Patrick Henry College Provost and Professor, Gene Veith, Condones and Fans the Flames of Anti-Gay Hate Speech

 

Gene Edward Veith is the Provost and Professor of Literature at Patrick Henry College, the Director of the Cranach Institute at Concordia Theological Seminary, a columnist for World Magazine and TableTalk, and the author of 18 books on different facets of Christianity & Culture.

 

Gene Veith is a fundamentalist Lutheran Christian, private Christian college provost/professor, and the owner and author of the popular, religiously and politically conservative blog, Cranach, the Blog of Veith, found on the Patheos blog network. 

If you are thinking of joining any of the many titillating conversations on Cranach blog, be aware of this fact:  There is a certain class of comments that will garner you the immediate ire, flagging (a mark next to your comment as a signal to the owner and moderators that you are a troublemaker), and, with enough flaggings, puts you at risk of banishment from the site. 

And what is this class of comments that will get you in deep doodoo with Mr. Veith, his moderators, and his conservative Christian minions?  Answer:  anything they perceive to be an aggressive insult to (conservative) Christianity. 

However, what if you desire to trash and vilify the gay and lesbian community on Cranach, the Blog of Gene Veith?
 

Answer:  “Have at it, boys!  Say whatever comes to mind!  Nothing you can say about faggots, I mean ho-mo-sex-u-als, will bother the good followers of the Lord Jesus Christ on this God-fearing, patriotic, flag-waving, conservative Christian blog!”
 

 

Below is a sampling of the type of “offensive anti-(conservative) Christian comments” that will get you flagged, and/or banned, on Cranach, the Blog of Gene Veith:  here
 

 

Nils (fundamentalist Christian)—> Gary (agnostic/atheist)  • a day ago 

 

Funny, you ignorantly assert how the blog works, and believe superstitiously that McCain and Todd control everything. How does that work now?

Gary, go back to your blog and stew. You’re a known quantity, you can’t surprise us.
 

Gary —> Nils • a day ago

( Hold on, this comment is waiting to be approved by Cranach.)  comment flagged and hidden by Gene Veith

• I’m not trying to surprise you. I’m trying to shame you by exposing your superstitions and ignorance. That is the purpose of public discourse, my right-wing friends. The purpose of public discourse is not to sit in the public square and congratulate your little group for its “rightness”, stroking each other’s inerrant and pontificating egos.
  Your ancient, “inerrant”, Middle-Eastern, Bronze Age, goat-herder superstitions and Incantations of Doom are being brought to the Light of Reason and Science…and you just can’t stand the exposure.
•  
• Nils —> Gary • a day ago
• •  
    And see this?

    Your ancient, “inerrant”, Middle-Eastern, Bronze Age, goat-herder superstitions and Incantations of Doom are being brought to the Light of Reason and Science…and you just can’t stand the exposure.

    This is called being a d*** for the sole purpose of riling up other people. It’s trollish behavior. If you don’t want to be labeled a troll, don’t do it. Simple as that.

 

• sg—> Nils • a day ago

  Regarding the lines you quoted from Gary’s comment.  I think that the extensive insults and vague appeals to reason are what make the comment trollish. I remember an internet discussion with an agnostic that said he wanted to have faith but was troubled by points x, y, and z, which he elaborated and explained. He wasn’t hateful against religionists and even thought they were happier than he was, but he just couldn’t summon belief. Bottom line, when the person makes it clear that they not only disagree but also hate you because of the disagreement, then it is kind of like the end of fruitful or even civil exchange.

• Gary—> Nils • a day ago ( Hold on, this comment is waiting to be approved by Cranach.)  comment flagged and hidden by Gene Veith

• Stop, my thin-skinned little right-winger. Your crocodile tears of persecution are beneath a man of your education, Nils. Go back and look at all the statements that have been made about my (atheistic) belief system, and you will see that my comments are no more harsh than that of your fellow religious inerrantists.

                 

****“Gary” was notified shortly thereafter, in red print from Patheos, that he had been banned from further commenting on the Cranach Blog.  This occurred after practically all of Gary’s comments had been flagged; after he had received  threats of being banished from “Amsdorf”, the unofficial moderator of Cranach (“Amsdorf” is actually Rev. Paul T. McCain, a top Church official of the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, Gene Veith’s conservative Christian denomination). 

