Bigoted, hateful Christians: They're not all like that (Dan Savage's NALT)

Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share (MPSIMS)
1

Dan Savage, the sex advice columnist who co-started the “It Gets Better” campaign, has a new project. It’s the NALT campaign. It was inspired by Pat “Vomit” Robertson. Knowing that not all Christians are bigoted, hateful assholes, but that they’re usually silent about it or drowned out by the jerks, he started a web site and YouTube channel called The Not All Like That Christians Project, or NALT. People make videos about their faith and their non-bigoted, hateful, asshole beliefs to show LGBT folks that not all Christians are dicks, then upload them to the site or to YouTube.

As a former Christian I’m glad to see it. Loving, tolerant Christians do their religion no favors when they let the lowlife Pat Robertsons of the world speak for them and their God and their Bible. There are decent people who are Christians. Speak up!

2

Thank God, I can finally like a Christian site on Facebook.

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All the videos I’ve watched so far are good, but some of those videos are really great. My favorite so far is Fred Clark from Pennsylvania (the 3rd video, 2nd after Dan Savage’s introduction). He’s a Born Again, Evangelical Christian and he is, IMO, dead on on how he sees Jesus, loving the outcasts, the ones the higher-up mucky mucks make fun of and condemn. If all Evangelicals were like him they would have a far different reputation. I also loved the 5th video, the mom from Kentucky who has to deal with a ringing phone and doorbell while she’s trying to speak into the camera. She’s very cool.

I have no interest in religion, but I love this project. I love how eclectic it is already, with pastors and regular people, old and young, many different ethnicities, straight and gay (more straight than gay of the ones I’ve watched so far), a wonderful cross-section of people. There are already quite a few more videos there than there was when I discovered it last night. I hope it continues to grow.

4

An apropos Something Positive strip.

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That’s a nice, feelgood thing (really), but who *does *think all Christians are hateful assholes? Christians aren’t some minority that many people just aren’t that familiar with.

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No, but sometimes the only “christians” (small C) that people come into contact with are of the hateful, bigoted kind. FSM bless Dan Savage.

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The hateful, bigoted Christians are a LOT more vocal and obnoxious, which casts a pall over all of you. If I were an LGBT teenager living in a small town in middle America, I’d sure think most or all Christians hated me. Those who stay quiet because it’s such a given that you’re “not all like that” and let the hateful ones loudly hate are condoning, or at least, enabling, their hate. Speak up or don’t whine when your entire religion is painted black.

Look at jesusguy in Great Debates. He’s not getting much guff from other Christians for his anti-gay, you’re-all-going-to-suffer-in-hell witnessing. It’s an entertaining thread but one group is noticible by its absence.

8

Just to be clear, I’m not a Christian. But yeah, there is a lot of bigotry in Christianity. However, most people in the U.S. do consider themselves Christians, and yet we’re (finally) making a lot of progress with things like marriage equality. No one who is paying attention could not know that.

This is the first I’m hearing of the NALT campaign, but it seems to me like it would make more sense to tell Christians to pick a side than to tell others to not expect Christians to go along with Christianity. Just coming from someone who has seen enough Cafeteria Catholics (and other Christians) to last me forever. I’ve known out-of-the-closet gay Catholics who attend church regularly, and other Catholics who were cool with it. To me, that’s not, “Aww, everyone is so tolerant,” it’s, “Why do you people still identify with Catholicism then??” I mean, yeah, it’s better than if people were assholes about it, but it’s worse than making any goddamn sense.

9

Yeah, I go back and forth in my own mind about the “why don’t you just stop being a Christian?” (or Muslim, or, or…) thing – not just in relation to respecting sexual orientation, but many other things as well. I guess I’m just lucky that I was raised in such a way that I never felt a compulsion to identify strongly with a religion, but obviously many, many people do, and as long as that’s how the world works, we’ll need things like Savage’s campaign to remind people like me to not be too judgmental against individual Christians. Not that we tend to be, as a general rule, but I confess I’ve had a few broad-brush-painting moments.

(Blackberry’s logic, I think, is unassailable when considering groups like the Log Cabin Republicans, where self-identification with a group is much less fraught with the intertwinings of self, culture, family, etc.)

10

For 40 years I’ve wondered how anyone could hear the things Pat Robertson and his kind say in the name of Christianity and not scream ‘you don’t speak for me.’ In all that time I can’t remember ever hearing a Christian speak a word against the good reverend Pat. Mums the word, preachers can do no wrong.

So I’m hopeful but not optimistic. What this movement is asking for is for Christians to break ranks and deny one of their own. I would be very surprised to see that happen on a large scale.

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I’ve spoken to many Christians who believe homosexuality and abortion are a private matter between you and your god(s), not something to be condemn by narrow minded bigots who forget that the Bible says “we are all sinners.”

