And I thought that one couldn’t get lower than the recent anti-GLBT shenanigans of some Anglican and Roman Catholic leaders. Wow, was I wrong.
In a recent Family Policy Network commentary, group president Joe Glover blasted Virginia’s Attorney General Jerry Kilgore, a Republican, for pledging that he would not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.
Last week, Family Policy Network policy analyst Bill Wheaton and The Family Foundation’s government relations director Victoria Cobb agreed that Jerry Kilgore was wrong to essentially pledge to three pro-gay organizations that he will not “discriminate” against a person’s so-called “sexual orientation.” The Virginian-Pilot subsequently printed a story about FPN’s criticism of Kilgore’s pledge in its 10/17/03 newspaper. AgapePress newswire posted a similar story throughout Virginia and the nation on websites like Crosswalk.com, and the American Family Radio network aired a news broadcast about the controversy over its 200+ radio stations, including three stations right here in the Commonwealth.
Almost immediately, the Attorney General’s office began trying to repair the damage. Their response was priceless. It dealt with every question social conservatives wanted to have answered, except the issue for which Wheaton and Cobb had expressed their concern. It only mentioned that Kilgore did not sign the pledge. Rather, it states, he sent them an agreeable statement. Of course, there’s not much difference between a pledge and a letter that perfectly resembles the pledge, is there? …
What’s interesting about the response is not what it says; but rather what it does not say. You see, most conservatives are already aware of Kilgore’s conservative credentials. They’re happy to see that the Attorney General is doing his job. However, what the response does NOT say is why he has cooperated with homosexual activists in a public relations scheme aimed at making society more tolerant of anal/oral sexual activities between same-sex “partners.”
That’s right, folks. If you’re a Christian, you can have no dealings with GLBT people beyond the following:
- fighting their equality under law or
- using a range of methods — from benign to downright dangerous — to make them change into “heterosexuals” (or to grit their teeth and pretend for the Lord’s sake, if need be) or to convince them to lead loveless lives.
Those are your only available options. If you’re a Christian, you must discriminate against gays — oops, can’t forget to encase the word in quotation marks, because true discrimination does not apply to filthy, sinful homosexuals. Never forget: If you treat gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender people with any trace of humanity, you’re not really a Christian.
So says FPN’s president. And it is disgusting. Worse, it does not sound like anything Jesus would approve. I don’t agree with most of Attorney General Kilgore’s views, but it appears to these eyes that he’s a better human being than Joe Glover.
AF&O correspondent and Virginia attorney Michael Hamar is furious about all of this, and rightly so. He recently sent Glover the following letter:
Dear Mr. Glover,
Having read the story about your comments, as President of the Family Policy Network (“FPN”), condemning Jerry Kilgore on today’s Agape Press web page, it is obvious that you (and The Family Foundation) continue to be unable to grasp certain realities: (1) Virginia does not have an established religion – i.e., your version of Christian fundamentalism – and, (2) as Attorney General of Virginia, Jerry Kilgore has obligations and responsibilities to all citizens of Virginia, including those that you and likeminded theocrats do not like.
I strongly suggest you read Thomas Jefferson’s draft of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which condemns those who seek to deprive other citizens of civil rights because they do not hold particular religious views. The following passages written by Thomas Jefferson say it all too clearly:
“… that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others; … that our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry; that therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right; …”
It is most disingenuous how you and most “Christian” Right organizations loudly proclaim that they are true supporters of the intent of the founding fathers, yet you utterly ignore the writings of Jefferson and others that reveal principles at odds with your own intolerant theocratic agenda. Your remarks in your commentary on FPN’s web site make it strikingly apparent that you seek to penalize those who do not conform with your religious views in precisely the manner condemned by Thomas Jefferson.:
“As Attorney General, Jerry Kilgore is under no obligation to cater to activists (conservative or liberal) wanting him to pledge to say or not say anything. As a Christian, however, he is obligated to avoid even the appearance of evil. In this case, the homosexual lifestyle is clearly condemned in the Bible. (See Romans 1:26-27, 1Corinthians 6:9-11, 1Timothy 1:10, 2Peter 2: 6-10, and Jude 6-7.)”
While Jerry Kilgore and I have differed in our views at times, as evidenced in my letters to the editor published in the Virginian-Pilot and in statements I made earlier this year at a meeting of the Virginia College Building Authority, of which I am Vice Chairman, I sincerely applaud Jerry Kilgore’s signing a so-called “nondiscrimination pledge.” First, it demonstrates that at least on some occasions he is being true to Thomas Jefferson’s eloquent statement of why freedom of religion is essential for ALL citizens. Second, it demonstrates that in this action at least he understands that as Attorney General of Virginia, he has certain duties to all citizens, not just [to] self-righteous members of the “Christian” Right.
I hope that legislators, both in Virginia and in Congress, will heed Jefferson’s statements in Section III of his draft of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom when confronted with calls by the “Christian” Right to restrict or diminish the legal rights of other citizens:
“And though we well know that this Assembly, elected by the people for the ordinary purposes of legislation only, have no power to restrain the acts of succeeding Assemblies, …, yet we are free to declare, and do declare, that the rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right.”
Funny how the “Federal Marriage Amendment,” George W. Bush’s “faith-based initiatives” and other legislation being disingenuously pushed by demagogues of the “Christian” Right immediately springs to mind. I truly hope that citizens, both in Virginia and across the United States, will soon wake up to the serious threat the “Christian” Right represents to the Constitutional right of all citizens to freedom of religion – which includes not having to live one’s life as dictated by extreme “Christian” fundamentalists.
Sincerely,
Michael B. Hamar
Norfolk, Virginiacc: Attorney General Jerry Kilgore, Virginia legislators, and news media sites
P.S. I note that FPN is continuing its smear campaign against Anheuser-Busch, a major corporate citizen and employer in Virginia, on FNP’s “queerbeer.com” link. I am sure this poisonous and vicious web site sends a very strong negative message to corporations considering a move to Virginia. It surely does not reflect true Christian conduct on the part of FPN.
In the right-wing organization’s “Principles Which Govern FPN’s Opposition to the Homosexual Agenda,” the group takes pains to disdain violence against gays. That may be true, but apparently, it only refers to physical beatings and killings. It is obvious that being spiritually and psychologically violent to GLBT people is not only A-OK but expected for “Christians.”
Grateful Dread Public Radio 