There's a letter to the editor in today's Freeport Journal Standard in which it is falsely claimed that certain pending legislation in Congress would make it a crime for a preacher to proclaim from the pulpit that homosexuality is a sin.
The legislation at issue is HR 254 (details here), which would increase penalties for violent crimes motivated by hatred of the victim's sexual orientation. In effect, it would amend an existing law covering violent crimes based on race, color, national origin, religion, gender, or disability of the victim.
The bill deals only with violent crimes, but the inveterate prevaricators of the Religious Right are warning their gullible sheep that it's an effort to make sodomites of us all or to ban the Bible. Their hysteria is evidenced here and here and here.
These people are the ideological descendants of those from a few generations back who argued that the Bible mandates separation of the races.
(By the way, if you want to drive a homophobic Christian crazy (or crazier, as it were) ask him or her to cite anything Jesus had to say about homosexuality.
(Funny thing, but Jesus never said a single word on the subject, at least not according to the New Testament. You'd think he'd have had something to say about a subject that so preoccupies so many preachers these days, but no. Nothing.
(Yes, the Old Testament has some passages in which homosexuality is condemned. They can be found amid the admonitions against eating shellfish, getting tatoos, wearing clothing made of more than one kind of fabric and other such terrible sins.
(One other thing that makes homophobes squirm, especially the men, is to tell them about studies showing that vehement gay-bashers often are gay themselves. Look at the Rev. Ted Haggard, for example.)
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