Ridiculing Gay Men is not Christlike

Despite that painfully obvious truth, there are those who do so freely and enthusiastically. Fortunately, the chorus of people calling these hate mongers out is expanding beyond those directly victimized into mainstream media that is appalled by the injustice.

An example of that is an op/ed piece in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

Personally, I have no problem with the effort to make church work better for men or challenging men to step up and do something with their lives.....I have a big problem with the guy emphasis when it relies on making gay men objects of derision and ridicule.

Such appears to be the case in remarks made by Ken Hutcherson, pastor of Antioch Bible Church in Kirkland. Hutcherson has gotten headlines for his efforts to pressure Microsoft on gay issues. He has a right to his views -- views he supports with texts from Scripture. Reasonable people can disagree over whether gay marriage is a good idea.

But Hutcherson goes beyond reasonable, at least to judge by the report of Seattle psychologist Valerie Tarico. Tarico, a former staffer at Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center, was raised in a fundamentalist church.

On a Sunday when Tarico was present, Hutcherson was preaching on gender roles. During his sermon, Hutcherson stated, "God hates soft men" and "God hates effeminate men."

Hutcherson went on to say, "If I was in a drugstore and some guy opened the door for me, I'd rip his arm off and beat him with the wet end."

"That was a joke," Hutcherson said Friday, when I asked him about the comment. But it's not really funny, is it?

Hutcherson, it should be noted, is not alone in such statements. In some churches a video called "The Gay Agenda" is popular. The tape shows gay people doing perverse things and then alleges this is what gay people are like, which is pretty much on par with showing Internet porn and saying this is what heterosexual people are like.

An evangelical Christian who sees the danger here is Tony Campolo, who recently spoke in Seattle. In the course of his talk Campolo told a story about "Roger," a gay teen from Campolo's high school years. In gym class and the showers boys would taunt Roger day after day, stinging him with their towels. One day in the shower, five guys backed Roger into a corner. After taunting him, all five urinated on Roger. That night, Roger went home and hanged himself. While Campolo was not among the abusers, he knew it was going on. Today, he holds himself responsible for standing silently by.

"I wonder," writes Campolo, "how many of us by words and deeds, even without being aware of it, have said things that created pain and suffering for others?"

Most of us would have to plead guilty to Campolo's question. I hope that clergy interested in supporting men will think twice about building up some by deriding others.

Some of the men I have the priviledge of sharing worship with every Sunday would fall under the banner of effeminate men, which means that Ken Hutcherson thinks God would hate them. If I wanted to show someone an example of what a godly man should be, however, I would without hesitation point to effeminate males in my church over someone demonstrating the ignorance and bigotry that Hutcherson flaunts.

Anyone who focuses on a man's appearance or the skills he has or doesn't have to determine how God would judge them doesn't understand manhood and is light years away from understanding God. Anyone who let's someone like Hutcherson spew his hatred without challenging them doesn't get it either. Tony Campolo learned from his tragic experience of staying silent, and it's not too late for others to reach the same conclusion. If we are truly seeking to be like Christ, we won't spew hate, and we won't stand silently by watching someone else do so.

Click here to read the rest of the Seattle P-I story. Thanks to PageOneQ for the link.