 

Fundamentalist Christian “regulars” of the blog subsequently left comments stating that the reason that Gary’s comments had been flagged, hidden, many of them later deleted, and Gary banished from Cranach, the Blog of Gene Veith, was due to Gary’s “offensive”, “hateful”, “intolerant”, and “trollish” anti-Christian comments.***

However, let’s now look at comments that Gene Veith does allow without any flagging or censorship whatsoever!:

 

JohnWV • 2 months ago 

 

As a group, in comparison with normal men, male homosexuals are more promiscuous, spread more disease, and are convicted of more sexual offenses. In seducing adolescents, they represent gender as a choice. As teachers, or other authority figures, they are skilled recruiters. They pervert children and grandchildren. No regrets. No apologies.
 

Carl_Vehse • 4 months ago
 

With the Traitorobama regime, the percentage of Americans who are gay about it continues to drop…. oh, wait. Are you talking about the percentage of Americans who are sodomites and lesbians?
 

 

coyotenose —>  Carl_Vehse • 4 months ago  

 

Your obsessive need to express your bigoted contempt for minorities is noted.

SKPeterson—> Nomad • 4 months ago 

Let’s see. Being black doesn’t have a necessary behavioral component does it? It is, rather, only dependent on melanin content that the person has no real control over. Homosexuality though does have a potential behavioral component that can be controlled. So, I should be prohibited in discriminating against a non-behavioral and surficial trait. However, I might require that a person who is homosexual to agree to being celibate as homosexual behavior is a behavioral action that I might object to, just as I might require a kleptomaniac to sign an agreement that they wouldn’t steal, or just not hire that person because of their proclivity to engage in theft, another thing I might object to. Further, I don’t think I should be forced to put up with the kleptomaniacs thieving, even if they don’t steal from me personally, just because “they were born that way.”
 

 

thekingscrier—> Rev_Aggie_98 • 4 months ago

It still strikes as more than a little funny that the most vehement anti-gay marriage advocates do not see in themselves the racial supremacists of the first half of the 20th century.
 

 

sg —> thekingscrier • 4 months ago

• non-sequitur
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• thekingscrier—> sg • 4 months ago

• Too close to home, sg?
• You know what also strikes me as funny? In twenty or thirty years time, people will look at bigots like you the same way I and this generation look at the bigots who told black people they couldn’t the same rights as good, god-fearing white men.
•  

sg —> thekingscrier • 4 months ago  

Yeah, you can’t make your case.

Waaaa, waaaa, waaa.

Homosexual relations make no benefit to society. So, society doesn’t wish to support or promote them. Being black is not a behavior. It is not a choice. Got that? Blacks don’t choose to be black and there is nothing unnatural or wrong about being black. It is not a behavior. It is a normal, healthy human variation. Homosexual behavior is not a normal human variation.

sg—> thekingscrier • 4 months ago 
 

Got slavery right. We abolished it. Abolitionists were motivated by Christian religious zeal. Still waiting for the rest of the world to catch up. Atheists and pagans still enslaving their brethren worldwide. So much for your fakelore.

At an incidence rate of around 2%, homosexuality is pretty much just a defect. We shouldn’t look to increase the pain of suffering from it, but it should in no way be promoted or subsidized etc. It brings no benefit to society that other unsubsidized friendships do and has been a significant disease vector. HIV among homosexual men is about 60 times that of straight men according to the CDC. No small amount of suffering there despite being the world’s most preventable disease for those who can manage to follow some simple (obvious) wisdom from ancient goat herders.
 

 

tODD thekingscrier • 4 months ago

While there will be progressive voices in Christianity, the fact remains that your Bible has been the cause and genesis of more misery and suffering than any other single cause for the last 1500 years.

Right. Because you certainly won’t find examples of slavery–whether in the present day or historically–outside of Christian cultures. So whatever it is that’s causing slavery, its cause is most certainly rooted solely in the Bible, and not, say, in some other cultural or economic factors.
But, really, the important thing is that when Christians do good things, it doesn’t count, because they’re just exceptions. But when Christians do bad things, it’s the rule. Why? Because Christians are bigots, that’s why!

