This time it’s Minnesota pastor Tom Brock who last year blamed a tornado that damaged a convention center and church on ELCA’s “decision to accept homosexual relationships and ordain gay ministers in monogamous relationships.”
Damn, at this point I’d be more surprised if these guys didn’t turn out to be gay.
He must have been talking about himself then 
The only thing I’m really surprised about any more is that these guys keep getting caught. I’m not at all surprised that their vocal antigay sentiments are due to a fear of their own homosexuality.
I don’t think the way that they got the story was right; the reporter attended a support group without identifying himself as a reporter, and violated the confidentiality of the group.
You know, I didn’t much like this article, nor do I think it portrays hypocrisy in the way that you are implying.
What I don’t like about the article is that meetings that were surely intended to be confidential (it is not clear why the writer was there, presumably it was not to fight his own gay feelings) were written about and published in order to further a political point. I call that a breach of trust on the part of the writer, and anyone in that organization who facilitated the article.
The reason I don’t think it portrays hypocrisy is that Brock’s beliefs (Neanderthal as they are) are apparently sincerely held. He attends these weekly meetings, apparently, to honestly fight his gay feelings, which he believes are bad and that it would be wrong to act on them. He is not in denial that he has the feelings, but he apparently believes that it would be a bad thing for individuals and for society if gay rights were more broadly recognized. He would apparently be happier if he were not attracted to men.
So the man is a poor, deceived idiot, but not a hypocrite. The writer is a jerk who makes me embarrased to be even slightly associated with him in the gay community.
Roddy
We’re all dancing around the real issue here: That Lutheran pastor was attending a Catholic gay-chastity group! :mad:
Yes. Thank you, thank you, THANK you, for understanding and using the word hypocrite correctly.
I’m still waiting for Fred Phelps to be outed.
It’s one thing to out someone preaching/legislating/whatever against gay rights if they’re also out hitting the gay clubs and picking up dates, but this guy is obviously (and wrongly) extremely torn up about his feelings. Outing can be pretty controversial, especially in cases where there isn’t any real solid evidence of actual hypocritical behavior, and so instances like this don’t help a lot.
Is it Lutheran church policy (not ELCA, but his branch) to remove “non-practicing” gay pastors? He did admit to some kind of indiscretion in the meeting but we didn’t get any detail on that. However, if even wannabe-straight gays aren’t allowed as pastors then he is being hypocritical.
Ironic, isn’t it?
d&r
Is all this good or bad for the gays? On one hand, it makes all these anti-gay crusaders look foolish. On the other hand, it’s beginning to look like this whole gay/anti-gay conflict is actually just a civil war among the gays, with us ambivalent heterosexuals caught in the middle. If all the anti-gay hatred actually comes from closeted gays, and anti-gay hatred is bad, doesn’t that reflect poorly on the gays? I’m confused.
I’m conflicted. I see “Gays Anonymous” type groups as misguided. If you can’t keep yourself from seeking out gay sex (outside of a genuine sex addiction), then maybe you’re better off not trying. Realize that God (assuming he exists) loves you no matter what, that (at the very least) a monogamous relationship with someone of the same sex is no sin, and that everything you’ve been told since you were a baby on the subject is not only wrong, but completely factless, and often deliberate lying.
Then again, it took almost no effort for me to give up what little Catholic faith I’d developed once I was out of my parents’ house, so I may be an outlier.
[Blazing Saddles]Bricker Johnson’s right![/BS]
Dear Homo Haters:
It may be news to you, and you won’t want to hear this, but I’m going to have to tell you. For your own sake.
I’m a fairly typical midwestern-born middle-aged white heterosexual male. Having been all but one of those all of my life (the middle-aged one, silly!), I feel myself qualified to educate people on some subjects.
While I’m not really qualfied in speaking on homosexual issues, I believe that I AM qualified to speak on heterosexual issues. And you know what? I have never lusted after another man. I’ve never had to wrestle down the demons of homosexuality so that I wasn’t forced to grab a handfull of beefcake. I have never felt the need to suck a cock to prove to myself that I don’t, in fact, enjoy it. I’ve never told myself (afterward, of course) that I’m not the fag, he is, because he’s the one blowing me, not the other way around.
Straight guys, if they want to help some poor homosexual see the light, do not go to some rent-a-boy website and find themselves a nice, hairless twentysomething. Some ugly gay kid from the children’s home would work just as well.
Straight guys don’t spend their waking moments fighting off a raging to get a mouthful of stiff hard cock. They don’t even spend their waking moments thinking about how horrible and icky it is to get a mouthful of stiff, hard cock. What do they do? They don’t think about it! Not even a little bit. It’s kind of like spending a bunch of time thinking about what life must be like as a Bandladeshi Mud Farmer. It doesn’t even enter my head because there’s absolutely no attention paid to it in my brain.
Now, I’m not saying that I’m completely oblivious to members of my own gender running around out there There might be some “Man, that guy looks good with his shirt off - maybe I should go to the gym more” or “I bet women throw themselves at Orlando Bloom all the time, I wish I had his looks, even if I ended up looking kind of femmy like he does.” There is no “I wonder if he’s cut?”.
If you are experiencing any of these symptoms, or if you find yourself doing your wife from behind so that you can pretend it’s not a woman under you, it might be time to take look around, reevaluate your life, and move away from Homokill, IA.
-Joe
I would make it Homokill, ID. IA has its woo-woos on this subject, but it also has gay marriage. Just sayin’…
Oh no, you used hate speech! 
For some reason I had that shitrag King on my mind, which is why I randomly chose Iowa. If I’d really been on the ball it would’ve been “Fagstab, Arizona”.
-Joe
Nowadays, I always assume that outspoken homophobes are closeted gays. I mean…why not?
Ta, mate.
However, I’m going to change my position on this OP a bit, for two reasons:
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I see the OP did not directly accuse Brock of being a hypocrite, so I was in that sense fighting a straw man. I will reiterate my position that it is not inherently hypocritical for a man who is sexually attracted to men to take public positions opposed to gay rights.
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To be completely non-hypocritical, Brock would need to be open and public about his attraction to men, which could include the steps he is taking to fight it and his conviction that it is wrong to act on those feelings. This is probaby way too much to hope for; it would presume a surpising level of tolerance among his audience, which, if they had it, they wouldn’t be his audience in the first place. So, since he is not public about his true feelings at least in part for fear of losing that audience, there is a significant element of hypocrisy in his behavior after all.
I love splitting hairs, don’t you?
Roddy
Why was this addressed to me? I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make to me