THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD
(apologies to Keith Olbermann)
Rev. Sean Harris
During his 55-minute sermon, Harris repeatedly called on worshipers to “squash” their son’s “girlish behavior,” and “give him a good punch” if he starts “acting like a female.” Same goes for daughters who start “acting too butch.”
Christianity has been used (as have most religions) to justify all manner of arguably inhuman behavior: war, oppression, murder, and torture come immediately to mind. It’s interesting watching the lengths that some will go to twist their faith into something almost unrecognizable in order to give their poor behavior a patina of righteousness.
Rev. Sean Harris, senior pastor at Berean Baptist Church in Fayetteville, NC, just managed to plumb new depths in this arena. He used his flavor of Christianity and his fear of all things Gay to justify, and even advocate for, child abuse. To the good Reverend’s way of thinking, boys displaying “effeminate” behavior should be beaten. The same goes for girls behaving in a manner that might be deemed “butch.”
North Carolina at the moment is at the center of the anti-gay movement, with a proposed gay-marriage ban called “Amendment One” on the ballot there. That the residents of a state are about to vote on enshrining hatred and discrimination in their state’s constitution is bad enough. Making matters worse are zealots like Harris, who evidently will go to any length to marginalize Teh Gayz and ensure they remain second-class citizens in North Carolina.
The blow-back has forced Harris to backpedal a bit, though he’s hardly apologized for advocating child abuse. It’s clear he recognizes that his remarks were egregiously offensive, because he “cleaned up” the transcript of his sermon after it went viral. Using the Mitt Romney defense (“That’s not the language I would have used”) argument, Harris only succeeded in making himself look worse.
His defense of the moment? It’s what Jesus would have done.
It’s not God I have a problem with (assuming She even exists). It’s his fan club that makes me want to toss my breakfast. Whatever happened to charity and tolerance? Or did y’all not bother to read that part of your Bibles??
