Franklin Graham`s Merry Christmas gay-bashing and Pope-bashing

American evangelist Billy Graham’s son Franklin is hopping mad about the homos this holiday season.

You see, Franklin is upset that the Pope might be giving the-gay too much of a pass, so Graham decided Christmas was the time to remind people that hate is a family value, at least in evangelical-land.

Graham, the son-bigot, not the father-bigot, was on NBC’s Meet the Press this morning, and was reportedly very concerned that the Pope was going all pink on us.  Graham especially took issue with the Pope’s recent comments about gays, when he said “who am I to judge?”

Franklin Graham is to judge, that’s who.

Franklin Graham says God never changes his mind, except with slavery of course, which God was in favor of, but now isn’t. NBC dutifully didn’t bother asking Graham about that little chestnut.

“I think he’s right when he says he’s not the judge,” Graham told Meet the Press. “He’s not the judge. God is the judge.”  Yeah, and we’re to believe that Graham knows God’s will better than the Pope does – why’s that?

Graham added that he’s upset with society, and the Pope, changing their views on the-gay.  “God would have to shift — and God doesn’t,” Graham said. “God’s word is the same, yesterday and today and a million years from now.”

What a bunch of utter lies.  God’s word is the same, always?  Actually, God was for slavery up until the 1950s. Now he’s not. How does Graham reconcile that one away? Did God change his mind on whether blacks should be slaves, or was God simply wrong on the slavery thing from the beginning?  And did NBC’s Meet the Press bother even asking Franklin Graham about this obvious contradiction?  No.

Let’s continue on this track about God never changing his mind.  Franklin’s dad, Billy, is a Southern Baptist minister. Let me remind you that it was only 1995 that the Southern Baptist church renounced slavery – 1995. In other words, Franky’s dad’s God changed his mind on slavery in 1995.

But putting aside the Baptists’ late-found embrace of desegregation, that means – if we’re being charitable here – that once upon a time Franklin Graham’s buddies in the Southern Baptist Convention spoke for God and got it wrong.

In other words, God’s words were not “the same , yesterday and today and a million years from now.”  Either God changed his mind, or Franklin Graham’s buddies got it wrong.

Either way, there’s no reason to pay any heed to anything Franklin Graham has to say, lest the Southern Baptists change their mind yet again on the inviolable word of God.

A bit more on the Bible’s support for slavery, and Franklin Graham’s ridiculous assertion that the interpretation of the Bible’s moral admonitions never change. From PBS:

As we’ve already suggested in talking about the curse on Ham or Canaan, the Bible has been interpreted to justify slavery and racism. Another story that’s been used by people who don’t accept the idea of the curse on Ham, but want to say that there are innate differences that should require people to be segregated is the story of the Tower of Babel. The story of the Tower of Babel has been interpreted as meaning that cultures should not mix, languages should not mix. The Afrikaaners used this in South Africa, the Dutch Reform Church, to justify apartheid. Recently, Bob Jones University used this doctrine to justify a ban on interracial dating. So the Tower of Babel story has been used more often than people realize.

More on the Bible’s justification of slavery, via a separate PBS story. And looky there, right in the middle of the quote, something from a Baptist preacher using the Bible and Jesus to defend slavery:

Proponents of slavery needed to look no further than the Bible to justify “the peculiar institution.”
A common argument for slavery was found in the book of Genesis, chapter 9, in which Noah’s youngest son Ham saw the nakedness of his father and had his brothers cover him. Noah then cursed Ham to be a servant to his brothers forever: “Cursed be Canaan! The lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers” (Genesis 9:25-26). Many interpreted Ham’s curse as placed upon people of darker skin color – specifically, Africans. The argument’s circular logic stated that since Ham’s descendants were to be slaves forever, and Africans were already slaves and inferior, then they should remain in slavery. Proponents also pointed to the New Testament where, they argued, Christ never condemned slavery.

“…Jesus Christ recognized this institution as one that was lawful among men, and regulated its relative duties… I affirm then, first, (and no man denies,) that Jesus Christ has not abolished slavery by a prohibitory command.” –Reverend Thorton Stringfellow, a Baptist minister of Culpeper County, Virginia, author of the extensively distributed “A Scriptural View” (1856)

Some argued that, far from being an evil or a human institution merely permitted by God, slavery was in fact a “positive good” because it exposed “heathens” to Christianity. The plausibility of this argument would survive in the “Bible Belt” beyond the end of slavery, and would be used into the mid-twentieth century as a defense of the subjugation of Blacks as part of God’s continuing plan for their progress from African savagery to civilized Americans.

It was an obvious question for Graham, to ask him about the church changing its view on slavery, and Meet the Press skipped the chance, because they were too busy doing a puff-piece about how holier-than-thou Graham is. Can’t ask the Bible-bigot any tough questions – that wouldn’t be appropriate for Christmas-time, even though Graham is using Christmas-time to bash people he doesn’t like.

Franklin Graham is a bigot, and a not very smart one at that.  It’s time media like Meet the Press stopped coddling gay-bashers wrapped in a cloak of religion. It’s one thing for Franklin Graham to have his own warped views on the word of God. It’s quite another for Graham to outright lie about those views, and for NBC to not even challenge him on it.

And finally, what a hateful man Franklin Graham has to be in order to choose Christmas as the time to send out his message of hate against gays and Catholics.  This is the problem of activist religions like Baptists and Mormons.  There’s so much hate and absolutism brewing underneath the surface that they just can’t help themselves.