More DADT Nonsense

One of our least favorite neighbors down here in South Florida is the Coral Ridge Ministries.  Robert Knight is described as the “senior writer” for the church.  I don’t have a clue what that means, but his writing did appear in Monday’s washingtontimes.com.

His main beef in the column is that opponents of DADT didn’t address the “suppressed facts that could cripple the homosexual juggernaut if Americans only knew.”  Then he goes on to make a whole bunch of assertions.  Some of these deserve to be addressed.

He writes, “All major religions teach…the immorality of homosexuality.”  In fact, only fundamentalist religions, the kind that pose a threat to the peace of the world, teach the “immorality of homosexuality.”  Most Jews and an increasing number of Christians teach no such thing.  Hating gays is actually something that Robert Knight has in common with with most Muslims, a group that he and his ilk also hate.  He should feel so proud.

He asserts that the repeal ignores “thousands of years of moral teaching about human sexuality.”  Let’s look at some of those teachings:

Genesis 12:  Abraham passes his wife off as his sister, allows Pharaoh to have his way with her and, as a result, gets wealthy.  His son, Isaac, repeats this charade in Genesis 26.

Genesis 16:  Sarah forces her handmaiden on Abraham so he can get her pregnant.  Later, when Sarah has her own child, she banishes the handmaiden and her son.

Genesis 19:  Lot, who is called “just” and “righteous” in the New Testament, offers his daughters to a crowd of rapists.  Later on Lot’s daughters screw their father so they can get pregnant.

Various:  Nearly every major character has concubines and/or multiple wives.

Genesis 38:  Judah sleeps with some random chick and has two kids with her.  Then he sleeps with a prostitute, unaware that it’s his daughter-in-law, and knocks her up.

And this is only Genesis.  Lest you say that these are not “teachings,” here’s some more:

Exodus 21:  You can sell your daughter permanently into sexual slavery.  If her master doesn’t like her anymore, he can give her to some random foreign nation, but she can’t go free.

Exodus 21:  You can have more than one wife and here’s how!

Exodus 22:  If you get the hankering, you can go rape a virgin, but then you’ve got to marry her!  (Unless your new father-in-law doesn’t approve – but why wouldn’t he? – then your only punishment is to pay the bride price.)

Numbers 31:  After defeating the Midianites, the soldiers let the children and women live.  God gets angry and tells them that he ordered all but the virgin girls killed.  They’re then told to finish off everyone else but to keep the virgins for themselves.

Deuteronomy 21:  If you take a woman captive and you want to have sex with her, then go right ahead.  If you decide later that you don’t want her then you can just send her away.

Well, I think you get the idea about the thousands of years of moral teachings.  And we only got to Deuteronomy.

The last idiocy he presents is how “John Adams, the father of the American Navy, stressed the irreplaceable element of moral character.”  That’s pretty gutsy considering what Adams really believed:

I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved — the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!

— John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, from George Seldes, The Great Quotations, also from James A Haught, ed, 2000 Years of Disbelief

God is an essence that we know nothing of. Until this awful blasphemy is got rid of, there never will be any liberal science in the world.

— John Adams, “this awful blashpemy” that he refers to is the myth of the Incarnation of Christ, from Ira D Cardiff, What Great Men Think of Religion, quoted from James A Haught, ed, 2000 Years of Disbelief

I could go on and on but I’ve already written too much.  This homo-obsession on the Christian right is easily revealed for what it really is…pure and unadulterated hatred.