Using the Bible to harm others is hate

Just because preachers don’t come right out and say, “Let’s hate gays,” doesn’t mean they aren’t preaching hate.

Consider the Wyoming Pastor’s Network (WPN). One of its leaders, Pastor Jonathan Lange, recently penned an op-ed urging defeat of the Equality Act. The bill updates the Civil Rights Act to protect LGBTQ citizens from discrimination in employment, housing, and banking transactions. All are fundamental rights. Using one’s authority as clergy to encourage followers to take action to deny them to anyone meets the definition of hate.

I am not trying to offend any of my colleagues. I am just trying to get them to choose words that do no harm.

During hearings on non-discrimination ordinances, LGBTQ detractors claimed new laws are unnecessary because federal law protects all citizens from discrimination. However, when Trump’s lawyers argued to the Supreme Court that existing law doesn’t protect the LGBTQ community, civil rights advocates concluded the Equality Law is necessary.

Among its opponents is the Wyoming Pastor’s Network. Their website endorses the “Manhattan Declaration,” claiming marriage equality opens doors for “polyamorous partnerships, polygamous households” and “brothers and sisters living in incestuous relationships.” Their ears don’t hear that as others do, i.e. hateful.

Cool Hand Luke said it moments before a prison guard put a bullet through his head. “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.” We can’t communicate when we don’t agree on the definition of words. No one likes to be told they “hate” others. Jesus said Christians aren’t supposed to. No minister comes right out and tells a congregation to “hate” anyone.

The word “hate” is like another. No one wants to be called a racist either. Yet, we live in a country where racism thrives. Someone must be practicing racism while denying they are one.

Homophobia is a better word. People suffering from homophobia fear those who identify as LGBTQ. It’s more than fear. It includes the power to act on that fear.  

No one really cares whether you dislike fellow humans because they are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, black, brown, or whatever. Dislike who you will to your heart’s content.

In a free society, it becomes a problem when fear motivates someone to threaten the well-being of others. That’s what the WPN leadership does when they use their position to exhort lawmakers to deny LGBTQ citizens their civil rights.

They call it “Bible-believing.” They claim Christians who believe gays, lesbians, bisexual, or transgender people should be protected from discrimination don’t take “God’s word” seriously. But, they take the Bible so seriously that they lose sight of God’s universal love.

They assert their “religious freedom” requires the law conform to their beliefs, allowing employers, landlords, banks, and others offering services to the public to deny them to the LGBTQ community, contrary to how the hymn tells us “they will know we are Christians by our love” when we “guard everyone’s dignity and save everyone’s pride.”  

The lives and livelihoods of all citizens depend on an ability to find and keep jobs, to secure safe housing, and to participate fully in the economy. There is nothing inherent in sexual identity or orientation justifying the denial of those necessities. You are not better qualified for a job than some of your friends because you are a heterosexual and they are not. A member of the WPN cannot be considered a better tenant or less risky for mortgage or consumer loan than one who identifies as LGBTQ.

If relevant qualifications are not the criteria for discriminating against our fellow human beings, what is? The Bible? That is precisely the case made by the Wyoming Pastor’s Network. It’s also why our Founders thought it critical to separate church and state.

Throughout history, a lot of harmful acts have been perpetrated by those with a Bible in one hand and a sword in the other. If there’s a better word than “hate” to describe employing the Bible to injure others, let me know what it is and I‘ll use that word instead.