Ministers who malpractice

Matt Powell, an angry 22-year-old minister, is the latest instigator of violence in a long line of clergy who loathe LGBTQ people and abuse the ministerial profession. His promotion of “humane execution” for our community (see his May 10 webcast interview with YouTuber Skylar Fiction) is hideous and moronic. But it is also nothing new in the Culture Wars raging in the U.S. since World War II.

Mention Powell or any other recent anti-homosexual preacher, and LGBTQ people spring to their own self-defense by accusing their attackers of being “closet cases”— self loathing, secret queers who lash out of their latency in an attempt to harm what they despise in themselves.

Indeed, we know of self-hating gay clergy, some of them powerful and famous, like big-steeple preacher Ted Haggard and Missionary Baptist Bishop Eddie Long. Their bad examples show that angry condemnation of LGBTQ people does sometimes point to psychological compulsions.

The cynical manipulation of contributors by unscrupulous preachers also accounts for the way same-sex marriage is targeted as the bogeyman of the cultural right. Distortion and lies about same-gender- and transgender-loving people have proven to be a surefire way to fill their political war chests.

Read more: https://www.dallasvoice.com/ministers-who-malpractice-10254300.html