Warren Blumenfeld wants Franklin Graham to know that there is plenty he can be thankful for right here in the good ol’ U.S. of A.
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Hey Franklin,
How’s it going? By the way, can I call you Frank?
So Frank, I read your March 2014 column in Decision Magazine, the organ of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association named in honor of your father. In your column you took President Barack Obama to task while praising Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, for its stand against homosexuality and homosexual propaganda.
It’s obvious that President Obama and his administration are pushing the gay-lesbian agenda in America today and have sold themselves completely to that which is contrary to God’s teaching. Isn’t it sad, though, that America’s own morality has fallen so far that on this issue — protecting children from any homosexual agenda or propaganda — Russia’s standard is higher than our own? In my opinion, Putin is right on these issues….[H]e has taken a stand to protect his nation’s children from the damaging effects of any gay and lesbian agenda.
As you know Frank, you are referring to last June when the Russian Parliament passed and President Putin signed what has come to be known as the “Anti-Homosexual Propaganda Law” outlawing “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations” to minors. Among its provisions, the law forbids LGBT Pride marches, positive media depictions of same-sex relationships and public displays of same-sex affection, and discussions in the schools. It carries a fine of up to 5,000 rubles ($156) for individuals and up to 1 million rubles ($31,000) for media outlets.
Frank, you think Putin is great? Well, I could direct you to other Russian leaders who would literally blow your socks off!
Going back to the early 17th century, you would get a real kick out of Czar Alexis Mikhailovich who made it routine to round up males and females accused of homosexuality and burnt them to a crisp. Hey, he needed kindling to keep the palace at a reasonable room temperature.
Tsar Peter the Great (at what?) continued the crackdown by banning homosexual relations in the Russian military, and he criminalized sexual relations between males in the larger Russian society.
I’m sure, Frank, you were extremely upset to learn that following the Russian Revolution of 1917, leaders jettisoned the former anti-homosexual laws in Russia. Openly gay and lesbian people even served in Vladimir Lenin’s government. But fret not Frank, when Joseph Stalin took control, he recriminalized homosexuality with eight years imprisonment or exile to Siberia. Actually, untold numbers never returned since Uncle Joe had them killed.
Frank, if your socks have not already been blown from your toasty toes, you may be pleased to know that Russia is not the only place in the world that currently protects its youth from the evils of love and relations between people of the same sex. You might even consider moving to the country of Uganda where its righteous Parliament passed on December 20, 2013 and President Yoweri Museveni signed this February a law criminalizing homosexual relations with up to life imprisonment. You probably like this new twist: the law even doles out punishments to friends and relatives of suspected homosexuals if they fail to turn them in to authorities. As you can imagine, the Uganda “homosexual agenda” has been exiled.
But Frank, you don’t even have to go over the oceans and the seas to find supportive role models since we have so many here at home in the U. S. of A. For example, Rev. Charles L. Worley of the Providence Road Baptist Church in Maiden, North Carolina, during a 2012 sermon, argued for the building of a large fence some 150 miles long to place inside “lesbians” in one section and “queers and homosexuals” in another section. “And have that fence electrified ‘til they can’t get out. Feed ‘em. And you know what, in a few years, they’ll die out. Do you know why? They can’t reproduce.” The Sunday following Worley’s sermon going viral on YouTube, his congregation gave him a standing ovation in support for his directives.
And Rev. Sean Harris of Berean Baptist Church of Fayetteville, North Carolina had the young people’s needs in mind when he loudly and vehemently lectured during his Sunday sermon (April 29, 2012) that parent’s must enforce strict gender role behaviors, their duty before God, on their children:
“Dads,” Harris commanded, “the second you see your son dropping the limp wrist, you walk over there and you crack that wrist. Man up! Give him a good punch.” He directed fathers to say to their sons: “Okay? You’re not going to act like that. You were made by God to be a male and you are going to be a male.” He also instructed that parents should be “squashing that like a cockroach.” He warned that “the word of God makes it clear that effeminate behavior is ungodly.”
