Faith and Hypocrisy

I first ran across televangelist Pat Robertson in the spring of 1973 shortly after returning from my tour in Viet Nam aboard the aircraft carrier USS America CVA66 home ported in Norfolk, VA.  I had a small apartment off base at the intersection of Selby Place, Granby Road and East Ocean View Avenue.  My apartment was across the street from the beach and Ocean View Amusement Park which has since been demolished and replaced with a beach side park.  I was active in a Southern Baptist Church, working with the youth group, that was in the vernacular of the times known as a 'charismatic' church.  One of the young men in my youth group worked in the mail room at the Christian Broadcasting Network in Virginia Beach which is on the Ocean at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay just down the coast road from Norfolk.  The young man took me out to CBN to watch the filming of an episode of Robertson's signature show, The 700 Club.  This viewing experience brought to light the yawning chasm that is the divide between true faith and the hypocrisy of religious fundamentalists. 

Arriving at the campus that is the CBN complex, one had to be awed at sight of the sprawling of staid brick Colonial style buildings that house the various entities that fall under the auspices of CBN.  The campus includes the CBN studios and offices, the Founder's Inn and Spa, CBN's Regent University, various other ministries and services along with Robertson's 3 story Georgian Mansion and his stable of Arabian Quarter Horses.  (you can see a map of the campus here)  As I watched Robertson, who was decked out in a suit that cost more than I made in a month as a Naval Petty Officer, I was rather impressed with the illusion of faith and humility that he created and projected to the unsuspecting viewers of his program who believed him to be the humble servant of God he purported to be.  In reality, Robertson and his minions are overly pious, self righteous charlatans who prey the sympathies of those who view his program and send him money.  

This experience initiated a series of events that led to my eventual coming out and dismissal from the Navy for being Gay two years later in 1975.  Because I had a place near the beach, the youth from my church made my little apartment on Selby Place a jump off point for beach adventures and various other activities over the course of that Spring and Summer before I left on my second Mediterranean deployment that fall.  I had an group of extraordinarily good looking group of young men in my youth group who in the summer wore as little as possible as is the habit of young people headed to the beach.  Believe me, the eye candy was awesome.  However this created a mind fuck for me as I tried to reconcile my religion and my sexuality.  As a 'charismatic' church, there was a lot of hugging in the faith among the people.  This is not necessarily a bad thing, but as a deeply closeted Gay man of 23, being hugged by hordes of handsome young men both at church and at the beach led to many guilty feelings.  The guilty feelings were from the fact that I became painfully aroused when hugging the various hotties among the youth which led of course to some really lonely yet really hot masturbation sessions back at the apartment.  The guilt became so overwhelming that I eventually quit going to church because I could not reconcile my arousal with my religion.  

40 years later, I no longer feel guilty because I get aroused hugging a hottie, nor should I.  And of course Robertson is still pulling the wool over the eyes of his followers while making ridiculous pronouncements on the air.  I have long since my first experience with Robertson dismissed his pronouncements as the bull shit babblings of a bigoted buffoon.  His latest pronouncement came on yesterday's show during a segment regarding the Colorado baker who refused to bake a cake for a Gay wedding.  ( see the story on Towleroad)  Robertson said:

“I think you got to remember from the Bible, if you look carefully at the Bible what would have happened in Jesus’ time if two men decided they wanted to cohabit together, they would have been stoned to death,” Robertson said. “So Jesus would not have baked them a wedding cake nor would he have made them a bed to sleep in because they wouldn’t have been there."

I would beg to differ with Robertson as to what Jesus would do in his time.  If Robertson really did look carefully at the scriptures in their original Greek and Latin, he would have discovered something quite different that what he believes to be so.  Did you know that the word 'homosexual' did not appear in the Bible until 1958?  Many of the Greek and Latin words in the original text are not translated correctly in the modern versions of the Bible.  In the New Testament, there is a story of a Roman soldier traveling a great distance to ask Jesus to heal his 'servant'.  Jesus of course complies with that request telling the soldier because of his faith, his servant would be healed.  In the original text, the word translated as 'servant' is not in fact accurately translated.  The word used actually means 'male lover'.  The soldier wanted Jesus to heal his male lover and Jesus did just that, then sent the soldier back to his lover.  No, Jesus did not build him a bed, but he sent the soldier back to the bed where his lover lay.  I don't think that in any way could be construed as condemnation of homosexuals.  The powers that be could not have Jesus approving of 'perverts' so the translation was changed to servant as after all, the story illustrates the value of faith in Jesus for forgiveness of sin and healing of the sick.  

Robertson went on to blame homosexuals, Marriage Equality and Abortion on the Devil saying:

“The Devil is trying to say, ‘I’m going to destroy your progeny any way I can. If you will kill your babies, that’s fine, I’m with you; if you will deny the chance of having babies, that’s fine too; but I want to destroy your opportunities to reproduce,’” he said. “It’s a very serious thing and we’re not talking about it, and we need to as a society, we have to realize where the attack is coming because it is definitely an attack.”

We as Gay people are not attacking Christians, we believe in the freedom of religion guaranteed in the Constitution.  That freedom also encompasses the freedom to believe in what we want to believe in, even if it is nothing at all.  However Robertson and the other religionists like him are too busy playing the victim to bother with the actual truth.  They are the ones confusing love and hate like the false prophets they are.  None of the dire predictions they have come up with to scare the people into discriminating against the LGBT community have come to pass, so they have to make up more lies to justify their existence so they can manipulate more rubes to send them money.  All too sad but all too true.  I would rather live by the example of Christ than listen to the further bull shit babblings of Robertson or any other bigoted buffoon.  

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Your Musical Moment for today features Joshua Bell's live performance of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D Major, Opus 35 at the 2013 London Proms with the National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America, Valery Gergiev, conducting.  You may also hear Hilary Hahn's live performance of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E Minor, Opus 64 over on my tumblr. 

On display below the video is a salute to denim dynamite with a collection of hunks and hotties in this week's edition of Men in Jeans.  There is also the Hottie of the Day! for further appreciation of the male form over on my tumblr.  Thanks for sharing a part of your Thursday with me, see you again soon.  Until next time as always, Enjoy!