First I want to preface this by saying I don't believe all religiously inspired missions to foreign countries are destructive, and I also want to add that it is true that many genuinely humanitarian causes are supported by religious organisations.
I personally am not religious. Doesn't mean I have blanket disapproval of those who are.
But here is the fly in the soup:
This is the start of an article by Jeffrey Gettleman published in the New York Times today:
"Last March, three American evangelical Christians, whose teachings about “curing” homosexuals have been widely discredited in the United States, arrived (in Kampala, Uganda) to give a series of talks.
The theme of the event, according to Stephen Langa, its Ugandan organizer, was “the gay agenda — that whole hidden and dark agenda” — and the threat homosexuals posed to Bible-based values and the traditional African family.
For three days, according to participants and audio recordings, thousands of Ugandans, including police officers, teachers and national politicians, listened raptly to the Americans, who were presented as experts on homosexuality. The visitors discussed how to make gay people straight, how gay men often sodomized teenage boys and how “the gay movement is an evil institution” whose goal is “to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity.”
Now the three Americans are finding themselves on the defensive, saying they had no intention of helping stoke the kind of anger that could lead to what came next: a bill to impose a death sentence for homosexual behavior."
The whole article is here.
Did the three speakers have any inkling that this was a potential consequence of the prejudice that they were stiring up... ? The article is probing but not conclusive either way but...
If they DID... then they have betrayed the spirit of their own faith. And if they didn't, they have demonstrated tragic incapacity to percieve the fricking obvious: that stirring up hate will lead to actions based on hate.
Seriously... stick to saying what a bad idea it is to kill thy neighbour and what a good idea it is to care for the sick and the poor.
Don't go near sexuality. You're not qualified.
As one female TV identity here in Australia said of the Pope and the Archbishop of Sydney's (stupid and outrageous) assertion that condoms contribute to - rather than inhibit - the spread of HIV: "...and who would know better about sexual health than two old men who don't get any?".
"they have demonstrated tragic incapacity to percieve the fricking obvious: that stirring up hate will lead to actions based on hate."
ReplyDeleteI think you could safely say that we have the same situation. I can't believe that these conservative politicians couldn't foresee that their words were not going to stir up a very ugly situation in our country.
"and who would know better about sexual health than two old men who don't get any?" Priceless.
Thanks for stopping by as always, Leslie.
ReplyDeleteAlthough this is expanding the issue beyond the scope of this particular incident... all my life I have hated bullies and petty authoritarians. People who claim moral authority over matters of utmost privacy.
"Conservatism" means something different in Australia. It's more akin to the British idea of conservatism.
They don't truck with vilification or religious fundamentalism.
Hardline American conservatism (at least since about 1950) on the other hand is quite a different beast, far more deeply antithetical to justice, truth and humanity. It's why I have so much interest in it.
There is a cataclysmic set of contradictions in its very use of language:
They use the word "freedom" to rally their minions to the cause of destroying the freedoms of others.
"Family values" for them it often hold not one drop of compassion, understanding or empathy.
It's just obedience, authority and punishment.
They'd emotionally destroy their own children rather than let them be something other than a pale clone retread of themselves.
"Responsibility" for them has nothing of the social dimensions implicit in the word itself, it's just their polite way of saying "hard luck for you chum, not my problem".
NeoConservatism is a particularly nasty and ice-pick cold variation, because it disassociates itself from the moderating elements of old conservatism, believes itself intellectually superior, and wages endless culture war against pretty much everyone.
And they have betrayed your country to the throne of their own vainglory. Demanded lockstep compliance when they ran the fight to protect Americans from terror, and now spend all their energy nagging this administration with their lies and obstructionism.
God they suck.
See why I say I envy you living where you do, mate? If you're interested, here's a video of one of these religious douchebags giving his presentation in Uganada. Shameless.
ReplyDeleteThanks for that link. I only got about a minute into it before I'd had enough, but it was interesting to see.
ReplyDeleteMagpie,
ReplyDeleteI think you are absolutely correct to distinguish between American conservative Christianity and that found in other (primarily English speaking) countries. Remember that the Pilgrims and the Puritans left England in the early 1600's and thus did not experience the religious dictatorship of Cromwell. This left them, I think, with a hardened, self-righteous attitude untempered by the experience of just how bad religious rule could be. Though you would think this is all long in the past, I believe it still exerts a powerful influence on American evangelicals.