(Ben Torres/AP)
Usually I don’t participate in the back-and-forth of an election season, because it’s draining, and because it doesn’t really matter to me who the GOP nominee is: I’m not voting for them. I found this piece to be too awesome to pass up, however. The bishop Gene Robinson, the man who gave an invocation at President Obama’s inauguration kicking off the event, schools Rick Perry on his viciously anti-gay campaign ad – you know, the one people in Perry’s own campaign hated.
Robinson says:
The governor begins this 30 second spot with “I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a Christian.” He goes on to say things that Christians should be ashamed of him for.
But it gets better:
The blood of gay and lesbian soldiers flows as readily and as redly as that of other young Americans fighting in Afghanistan, yet Gov. Perry feels free to use them as political cannon fodder for his campaign. In an attempt to garner conservative Christian votes, he would stigmatize these brave young men and women who are, as we speak, risking their lives on our behalf. If this is patriotism, count me out!
Perry, like most of the current Republican field, thinks that running an anti-gay platform is going to be successful in 2012. There’s ample evidence that this is not only not paying off, but it is also damaging and fracturing Republicans and many Americans.
Robinson, like a lot of Christians, sees this as a dangerous attack on his religion and as a distortion of something that was made to be beautiful and that is based on a commitment to human rights and respect for everyone. Catholics and even young evangelicals are increasingly more supportive of gay rights, and increasingly more at odds with scripture and church doctrine. Continue reading