And to parents directing their daughters, Harris shouted and flailed:
“And when your daughter starts acting too butch, you rein her in, and you say, oh, no. oh, no, sweetheart. You can play sports. Play them. Play them to the glory of God. But sometimes you’re going to act like a girl, and walk like a girl, and talk like a girl, and smell like a girl, and that means you’re going to be beautiful. You’re going to be attractive. You’re going to dress yourself up!”
Oh Frank, I’m sure you are grieving over the death this week of you buddy, Rev. Fred Phelps, the founder of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas. As you know, he and his followers traveled around the country protesting funerals of fallen soldiers (most of whom are apparently heterosexual) claiming that these deaths are God’s punishment against a country that tolerates homosexuality. Phelps is also (in)famous for his 1998 protest of the funeral of Matthew Shepard, a college student from the University of Wyoming in Laramie murdered in a brutal homophobic assault.
On his website, godhatesfags.com, Phelps made a connection, here linking his own version of homophobia with anti-Jewish oppression. Phelps and company directed their protests a few summers back in my then home state of Iowa against “…the Jews…[who] arrested, falsely accused, prosecuted and then sentenced [Jesus] to death…” and because “God hates Iowa” for being “the first to begin giving $ to little [homosexual] perverts for no other reason than they brag about being little perverts.”
So as you can appreciate, Frank, you have plenty of people to admire. Don’t worry, since marriage for same-sex couples remains illegal in 33 U.S. states and most countries throughout the planet, and anti-gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender attitudes and statutes are alive and well in our country and abroad.
Oh, Frank, you have much to be thankful for.
I personally know several gays and our relationships are fine but that’s not to say that I agree with gay marriage and the overwhelming campaign to normalize the behaviors. I’ve been reading good men project for a while and considering that gays represent a small percentage of Americans, the site seems to give a lot of publicity to the gay agenda. As the leader of his country, Putin has taken a position that he has every right to take. And Russia isn’t alone in this, there are other countries who take the same position and some with more severe consequences.… Read more »
Excellent points
Warren, Putin is kicking Obama’s ass right now. He does what he wants and he and his Kremlin boys are laughing at Obama. The fact is what Rev. Graham expressed his belief in a publication that is widely read by people who share is faith and belief. I read the article and no where does he suggest burning homosexuals at the stake. Putin and Russia’s leaders have right to determine their values and implement those values with legislation. The legislation that Russia implemented was designed not to burn homosexuals at the stake, but simply to regulate public expressions of homosexual… Read more »
This sums it up in a nutshell. Thank-you, To Courage the Cowardly Dog!!
If someone prefers to live under a Putin regime than under an Obama regime, there’s a solution for that….
So what are you saying . . .Obama’s America “Love or Leave it”– Read your history and learn how that was used in another time.
I’m in my early sixties; so, I lived through that time (i.e., during the Vietnam War). I wonder if you would have been (or were) opposed to the “America — Love It or Leave It” mindset in that particular setting. Politics (of both the right and the left) are so inconsistent. It’s just a matter of whose ox gets gored.
I am in my mid 50’s so you know I was in under 10 years old in the sixties. I remember my dad saying that to my older sisters and my sisters mocking it. My point is that it is Ok for liberals to use that phrase when it suits them, but not so much when it goes against them. They are very inconsistent. Moreover, you really haven’t heard conservatives use that phrase since the sixties. So who is more consistent?
Courage, you and I are pretty much the same age. I haven’t heard that term in a very long time. Sad thing is that some Americans are leaving. Something else I’ve not heard in a very long time is “A conscientious objector” which (CO) is an “individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service”[1] on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, and/or religion.[2] In general, conscientious objector status is only considered in the context of military conscription and is not applicable to volunteer military forces. Back in those days, you could refuse the draft based… Read more »