionally designed. This all adds up to some sort of legitimacy. It's possible that someone takes this madman seriously.

The thing is, I'm a hardline, fundamentalist Pagan. Born one, will die one. Damned glad I am one. Obviously I know dick about Christianity. Well, I have tried to read their Bible a couple of times, out of curiosity. If you actually read the book linearly, straight through, instead of just taking those little snippets zealous little old ladies post in the newspaper classifieds, it's a pretty weird book. I keep getting grossed out by the detailed instructions for animal sacrifice. At that point, I give up and vow to try again later.

Anyway, I don't know a lot about the Christian mythology and stuff, but the idea that the Christian god hates gays is pretty strange. As I understand it, the Christian god created humanity, and one of his lieutenants, Lucifer, one of the higher ranking Angels, got jealous for some reason and led a revolt out in the plane of the gods. God tossed his butt out and Lucifer set himself up in business in a place called Hell. Since then, the two have contended for human souls in some kind of twisted game. Sorry to you Christians, but from the outside looking in, the whole Heaven / Hell thing is downright bizarre.

So as I understand it, god handles the creation thing one at a time, and each individual is a unique item crafted by god. From that point on, Lucifer is hustling to turn that individual to the dark side.

Are gays really immortal souls that Lucifer has turned? If so, isn't Yahweh dropping the ball here? If humans turn in such huge numbers, that smacks of a design flaw. It seems to me that all this crap Phelps is pumping is just a round-about way of calling god a screw-up.

What if people are born with their sexual preferences? I've got quite a few gay friends, and that's the way it looks to me. None of my friends are twisted sickos who revel in debauchery. They have desires and appetites, and that's pretty much that, gay or straight. I swear, I can't tell the difference as far as causes and motivations go. Let me back up. I do have one friend who is into the weird and kinky, just for the kinkiness of it. He's straight. But if people are born with inherent preferences, then Phelps is really dissing god's creation skills.

So anyway, the way I see it, all the ragging on gays that's been going on, whether it's Phelps or some Congress person, is actually blasphemy, assuming the ranters are Christian.

Actually, calling any reasonable sexual act a sin is downright questionable. It's sort of like saying god built automobiles, and you're gonna burn if you go for a Sunday afternoon drive in the country. And if you speed, you are really screwed.

My God simply doesn't care what I do in bed. As long as we're talking consenting adult stuff. I'd be willing to bet the Christian god isn't particularly interested either.

Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if when a Christian gets to the other side, Lucifer isn't standing there explaining that nobody cares about humans' sex lives, and all this sin crap is an hilariously cruel "gotcha".


So. Is the Christian god really all that interested in human sexuality, on an individual basis, or is all this simply an emotional disorder of an entire subculture?