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This clip was my favourite. A couple that adresses the Leviticus verses on gay sex and simply points out that the New Testament says it thrumps the OT.

Cool project. I liked it on Facebook.

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But t is way overdue and I would appreciate it very much.

Fir LGBT’s and non bigots, this site feels like … well, like these pictures must feel to Americans, of Muslims saying how sorry they are for the Libya attacks on the US embassy. Balm for the soul.

14

After Prop. 8 passed here in California, Dominican monks joined the protest marches.

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Is the Fred Clark you mention the Fred Clark of Slacktivist? That blog’s a very good read.

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I have long felt that one of the best things that could be done both for the reputation of Christians and for those being harassed/oppressed by a hateful minority of them would be if the heads of the major denominations would band together and say “This is NOT what we believe, and is not how Christians should act.”

Most of the major Christian denominations (save Baptists and Evangelicals) are not particularly hateful or intolerant. If you got several US Cardinals, Methodist Bishops, Episcopalian Bishops, heads of the Lutheran Synods, Elders/Pastors of prominent Presybterian churches and any others willing to join in and say this, I think it would go a long way.

Instead, we have the very same situation (albeit to a less violent and crazy degree) of what happens in the Muslim world; everyone sees the crazy fringe nutbags, and assumes the vast majority support or at least condone that kind of behavior, when in fact, they do not.

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It is. He’s excellent, and he’s been writing for years about how Christian churches who condemn GBLTQ people are doing themselves a long-term disservice by holding up beliefs that don’t reflect the daily experience of young people (straight and otherwise). When the church places itself on the side of hate and oppression, they repel people who dislike hate and oppression, even if those people aren’t the targets of the hate and oppression.

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Many of those denominations already have issued statements about homosexuality individually, even if they never got together behind a single statement. (But honestly, what are the odds of getting so many major denominations to unite behind a single statement on anything.) In some denominations an incoming pastor won’t get a position until he or she has marched in a gay pride parade. It’s certainly true that Pat Robertson and others like him have gotten more face time on national TV then any bishop of the ECA, ELCA, UMC, or other major denominations, which reflects partially the fact that the leaders of the mainline denomination rarely do anything that would make good TV, but mostly just reflects the ways of TV executives.

As for me, I’ve long disliked Pat Robertson, but I see no reason to make a major public disavowal of him, just as I see no reason to publicly separate myself from Rev. Al Sharpton. Half of the PFLAG groups that I know meet in church basements.

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But this is not true from the perspective of non-hateful Christians (who are likely to hang around with, listen to, and pay attention to other non-hateful Christians), so they don’t always realize what it looks like to outsiders.

I see what you’re saying, and to a large degree I agree with it; but I’m a little uneasy: to what extent is the responsibility for the members of any stereotyped group to have to proclaim “We’re not all like that”?

I didn’t even notice that thread until it had gotten to two or three pages, by which it had turned into a “let’s ridicule the jesusguy” thread, as such threads very often do (not without justification). If I thought that at least one person was taking him seriously, I might have said something.

20

Yes, same one. He says so at the beginning of the video.

I don’t understand this. For one thing, they’re mainly speaking to LGBT people, teens especially, to let them know that not all Christians condemn and hate them, think they’re going to hell, think they’re unworthy human beings, unworthy of basic human rights. Not all Christians want to see LGBTs dead or changed to fit the comfort level of the bigots, living a lie for the rest of their lives. This is a message to LGBTs, to comfort them.

That the message also resonates with people who are sick and tired of the loud mouthed bigots who have an effect on our fellow humans, their self-esteem and human rights, is a by-product. We need to be reminded that not all Christians are Assholes Who Hate.

That the message needs to be heard by other loving Christians who need to be reminded that their voice is needed, to stop letting the bigots speak for them, is a by-product.

That the message needs to be heard by the bigots, to let them know that the confirmation bias they’re so used to is ending, that there’s an alternate view by others who are Pure-D Christians who are starting to speak up, is a great and needed thing, but it’s a by-product.

Second, I don’t understand what you mean by “…than to tell others to not expect Christians to go along with Christianity.” The people making those videos ARE going along with Christianity. Love Thy Neighbor. Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged. Let Those Without Sin Cast The First Stone. So on and so forth. Why is it that bigoted, hateful Christians claim to embrace and speak for Jesus but then turn around and reject most of what he said and taught? That’s not being a real Christian. The people in those videos are, to me, real Christians.

“Go along with Christianity”? What does that even mean? That hate and bigotry define Christianity? Don’t try to change it because it is what it is, so splinter off if you don’t agree? It’s the bigots who need to splinter off and go away.