News Tidbits

UN News Centre: UN human rights office urges Uganda to scrap anti-homosexuality bill

Huffington Post: Texas Pastor John Hagee Tells Atheists To Get On A Plane, 'Leave The Country' 

CNN: Radio preacher who predicted doomsday dies

Pink News: Malta: Catholic bishop says Pope Francis urged him to ‘speak out’ against same-sex adoption laws

Gay Star News: Spanish bishop: Gay marriage leads to ‘destruction of the family’

Commentary Tidbits

Gullible's Travels: On the Side of Religious Liberty

SPLC Intelligence Report: The Ministries: Key ‘Ex-Gay’ Groups

News One: Rush Limbaugh Defended Joseph Kony And Lord’s Resistance Army

Talk to Action: Guatemala's Former Leader Charged with Genocide. Pat Robertson Enabled It.

Dispatches from the Culture Wars: Harold Camping: Still Delusional

Pharyngula: The Child Catchers

Love, Joy, Feminism: Kirk Cameron supports female slavery

Washington Post: Feminism’s final frontier? Religion.

Aljazeera: The real meaning behind Rick Santorum's anti-college speech

The Independent: The God-given dignity to which the Cardinal is blind

News Tidbits

Washington Post: Health, abortion issues split Obama administration and Catholic groups

Kentucky Post: Mormons' and Baptists' competition fuels tension

San Antonio Express: 'A Night to Honor Israel' Draws Crowd

Atlanta Journal Constitution: Shorter University requiring staffers to reject homosexuality

The Advocate: Kidnapping Charge Dropped in Lesbian Custody Case

The Press-Enterprise: California Baptist University expels transgendered student 

Brisbane Times: Inside the 'gay cure' ministries

Huffington Post: 11 Ridiculous, Strange, And Terrifying Gay Conversion Therapy Methods For 'Curing' Homosexuality

KBOI 2: Camping sorry for failed apocalypse predictions

News Tidbits

CNN: Doomsday ministry scrubs end of world predictions from website

Die Welt: Catholic Church Makes a Fortune in the German Porn Business

Toronto Star: Tory MP Who Appeared in Anti-Bullying Video Once Called Homosexuality a Sin

WDBJ 7: Appomattox political candidate admits to affair with underage girl

Florida Independent: Family Research Council tells court to strike down health care reform, claims it funds abortion

News Tidbits

Los Angeles Times: Praying Perpetually to Save Society (article on International House of Prayer)

Associated Press: Evangelical pastors divided ahead of 2012 caucuses

CNN: Bachman implies Cain plan could be devil's work

BBC News: U.S. Bishop Accused of Not Reporting Child Abuse Images

MSNBC: Preacher Harold Camping still says October 21 for end of world

Commentary Tidbits

Colorlines: Where Does the Racialized Pro-Life Movement Stand on Troy Davis?

Think Progress: Texas GOP Rep On Cuts To Family Planning: ‘Of Course This Is A War On Birth Control’

The Wartburg Watch: Homeschooling Hijackers 

Heeb Magazine: Once Upon a Gay... 

Religion Dispatches: Perry Taps Anti-Gay Crusader and "Prayer Lady" for Florida Team  

Love, Joy, Feminism: Vision Forum: Fixing Problems by Turning Back the Clock

Dispatches from the Culture Wars: South Carolina School Pushes Christianity

Jezebel: The Time I Tried To Get An Abortion From A Crisis Pregnancy Center

God Discussion: October 21st Judgment Day Is Coming: The World Will Be Consumed by Fire According to Harold Camping's Family Radio

(Of course, Camping's last prediction didn't turn out so well . . . )

May 21st Has Come and Gone

. . . and we're still here!

The media and blogosphere has devoted considerable attention to Harold Camping of Family Radio Worldwide, who predicted that the Rapture would occur at 6 p.m. on Saturday, May 21st. With outreach campaigns such as Project Jonah, Family Radio Worldwide has promoted its May 21st Rapture prediction far and wide. Fearing that the end was near, several distraught people committed acts of violence, including a mother who sliced her daughters' throats and a Nairobi man who committed suicide.

While most coverage of Camping has focused on his Rapture prediction, some outlets have also taken note of his considerable homophobia. The video below captures Camping's attitudes toward gays, lesbians, and the city of San Fransisco, which he calls a "wicked area".

(Hat tip to Truth Wins Out. Click here if you're having trouble viewing the video.)



At the 2:26 mark of the video, Camping describes homosexuality as something akin to addiction that can be cured through faith.

MAN: Have you ever gotten a phone call on Open Forum from someone who was maybe struggling with--


CAMPING: Of course we get calls like that, and I always encourage them if they become a child of God, then there will be a big change in their character. They won't want to be that anymore. That's just the nature of salvation. That's why, for example, an alcoholic--alcohol for them has become their god. They find that if they take that drink, they can face life. The person who's a homosexual is slave to sex. He can't give it up. It just possesses him. Anything that we are a slave to, that becomes a god. The only way they can get real victory over it is if they have their heart changed, and only God can do that.

The Family Radio Worldwide website features a document entitled Gay Pride: Planned by God as a Sign of the End, available for download at www[dot]familyradio[dot]com/PDFS/gay_pride.pdf. In Gay Pride, Camping claims that the success of the LGBT movement is a sign from the divine that judgment day is near. He cites the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, in which the men of Sodom demanded that Lot hand over his angelic guests for abuse, only to be blinded and later destroyed by God. Camping likens the destruction of Sodom to the destruction of Judgment Day, with homosexuality as a common variable in both eras. Other current events, such as the founding of Israel in 1948, the rise of the Charismatic movement, and the supposed "spiritual decay" in many churches, also herald the approach of Judgment Day.

Lambasting homosexuality as sinful, the document laments that homosexuality has been accepted across the globe as an "alternative lifestyle" instead of being hidden. Before the present day, it claims, homosexuality was only present to a small degree as part of idol worship. God has allegedly given up people to homosexuality as a sign that the end times are approaching.

Camping's condemnation of homosexuality has much in common with other Religious Right diatribes against the LGBT community: homosexuality as a sexual and spiritual pathology that can allegedly be cured, homosexuality as incompatible with Christianity, the Sodom and Gomorrah story interpreted as a condemnation of LGBT people, etc. As with other fundamentalists, the LGBT community was singled out as a menacing scapegoat in Camping's end times eschatology.

To learn more about Family Radio Worldwide and their Rapture prediction, visit www[dot]familyradio[dot]com. For additional news and commentary, visit the following links:

CBS News: How Harold Camping Marketed the Rapture

New York Magazine: A Conversation with Harold Camping, Prophesier of Judgment Day

Religion Dispatches: 5 Lessons Learned from the Apocalypse Fail, Or, It’s Not the End of the World as We Know It, and I Feel So-So

Talk to Action: Harold Camping's Days Are Numbered: A Quick and Dirty Guide to the Rapture

Infidel753: It was just an ordinary day, dumbasses