I bet you will, buddy-boy
You gotta love when megachurch leaders and evangelical nutbags say stupid things. Yesterday, I wrote about a “family values” candidate in Virginia who blames liberals and weed for being “in homosexuality” and preying on a minor.
Today, I bring you this little doozy —
In an interview with the Washington Post’s Sally Quinn (who is a bit of a nutbag in her own right; Google “Sally Quinn” and “Bradlee wedding” to read about how this one percenter/socialite used WaPo to air out her family grievances), Joel Osteen claimed he could “love people back onto wholeness” [insert tawdry snark here]. He encouraged gay people to purchase his new book and learn from its message of empowerment:
“They don’t have to let people steal their power, especially all the bullying, things that we see going on with that,” he said.
Calling homosexuality a sin and an addiction, he said:
Somebody that maybe had this certain difficulty now, maybe in five years they’re not if we will love them. You know, I think one of the messages I speak on sometimes is, you know, we can love people back into wholeness. But sometimes we want to beat them down — you got this addiction and you shouldn’t have that, or you did this — I just don’t think that’s the best way.
Think Progress has the video. While you’re watching it, tell me that he doesn’t sound like a man that’s been feeding an addiction to homosexuality… or meth. Or both.
Paging Ted Haggard.
[via Think Progress]
[cross-posted at Angry Black Lady Chronicles]
bleh
Oh please, this is just more “hate the sin, love the sinner” BS. It gives the Christianists an excuse to feel virtuous while they’re being out-and-out bigots.
Disgusting.
KG
these folks come from a long line of idiots that believe sex is a sin. gay, straight, one, two, more… it’s all bad and you’re going to hell for doing it.
scav
How long until he shows up at a same-sex wedding singing:
(only now I’ve got it in Neil’s voice)
Terry
It won’t work, but if Matt Damon wants to come over and try loving me to wholeness…
Tonybrown74
He just screams Clay Aiken to me.
Bethanyanne
I could totally see one of the current Republican cotenders saying this. When I look at Olsteen, I see Santorum.
TheMightyTrowel
@bleh: I totally read your last sentence ‘while they’re beating off to out bigots’ which is probably also true.
Roger Moore
@KG:
It’s not just sex that’s a sin; it’s pleasure. You’re supposed to spend your whole life working, praying, and reading the bible. Sex is only OK if it’s for procreation, and anything else that might be enjoyable- entertainment, leisure, recreational drugs, etc.- is a sin. Living: they’re doing it wrong.
Short Bus Bully
“Hate the sin, love the sinner” is just another way to sell The Inquisition. Fuck these fuckers and their evil self-righteousness.
gbear
@bleh: I had a lady go off on me once spouting that ‘hate the sinner, love the sin’ crap after she saw that I had a ‘Hate Is Not A Family Value’ sticker on my car. First words out of her mouth were ‘Is that a gaaaay thang?’ Given that she had NO idea what sins I had committed (she didn’t even know if I was gay or not), I’d have to say that she was more than eager to hate the sinner, not the sin. Christianists can’t stand the thought of hate not being a positive family value.
These people suck.
Omnes Omnibus
@ KG: Better to marry than to burn.
Nemesis
“love peoples back
towholeness.”FIFY.
Linda Featheringill
LOVE the sign on the blackboard. :-)
As these guys continue to harp on their favorite hates, it will become more and more apparent just how irrelevant they are.
What do they have to say about jobs and income inequality?
capt
Why would these crazy people even say that? Have they loved the hetero out of somebody yet? I’d think they would have to start there or am I just being silly.
Joel
Joel Osteen gives a bad name to Joels everywhere.
Roger Moore
@Short Bus Bully:
I’d have an easier time believing the “hate the sin, love the sinner” stuff if it applied to all sins. Instead, it seems to be sharply limited to cases where people are starting to question whether they’re really sins at all. When these “Christians” are willing to say the same thing about loving thieves, rapists, and murderers that they do about gays, then I might believe they’re serious.
scav
“Hate the sin, love the sinner” is pretty exactly the empty flowers and tearful apology “I just love you so much” in an abusive relationship.
