CARNAL NATION

Christine Lutz was outraged by what she saw driving down I-30 east of Fort Worth, TX. She was so angry, in fact, that she fired off a strongly worded email that read: "[How] dare you take the scriptures and twist it to fit your needs." The target of her invective was the Worldwide Metropolitan Community Church and its new pro-gay Christian billboards that appeared last week on the stretch of highway between Fort Worth and Grand Prairie. The billboards are part of a new church program called Would Jesus Discriminate, which presents scripture in support of gay rights and same-sex love. 

Rev. Jon Haack of the Promise Metropolitan Community Church said, "If we go back to the gospel readings, we don't find anything within those texts that discriminate or exclude against gay and lesbian people. Gay and lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender people are part of God's creation too." Five different parishes within the Worldwide Metropolitan Community Church, which has a large gay membership, are sponsoring the campaign across North Texas. The billboards focus mainly on examples from the Bible in which key Biblical figures like Ruth, Naomi, David, and Jonathan profess their love for members of the same sex. Others cite examples of Jesus acknowledging and welcoming gays into the Christian church. The public response has mostly been negative.

"There are people who have told us to reread our Bible which is the very question we're asking others to do," said Rev. Colleen Darruagh, with Metropolitan Community Church of Greater Dallas. "We've had people say, 'How dare you take the name of God in vain' and that God hates homosexuals." While many believe that the campaign wrongly and blasphenously twists the meaning of scripture, some, like Pastor Sam Dennis of Parkway Hills Baptist Church, acknowledge that it's difficult to find specically anti-gay messages in the Bible. "I'm hard pressed to find that scripture advocates that it's alright to live in a gay lifestyle. Just like I'm hard pressed to find that scripture advocates that's it's alright to live in an adulterous relationship or as a wife abuser or as a murderer," he told reporters. At least, that's a start. The billboards will be up throughout the month of September. We hope that's long enough to make some inroads into some twisted hate.