Also, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a monumental speech in Geneva, in which she basically broke it all down to the simple fact that gay rights are human rights.
The Obama administration was no doubt spurred by acts of LGBT persecution in such places as Nigeria, Uganda, Russia, and South Africa. In Nigeria, Uganda, and Russia, the legislature is considering laws that would imprison LGBT people and those who support them. In South Africa there is a practice called "corrective rape," which subjects lesbians to sexual assault in hopes of turning them heterosexual.
Naturally, religious-right groups and some of those on the right in general aren't happy with the Obama administration over this new policy, or with Clinton's speech.
Amidst the usual whining about the so-called radical gay agenda, two statements stand out.
One is from Texas governor and presidential candidate Rick Perry:
But there is a troubling trend here beyond the national security nonsense inherent in this silly idea. This is just the most recent example of an administration at war with people of faith in this country. Investing tax dollars promoting a lifestyle many Americas of faith find so deeply objectionable is wrong.Aside from the offensive, real-Americans-should-tolerate-gays-like-one-tolerates-a-dog-that-wets-on-the-rug semantics coming from Perry is the sad fact that he totally omitted the reason why the Obama policy is necessary: the persecution of the gay community in other countries.
President Obama has again mistaken America's tolerance for different lifestyles with an endorsement of those lifestyles. I will not make that mistake."
Bear in mind that this is the same guy who led a prayer rally earlier this year while claiming that America needs to call upon Jesus to save the country from calamities.
Apparently Perry seems to have overlooked the statement by Jesus that said, "For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me."
And then there is the recent statement by Matt Barber of the Liberty Counsel. One News Now reported, "It is 'frankly offensive,' says the attorney, that President Obama 'feels compelled to export American culture's decline in morality, and export that immorality to other nations that are trying to adhere to traditional principles relative to human sexuality.'"
So in Barber's world, is it a traditional principle to imprison a man simply because he is gay and his mother because she didn't report him as being gay? Is it a moral thing to beat a woman within an inch of her life and violently rape her because she is a lesbian?
Barber's statement is a cruel irony when one takes into account that recently, the Liberty Counsel was whining about a Macy's employee who was fired for harassing a transgender customer in violation of the store's policy.
It's a strange world we live in when someone harassing a customer at a department store can be seen as a Christian martyr, but speaking out against violence is seen as an evil plot to destroy values.
It's a sad statement on what Christianity has become in America.
And with all of the statements and vigorous adjectives thrown out, not one of these so-called upstanding morality groups or religious people has said one word about the true victims: the LGBT people worldwide who are being victimized, who are being chased out of their homes and beaten, who are being persecuted and raped, who are being brutally murdered and disposed of in humiliating and devaluing ways.
Oh, sure, some of those folks practically break their backs in their eagerness to rise and talk about the "evils of gay marriage." They will clap their hands sore when some well-dressed charlatan gets them together in an expensive ballroom to go on about how they are being "stomped out" by the radical progressives. And they will practically raise blisters on their feet with their desires to march against their gay and lesbian neighbors being afforded the same protections under the law.
But what about true cases of persecution? True cases of people being forced out of their homes by an evil agenda of intolerance? True incidents of mothers losing their sons, fathers losing their daughters, and children losing their parents to hate wrapped up in a religious cloth?
Where are these Christians then?
The next time any of these folks get together in one of their silly rallies whining about persecution and godless homosexuals, I don't think they should expect Jesus to be there.
He will be in Nigeria. He will be in Uganda. He will be in South Africa. And He will be in Russia.