And let’s just continue to ignore the fact that legal same-sex marriage is completely unknown in the parts of the world where Christianity is not a strong influence (especially Asia, as well as the Middle East).
 

 

thekingscrier tODD • 4 months ago

 

So rather than address the gross injustices that have been foisted on humanity due to your religion, you simply pass the buck and say others are just as bad.  Nice to see an adult response.
 

(Gary:  “SG” has just made some of the most ignorant, obnoxious, bigoted, and downright ugly comments about gays and lesbians…and “Todd”, who I  suspect of either being one of Veith’s moderators, or if not a moderator, the unofficial “hall monitor” for Cranach blog, says NOTHING about this bigot’s comments, and goes into one of his famous, “Stop picking on us Christians, you big, mean atheist!”

It is really pathetic, and downright scary, that this is how conservative Christian America thinks.  Have these people actually read the parts of the Bible where Jesus teaches how to treat our fellow man, regardless of his social status, and his or her sexual behaviors?  Or have they been spending all their Bible study time reading the condemnations and sexual fixations of Paul? )

tODD—> thekingscrier • 4 months ago

So rather than address the gross injustices that have been foisted on humanity due to your religion…

First of all, let’s be honest and note that the only reason you’re focusing on all these “injustices” is that you’re attempting to use the scattershot method of forming an argument. You are, in fact, attempting to ignore the points that have been made in reply to you by simply pointing at some other thing that has no bearing on the conversation we were attempting to have here. “Oh yeah? Well, I have no reply to that, but … you did something else bad this one time!”

…you simply pass the buck and say others are just as bad.

It’s not “passing the buck,” genius–it’s noting that, if you find the symptom in places outside the realm of your proposed problem-causer, you’ve obviously misidentifed the source of the problem. I thought you liked science and reason. Honestly.

(Gary:  Notice above that “TheKingCrier” has criticized the conservative Christian position, and, criticized Todd’s support for this position, but has not gotten personal or used inflammatory language.  But look how Todd responds.  This is typical Todd.  He goes on a personal attack, mockingly calling TKC “genius”.

I challenge any neutral party to evaluate Todd’s conversations with atheists and other skeptics on Cranach and see who usually first resorts to snark and name calling.  Who is it, Todd or the skeptic, who escalates a good, vigorous debate into a food fight?  I assert that the “nastiness” usually ensues when Todd jumps into the conversation.  Skeptics are not without guilt in the “food” throwing (including myself), but Todd is often the instigator.)

coyotenose—> sg • 4 months ago 

Slavers were motivated by Christian religious zeal also. So much for your fakelore.
it’s very sad that you feel the need to punish people for how they were born by trying to deny them the same civil rights you enjoy. You DO know that’s the definition of bigotry, right?
Oh, you never thought about it because it doesn’t suit your prejudices? Poor thing.

Marriages between gay people increase familial and financial stability and emotional happiness, and increase the number of successful and happy adoptions. Are you too prejudiced to consider this, or are you actively lying? It’s one or the other, if not both.

Lesbian relationships have a much lower incidence of disease transmission and are more stable than heterosexual couples. Do you therefore support lesbian marriage and decry straight marriage as inferior? if not, you’re a hypocrite. Think carefully.

On that topic, don’t lie and pretend that you’re motivated by compassion for gays. Jesus sees right through that.

SK—>Peterson coyotenose • 4 months ago 
 
…Recognizing sinful behavior in people who are born that way – because, guess what, we’re all born that way, i.e. sinful – is merely recognizing that they are human. Moreover, it doesn’t place people on a pedestal or ignore their sins. Homosexuals aren’t special. they get to be down here in the muck and mire of sin like the rest of us. What homosexuals get, that they don’t particularly deserve, is unwonted or overwrought attention from others. This is simply speck and log stuff. However, while we must never overplay the sinfulness of homosexual activity so as to make ourselves look more righteous, neither can we ignore the fact that homosexual behavior is everywhere and always sinful, just like lying, swindling, cheating, adultery and thievery are everywhere and always sinful actions.

