If there is any one message the Bible delivers, it is the message that God loves outcasts and that Jesus was born into the world an outcast to rescue and renew outcasts from religion gone bad. He was born poor and died poor, yet the legacy of love he left us, the legacy of inclusion and acceptance and understanding, will endure forever.
Real love cannot be silent in the face of injustice.
The Scriptures have been misused to defend bloody crusades and inquisitions; to support slavery, apartheid, and segregation; to sanction the physical and emotional abuse of women and children; to persecute Jews and other non-Christian people of faith; to support the holocaust of Hitler's Third Reich; to oppose medical science; to condemn inter-racial marriage; to execute women as witches; to excuse the violent racism of the Ku Klux Klan; to mobilize militias, white supremacy and neo-nazi movements; and to condone intolerance and discrimination against sexual minorities.
The Bible becomes a dead idol when we call the words between its covers inerrant, infallible, to be taken literally. This is not a dead book. It is alive. Open it carefully because the new truth that might come leaping out at you could change your life forever.
Like the people of Israel who created a golden calf to represent God while Moses was away, fundamentalist Christians have built their own idols to represent God until Jesus returns. The religion of fundamentalism is idolatry.
Although I claim to be a Christian, I live at a moment in time when the Christian faith is being defined by fundamentalists who have dishonored Christ and are in the process of destroying His church. I refuse to wear the 'Christian' label without redefining it.
Doing justice, loving mercy, seeking truth...these are the issues [the Bible] is clear on.
When you stand with the outcasts, you stand with Jesus, and when you despise the outcast, you despise Jesus, as well. Becoming an activist is simply a matter of putting love into action.
I am gay. I am proud. And God loves me without reservation.
Fundamentalist Christianity is not just a threat to lesbians and gays, but to all Americans who cherish democracy and the rights and protections guaranteed us by the U.S. constitution.
My commitment to the Bible [is my] source of progressive values.
The words 'God is love' conclude a biblical warning, not a warm and fuzzy slogan. 'He who doesn't love [his neighbor] doesn't love God, for God is love.'
Creating fear and loathing of gay and lesbian Americans has proven, year after year, to be the most effective say for Dobson and the other fundamentalist Christian leaders to raise millions of dollars and recruit millions of volunteers to support their long-range campaign to take back America.
There's something in the cross that says this is not just about my "salvation" but about the "salvation" of all those who suffer injustice and inequality.
The Bible is not a book of magic. It's a book of mystery. You can't just quote verses that support your prejudices or guarantee your health, wealth, and happiness and demand that God 'follow through' as promised. God is not limited to the words of Scripture. God is still speaking.
It would be catastrophic if one day these fundamentalists Christians gain enough political power to enforce their literal understanding of Mosaic Law.
If I want to read S.J. Perelman's Chicken Inspector No. 23 for the third time instead of some anguished, politically correct saga of a girl growing up in a trailer park in Kingman, Arizona, with an alcoholic mother who makes her straighten her naturally curly hair and won't let her date a Navajo boy or pursue her goal of becoming (naturally) a writer, I will. And I will laugh like a lunatic while doing it.
I am convinced that Christian fundamentalism is a far greater threat to this country than Muslim terrorists could ever be.
It's beginning to feel like there is no room in America for anyone who is not a fundamentalist Christian.
Because of their excessive commitment to a literal Bible, fundamentalist Christians have fallen into the trap of biblioltry.
A few years ago I switched to an entirely different kind of New Year's resolution. Instead of vowing to improve, I pledge to do a better job of accepting my bad habits - to stop worrying about failing to be the person I used to imagine I could be.
Jerry Falwell turned gay bashing into a very successful art form.... the first fundamentalist to exploit the fear and loathing of homosexuals to raise hundreds of millions of dollars and add millions of new donors to his mailing list.
Fundamentalist Christians are my sisters and brothers, my family and friends, my oldest colleagues and coworkers. But I fear their love for the nation has become an obsession to reshape it in their own image.
In my lowest moments, when I genuinely longed for death, I knew that Jesus would walk with me through that valley as well.
We cheer the presence of an openly gay woman or man on television there are large numbers of people in Virginia and other states who see these public affirmations as another step towards the country's oblivion.
