Pastor: “You deserve death for supporting gay relationships.”

Got this in:

Dear John,

I am a supporter of gay rights who is growing weary of the battle. In the last 24-hours, my pastor friend has used scripture in public Facebook posts to let me know that I deserve death for supporting gay relationships, and that I will receive the wrath of God for my love and support of my gay friends and family.

I find myself wanting to play the tit-for-tat Bible verse war game with him. But that seems pointless. I am just so tired of focusing so much attention on what consenting loving adults do with their hoo-ha’s. But I feel so strongly about this issue. My pastor friend is making it very hard for me to love him. And not loving is not what I’m about. Thanks for listening. M.

Dear M.,

A pastor publicly told you that you deserve death for supporting gay relationships? If you’d be so kind as to send me that part of your exchange with Rev. No Life For You!, I’d sure appreciate it. It does my heart good to see people of God doing God’s work. And if that doesn’t include wishing death upon anyone who supports LGBTQ folk in their quest to receive every last right accorded to straight people, then my name isn’t Fortineus J. Hockenschnooken.

*sigh.*

I know what you mean about being exhausted with this particular fight. I suffer some of that myself. Sometimes it just feels like you’re wearing roller skates while trying to climb Mt. Stupid.

Which, of course, we’re not. We’ve got on exactly the right gear for this trip—and we’re already so far up the mountain we’re starting to jog to the top. And the opposition, meanwhile, is way behind us, down toward the bottom somewhere–old, tired, unprepared for the hike, their compasses broken, their supporting ropes frayed, forever taking the wrong paths that lead them either lower still, or into the shadows of dark ravines in which they stumble blindly about, tripping over roots, jagged rocks, and each other.

Ugh. What plodding, resource-wasting clods they are.

This won’t at all help, of course, but do pass along to Pastor Deathwish this letter from me:

Dear Pastor:

Hi! You don’t know me. My name’s John Shore.

My friend tells me that you wrote on Facebook that she deserves death for her support of gay relationships. I am hopeful that she misunderstood you. 

But if she didn’t, and you really did say that to her, then what in God’s name is the matter with you? How did you ever get a job as a pastor? Were you drunk when you wrote on Facebook that M. deserved to die for her views on the morality of LGBTQ love?

If you were drunk when you wrote that, then … that’s what happened. It’s understandable. People drink and Facebook all the time. You should never do it, for sure. But I’ll bet that M. will understand and forgive you, if you tell her that you were drunk when you Facebooked that she deserved to die.

If you weren’t drunk at the time, and actually mean what you wrote to her, then you are a disgrace to everything Jesus Christ stood for. Then you are a moral abomination, a huge, stinking, festering pocket of rot on the very face of God. To Jesus you are a dank pit of bottomless shame; you are the reason Jesus weeps, because in place of the divine and affirming love that he literally slaughtered himself to prove—the same love you swore an oath to represent and embody—you insert your own base and toxic hatred.

You dare to eclipse the son of God with the full moon of your own fetid ass. You use your moral authority to insist your sputtering farts are the words and thoughts of God.

And you’re so lazy. If you’re passionate enough about LGBTQ people to wish death upon anyone whose opinions of them differs from your own, then be passionate enough to actually learn something about what the Bible does and doesn’t say about homosexuality. There’s now a ton of solid, scholastic, Bible-based information out there making the case for why the Bible does not, in fact, condemn homosexuality. Read any of it. Read some of it, at least. At least try to be a little knowledgeable on the matter. It’s embarrassing when pastors make clear they haven’t learned anything new about God or Christianity since Thumper Seminary or Lickahick School of Divinity, or whatever, gave them a piece of paper declaring them qualified to speak for God.

The reason I know you’ve never done any real studying on the relationship between the Bible and LGBTQ people is because if you had it would be virtually impossible for you to hold the kind of crazily militant position you so ignorantly broadcasted that you do. The singular miracle of education is that it opens people’s minds. Clearly, you have a mind a mule kick couldn’t open.

Dude! You’re better than that! Get some education on this matter. You can do it! You can … read a little bit, reflect, contemplate, listen to God instead of speaking for him.

At the very least you should apologize to M. for what you said to her. That you can certainly do, right? Of course you can. And I’m sure you want to. You can’t be that cretinous. I’m sure you would like to take back the violent words you said to M. I’m sure you’ve already deleted them off Facebook, in fact. If you have, that’s like an apology—but it’s not. If that’s what’s happened, then be sure to do the honorable thing, pastor. Step up and close that gap.

Act like the man of God you’re supposed to be—the man we all want you to be.

And if it ever happens that you’d also like to apologize to all of the gay people whom in the name of God you publicly reviled, I and my blog are at your service. For that purpose this space is yours, whenever you want it.

God’s love to you—of all people.

Your fellow Christian,

John

P.S. Lemme say this in response to the criticism I know is coming my way for not showing to this pastor proper “Christian love.” Over the years I have written a great deal on this issue, both publicly and privately, wherein I led with love, patience, kindness, and forbearance worthy of Glinda the Good Witch on Prozac. About this matter I’ve earned the right, basically, to occasionally vent. If you are of the opinion that what I’ve written here is too harsh, then all I can say is that I wish you could see half the emails I get from young gay people who have been bullied and harassed for being gay that they’re thinking of committing suicide.