You remind me of a rather jaw-dropping conversation that's been happening on Twitter over the last couple days. The American Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican who has a very poor legislative track record on LGBTQ civil rights, got into a dispute with a fairly well known Evangelical Christian pastor – and the results have been illuminating and bizarre.
It all started when Cruz tweeted to say he opposes the new law in Uganda that imposes life in prison and in some cases the death penalty for gay people.
He used pretty strong language to say the law is wrong and needs to be opposed — which was a little surprising because that's not something you would normally expect from a Republican.
Then that well-known Evangelical pastor kicked in to school Ted, to tell him that if he opposes the Uganda law, then he opposes God himself —because God decreed the death penalty for gay people.
Ted replied pretty sensibly, sounding almost like a liberal Christian, explaining why the pastor's theology is wrong.
That was startling to see.
The pastor backed off a little, saying (in essence) that he doesn't actually want anyone to kill gay people, just to agree that God wants gay people killed.
Which ... I as a gay person, sitting there watching the conversation, didn't find very amusing.
Nor did I enjoy the hundreds of comments by American Christians insisting that gay people deserve the death penalty. Plenty of people argued otherwise, but I was struck by the emotional magnitude of the Christians arguing for my death. They're just furious. They're absolutely emotionally invested in that theology. It clearly means so much to them. They're horrified that anyone would challenge the theology.
They remind me why my instinct is to hate Christians.
It takes a lot of effort, a lot of conscious diligence, to remind myself that not all Christians are horrible people.
I just can't understand why the majority of Christians are so cruel, what it is about the religion that makes most Christians value such violent theologies.
But as I sat there reading comment after comment that effectively called for my death, I couldn't doubt the reality.
(And, of course, the actual law in Uganda passed in response to Christian arguments. Even the Christian Post in the United States printed an editorial supporting the law on Christian principles.)
Ted Cruz's opposition, however, gives me hope that a turning point is coming. The fact that he could push back pretty hard against Christian cruelty is at least interesting.