Roger Moore
@capt:
I think a lot of them think that’s where gays come from. At the very least, they seem to believe that impressionable children are lured into homosexuality by contact with gays, which sounds a lot like having the hetero loved out of them.
capt
@Roger Moore: Love your movies!
gbear
@Joel: Not to mention teens.
Short Bus Bully
@Roger Moore:
That’s a dirty librul view of things, and even though Jesus was actually a liberal, that dog just won’t hunt.
My father in law is a religious zealot AND a huge Ayn Rand fan. The logical gymnastics that man has to go through to attempt to reconcile those two positions makes Mary Lou Retton look like Baby Huey.
It’s a bullshit way to rationalize hating on the people you hate and then getting the church to sanctify your evilness.
Fucking horrible and it’s gone on since the dawn of religion.
gbear
And, as usual, The Onion has the perfect story for this thread.
boss bitch
I smell a gay lover in this one’s closet. He’ll of course say he’s not gay and that he was just loving the young man back to wholeness.
gbear
@gbear: …and it’s not the one you’re thinking it is.
(FYWP for no edit feature)
Southern Beale
Joel Osteen is why we invented the word “skeevy.”
BTW wasn’t it Mrs. Joel Osteen who got sued by a flight attendant for assault? Why yes, it was.
So anyhoo, on to other skeevy critters. That bigoted Texas gun safety instructor who proudly boasted in his radio ad that he won’t teach Democrats, Socialists or Muslims? Yeah, apparently you can’t DO that in Texas. He’s about to lose his state certification.
Woopsies.
Southern Beale
Joel Osteen is why we invented the word “skeevy.”
BTW wasn’t it Mrs. Joel Osteen who got sued by a flight attendant for assault? Why yes, it was.
So anyhoo, on to other skeevy critters. That bigoted Texas gun safety instructor who proudly boasted in his radio ad that he won’t teach Democrats, Lefties or Muslims? Yeah, apparently you can’t DO that in Texas.
He’s about to lose his state certification.
WereBear
Very true. Rigged so that if you’re having a good time, and you’re not in church or a reasonable facsimile… SIN.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Southern Beale: I keep wanting to put a “Liberal with a Gun” bumper sticker on my car. Let everyone else figure out what the first word means.
Jasper
I’m not fan of the guy, but I was slightly impressed that when picking sins to compare to homosexuality, he picked “pride.” In my part of the world, the first things that come to the mind of the Christianists are child molestation, rape, and bestiality and NEVER something that an actual person in their church is almost surely guilty of.
Also, too, for the evangelicals in my area, Osteen ranks right up there with the Unitarians, as in they don’t consider him a ‘true’ Christian. Certainly attending a gay marriage wouldn’t be something they’d admit to considering. Better to write the family member off as a gesture of ‘tough love.’
scav
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): Is there one saying “Liberally Armed”? That one might slow them down for several reasons. Perhaps a bit OTT.
smith
@Southern Beale:
Fuck that guy. I’m glad he’s losing his certificate. I’m a Democrat and a liberal and I can probably shoot a gun better than he can. I’m “liberally armed” (thanks scav for that phrase) and can handle myself better than most, if not all, of my conservative family and friends can.
DFH no.6
For religious leaders (from the local storefront church pastor and his deacon lackeys to Joel Osteen to the pope to mullahs and imams and swamis and so on) it’s all about controlling other people (oh, and collecting their fees for doing so).
Some of them may even self-delude themselves that it’s actually about some altruistic thing with loving God and neighbor and all that. But really it’s not.
Controlling others. Power. Even if it’s just a big fish in a little pond (like the pastor of the So Help Me Jesus Non-Denominational Foursquare Holiness Gospel Church of Yahweh).
Nothing more.
Paul in KY
@Joel: Same with me & fucking Paul Ryan. I feel your pain.
Paul in KY
@Short Bus Bully: Do you keep hitting him with Ms. Rand’s comments about religion and those who practice it?
I guess you have to keep some peace in the family.
Paul in KY
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): I’m guessing it means you use a gun in all sorts of situations. Opening cans, deflating tires, permanently turning off the TV, etc.
Peggy
Love, love, love the sign
grandpajohn
I think you folks are over analyzing this, having seen him on TV and noting this part
that he is simply grifting as most of the TV evangelist do.