SKPeterson thekingscrier • 4 months ago
 

How exactly did slavery end? Was there some big atheist push? Mostly I seem to recall the big atheist movements resulted in things like, oh, the Gulag, or the mass starvation of the Chinese peasantry under that awesome anti-slavery atheist Mao.

You know you’re wrong in your second paragraph right? The incidents of homosexual behavior in non-human species are primary indicators of genetic abnormalities. So, yes, it is part of nature, but it is an aberration. Now, I suppose we could also note that non-human animals sometimes go about killing each other. In fact, it seems to be quite natural and, for many animals, part of the expected pattern of behavior on their part. So, this obvious natural instinct to kill is perfectly fine for humans to do, even to each other. I mean what could possibly prevent them from behaving in this most natural way? In fact, based on nature, murder and killing are more justifiable than homosexual behavior based on your argument, precisely because such lethal behavior isn’t aberrant. Why, we could even extend this argument to note that those aberrant homosexual animals are often killed by other animals or by other members of the same species, mostly because the make little or no contribution to the survival of the species. So, following your impeccable logic, murder and killing of other humans by humans is natural, and therefore good and right, and the best possible target for such murder and killing are those displaying aberrant behavior: homosexuals, the mentally ill, the mentally retarded, those who are brain damaged, crippled, beset my debilitating diseases, anything in short that makes them unable to contribute to society and its perpetuation. Ain’t Mother Nature a bitch.

(Gary:  My god!  Yes, if you are a non-Christian reader, this is how these [fundamentalist]Christians think.  It is truly shocking to read, isn’t it? And it is truly frightening to think that 25-30% of America thinks just like this man.)

kerner thekingscrier • 4 months ago  

“There’s over 1500 different species of animal (us including) that exhibit what we classify as homosexual or bisexual behavior, up to and including pair bonding and rearing offspring…When so many different animals exhibit the same behavior patterns, it’s a part of nature. The fact that so many other animals exhibit these behaviors shows that is a part of natural variation.”

That is without a doubt the stupidest argument that I have ever heard, as if I care whether male giraffes, female hyaenas, or my personal favorite, male bedbugs mount each other. Hey, there’s a great argument: gay men should be able to marry because their moral standard should be set by bedbugs.

SKP has partially beat me to this, but you know what else over 1500 animal species do? They engage in cannibalism, including but not limited to killing and eating their sexual partners and offspring.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C…

So, following your logic, I guess we shouldn’t judge people who engage in cannibalism (even of their sex partners or children) because that occurs in nature and whatever occurs in nature MUST be just fine for humans.

You know, I really wish we Christians were as “evolved” as you atheists, so we could come up with arguments as evolved as yours. Yup, I really do.

(Gary:  Why do fundamentalist Christians always jump to these absurd, preposterous arguments?  If they only knew how absolutely stupid and ignorant they look to the rest of society.  On second thought, I take that back.  They don’t CARE if everyone else thinks that they are stupid and ignorant.  As long as some prophet with a propensity to auditory and/or visual hallucinations in Bronze Age Palestine has written down for them an ancient Canaanite’s god’s inerrant instructions for how they are to live their lives in 21st century society, they don’t care what the rest of us think of them.)
 

 

Rev_Aggie_98—> thekingscrier • 4 months ago

Meh, it strikes me as funny that those who encourage wrong doing finding themselves to be morally superior.
 

 

thekingscrier—> Rev_Aggie_98 • 4 months ago

• Considering you find a book that endorses slavery, genocide, female subjugation, and rape as worthy forms of expressing devotion to one’s deity, you really don’t have a leg to stand on.
  And that’s before you get to the fact your religion’s single “greatest” moment is an act of torture and human sacrifice. If two men or two women or transgendered find love and wish to marry, that is their business. If people wish to engage in polyandry, that is their business.
•  
•  
• Rev_Aggie_98 thekingscrier • 4 months ago 
• Funny I don’t think I read a book that endorses such. But then I understand the difference between mentioning and endorsing.
•  
•  
• thekingscrier—> Rev_Aggie_98 • 4 months ago 

So when your deity commands his chosen people to slaughter all the indigenous populations of Canaan, that doesn’t count as an endorsement of genocide?

