Saturday, March 10, 2007

Hold that Parkinson's study, there are Gays out there!

Another juicy link from Pharyngula! PZ discusses an article by an evangelical named Dr. Albert Mohler, who is a president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and hosts The Albert Mohler radio program.

His bio mentions that Time.com calls him the "reigning intellectual of the evangelical movement in the U.S.," from this article. It isn't about Mohler so much as it is an interview with him about missionary work in Iraq. In it, he states his view that "America is not a Christian nation; it's a mission field." In other words, it's not a Christian nation yet, but he's working on it. Great.

Mohler's new article discusses homosexuality and whether or not it can be screened before birth, and potentially "fixed" with hormone treatment

If a biological basis is found, and if a prenatal test is then developed, and if a successful treatment to reverse the sexual orientation to heterosexual is ever developed, we would support its use as we should unapologetically support the use of any appropriate means to avoid sexual temptation and the inevitable effects of sin.

So hold on just a second there, you're willing to experiment and develop prenatal therapy on fetuses for the goal of reducing "homosexual sins" but you think that trying to cure spinal cord injuries or Parkinson's disease with stem cell research threatens human dignity itself?

If a human embryo can be turned into mere material for medical research, every human life is discounted.

Where does he draw the line? Are human embryos more precious than fetuses? He criticizes the concept of "designer babies" but argues:

How can they now complain if women decide to abort fetuses identified as homosexual?

Is homosexuality worse than paralysis or Parkinson's disease? Mohler's website contains plenty of comments about the 'evils' of homosexuality:

We must talk honestly about what homosexuality is, and why God has condemned this sin as an abomination in His sight. Courage is far too rare in many Christian circles. This explains the surrender of so many denominations, seminaries, and churches to the homosexual agenda.

If the evangelicals are looking for a "gay gene," we should be looking for the "evangelical nutjob gene." Or maybe the "gullibility to religious dogma gene." They want to fix fetuses to get rid of the "homosexual agenda?" Fine, but let's do it by getting rid of genes that lead to hateful intolerance.

3 comments:

Naomi said...

I agree with you.

Why haven't we made a bigger deal out of the portion of the NT that says something about JC's laws supercede the old laws in the OT. And that homosexuality is not mentioned in the NT? The fundies have "grandfathered" specific issues, haven't they?

And abortion is not mentioned in the OT or the NT! Even though abortifacients were known and used long before JC was born...

David W. said...

The problem is that the bible is so big and so full of inconsistencies, that anyone with an agenda can pick and choose and find something that's going to support their platform. If someone wants to defend homosexuality, they'll pull out JC's teachings. If someone wants to bash homosexuality, they'll mention that JC told everyone to abide by the old laws. The bible is a win-win for anyone that believes in it.

For nontheists, it's like talking to a moving target. You can never tell, between two faith-heads, who believes what and what they agree on amongst themselves. It makes it very difficult to make points.

Terra said...

"evangelical nutjob gene."

BWAHAhahahaha

Hilarious! So true, so true...

In fact, I "amen" your entire last paragraph!