A lot of the Alabama LGBT community is up in arms over comments that Rick Burgess made on the air concerning homosexuality and its “level of sin”. Burgess said he disagreed with President Obama’s Proclamation citing June and LGBT Pride month. He also went off,on a rant about his “biblical worldview” and how he was just saying what he believes. Originally, I was upset about his comments. His comments are certainly the seed idea which is at the base of many anti-LGBT hate crimes. It’s the idea that because someone is believed to be less-than by a particular religion, causing them harm is somehow ok.
I posted about the incident on facebook, and joined the “Rick and Bubba must go” facebook group. I even sent tweets to a few sponsors in complaint about the comments.
But as I gathered my thoughts and began to examine the issue through the lens of reason, logic and evidence, I was left with one conclusion.
This isn’t my fight.
Rick made his comments out of his particular religious worldview. He has a right to hold those opinions. He spoke them on his nationally syndicated radio/television show, a platform he and his co-host certainly have control over and rightfully so. Burgess isn’t an elected official. He’s a private citizen using his platform to preach his beliefs.
Don’t get me wrong. Burgess is still an idiot. He’s a common bigot with radio show and those are a dime a dozen these days.
He wouldn’t know what theology is if it bit him in his gigantic ass and he makes wild theological assumptions based on faulty translations of a book of stories and religious rules that wildly contradict each other.
But this isn’t my fight because I don’t believe in his god (or yours for that matter) and I don’t follow his religion. And this debate has simply devolved into what people think their Bible says.
And frankly, I don’t give a rat’s ass what the Bible says about anything, including rat’s asses.
I think, too often the gay community in the South wastes so much time trying to prove to the homophobes and religious zealots that they too are as good of a god-follower as anyone else.
But there are those of us who don’t believe in a god.
And I’m one of them. And I’m staying out of it.
Granted, if Burgess spreads lies about the LGBT community, I’ll be there to call him out on his lies. As it stands now, He’s already calling for his “army” to rise up.
Burgess will portray himself as the victim. A poor soldier of God, persecuted for preaching the gospel. He’s already started and as more LGBT southerners call for boycotts and email sponsors, his power will grow as the mindless churchgoers will proclaim him their icon.
LGBT Christians should stand up to Burgess and tell him why his rhetoric is so dangerous. But I cannot argue with a man about whether God loves gays when I believe his first assumption (that there is a God) to be in error.