When the laws are handed down by your deity, and they treat women as property of their fathers and/or husbands, this is not female subjugation?

When your deity tells his chosen people to slaughter everyone but the adolescent girls who have never had sex, this is not an endorsement of rape?

If you do not believe these things are what they are, and that your deity (according to your Bible) commanded his people to engage in this activities, then it is plain that you do not possess even a small moral compass. You are little better than a drone, obeying the commands of your authority figure. And if someone calls you on it, just remember these words: I was just following orders.

Rev_Aggie_98—> thekingscrier • 4 months ago 


Meh, you know nothing. You seek to shock but I don’t care what you think.

 

tODD—> thekingscrier • 4 months ago

  

Cough Irony! Cough

• thekingscrier tODD • 4 months ago
  You’re mistaken, tODD. I don’t despise any of you.
  I pity you. You’ve allowed your moral compass to be replaced by the ramblings of barbarians who didn’t know the first thing about how the world actually worked. You’ve given over moral decision-making to a deity figure who matches up pretty well with the worst despots humanity has ever seen.
  If I felt you were worth contempt, I’d give it to you. But you’re not. You’re all just so sad.

  • tODD—> thekingscrier • 4 months ago

    You’re mistaken, tODD. I don’t despise any of you.

    Oh, of course! How silly of me! And it’s merely a coincidence that you’ve accused one or more of us of bigotry over and over! (I count at least five times, not including multiple instances in one comment) I mean, I accuse people of being bigots every day! It’s just something you say! “Hey, bigot!” “What’s up, bigot?” “How all my bigots doing?”

    I pity you.

    Thank you. No…thank you. We need your pity. We…crave your pity.
    Teach us, The King’s Crier! Teach us how to derive our morality, not from external principles, but from popular whims with no basis whatsoever–whether in biology or history! Teach us how to ignore our own claimed principles when it involves standing up for the rights of people whose views aren’t currently popular (that would be the polygamists in Islam and fundamentalist LDS circles)!
    But at least I now know that, when you cry “bigot,” it’s not an expression of contempt–of course not!

  • You are so much better than all of us! So. Moral.


(Gary:  Once again, a good, but controversial conversation is engaged, and who starts the snark?  Todd, or the skeptic?  You decide, dear Reader.)


Conclusion:  And there are dozens and dozens more posts on Cranach on the topic of “Gays”, “Homosexuals” with hundreds and hundreds of similar comments as I have copied above.  Guess how many dozens of posts I had to peruse to find the comments listed above?  Answer:  I found them all in only the first TWO posts on this list!!  And how many of these vile, demeaning, scientifically and medically ignorant comments are flagged? 

None.  Not a single one!

One other point of interest:   In the last Cranach blog conversation above, none of the atheists involved in the discussion with Petersen, Reg, or Todd “hit back”.  The conservative Christians started the snark and name calling, throwing the first “punch”, but the skeptics seemed to then step back, kept their cool, de-escalated their tone, and did not respond in kind.  In other words, the atheists turned the other cheek!

Sorry, but I don’t turn the other cheek.  I didn’t do it as a fundamentalist Christian (doesn’t seem to be a popular mindset for fundamentalist Christians of all denominations, from observations of the conversation above), so I sure as hell have no intention of becoming a meek and mild pacifist now as an agnostic/atheist!  Sorry my pacifist skeptic friends, I know it would make me “better than them”, but its not in me.  I’m a fighter. 

So, where’s the ring?  Let me in, to have at these self-righteous sons-a-bitches!

And THAT dear friends, is why I got booted from the fundamentalist Christian blog, Cranach, the Blog of Gene Veith, fundamentalist Christian peddler of anti-gay hate and bigotry:  I punched back and the devout disciples of Jesus on this fundamentalist Christian blog just don’t allow their visiting atheists and agnostics to do that.

Here’s an idea, dear Reader:  send a link of this post to your local LGBT chapter, especially if you are anywhere in the vicinity of Patrick Henry (fundamentalist)  Christian College in the Washington DC area.  Bigotry needs to be exposed, and the people of DC need to know that there is an ugly, anti-gay, hate-condoning bigot posing as a professor of higher education at Patrick Henry College—and his name is Gene Veith.