Leopards and spots

The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) just can’t help itself: It is what it is—and was. It just can’t change.

The venerable SBC has just denounced marriage equality, but if course they went further, pontificating that, "We deny that the effort to legalize 'same-sex marriage' qualifies as a civil rights issue since homosexuality does not qualify as a class meriting special protections, like race and gender."

Well, fuck you, Southern Baptist Convention. Need I remind you that you only exist because you wanted to promote slavery? Need I remind you that ALL of your ordained positions are available to men only? Need I remind you that you are, by history and by your record, racist, sexist and homophobic? Do I really need to remind you to deal to your own history and nature before you dare to judge others?

The SBC seems to think that by installing a Black man as its president that it somehow proves that its pro-slavery past is behind it. I’m not buying it. A bigoted leopard does not change its spots.

IF—and that’s a very large if—the SBC had kept its illogical gymnastics to itself, within its own church, I couldn’t possibly have cared less. What a church decides to pretend is true is none of my business UNTIL they decide to enter the public sphere to influence public policy: Then they surrender all rights to be above criticism.

The SBC has declared that they are the sworn enemies of GLBT Americans. They are wrong in every way possible, theologically as well as politically, and that’s obvious to all sentient beings. But what annoys me so much about them is that they’ve hoodwinked some Black Americans into buying into the white rightwing meme about gay people not being worthy of human rights protections.

Some three months ago, I wrote about how the SBC was looking to rebrand itself to try and escape its racist past, It’s now clear that effort is doomed to fail. The Southern Baptist Convention cannot help but be what it is: Racist, sexist and homophobic. It’s well past time for it to fade away or, at the very least, for civilised society to carry on as if it doesn’t even exist.