After Hurricane Harvey: LGBT-blaming for natural disasters
The idea of blaming LGBT people for natural disasters isn’t new, what with the Bible story of Sodom and Gomorrah. So it’s no surprise that some Christian leaders are on an LGBT-blaming binge again with Hurricane Harvey.
This despite the fact that there’s thing called science and climate change. (Oh wait, they also don’t believe in that…)
LGBT-blaming after Hurricane Harvey
Leading the pack of frothing Christian extremists is anti-LGBT minister Kevin Swanson on his radio program who blamed Houston for being hit by the hurricane on their “pro-homosexual mayor,” Sylvester Turner (who replaced former mayor Annise Parker, who was a lesbian).
“Jesus sends the message home, unless Americans repent, unless Houston repents, unless New Orleans repents, they will all likewise perish,” Swanson said on his radio show.
Swanson, who has called for the death of LGBT people, also said the storm hit Texas because they failed to pass its “bathroom bill” against transgender people.
Rick Wiles, another Christian radio host, had the same arguments as Swanson against Houston, saying: “Here’s a city that has boasted of its LGBT devotion, its affinity for the sexual perversion movement in America. They’re underwater.”
Lastly, right wing media pundit Ann Coulter took a jab at Parker on Twitter: “I don’t believe Hurricane Harvey is God’s punishment for Houston electing a lesbian mayor. But that is more credible than ‘climate change’.”
Reactions against LGBT-blaming
While most of the response to this LGBT-blaming was incredulousness and mockery, Parker perfectly took down Coulter by saying: “Darn it, I thought no one knew I had a super power over weather.”
Irene Monroe, a religious columnist, wrote in Huffington Post: “It’s easier to blame a certain demographic group for natural disasters as God’s wrath, rather than man’s disregard for one another.”
But she added: “It continues to amaze me how in this 21st Century, the debate between “creationism versus evolution” or “God’s will versus climate change” continues when a simple scientific explanation about Houston’s topography– flat and built on marshes making flooding a recurring problem– is all that’s needed.”
“If God really had anything to do with these devastating outcomes from natural disasters, I think God would say address the damn problem and stop blaming me, too,” Monroe said.
LGBT-blaming in the past
Aside from Sodom and Gomorrah, a lot of major disasters have been blamed on the LGBT people. For example, in 2012, chaplain John McTernan of the Defend and Proclaim the Faith ministries said they were to blame for Hurricane Sandy
In a blogpost, McTernan wote: “God is systematically destroying America. Just look at what has happened this year.”
Shirley Phelps-Roper, the daughter of the Westboro Baptist Church church’s founder and leader Fred Phelps also tweeted back then: “We bow in humble thanks 2 God 4 Sandy! Thank God for a plain message delivered to a puddle of states that proudly flip Him off! #FagMarriage”
Of course, who can forget Hurricane Katrina in 2005 that hit the Gulf Coast, and which was followed by Hurricane Rita? Repent America director Michael Marcavage had something to say about the disaster that hit New Orleans’s annual gay party, Southern Decadence.
“Although the loss of lives is deeply saddening, this act of God destroyed a wicked city,” Marcavage said.
Megachurch Pastor John Haggee of San Antonio, Texas, said a year later that: “God caused Hurricane Katrina to wipe out New Orleans because it had a gay pride parade the week before and was filled with sexual sin.”
Thank goodness it’s not our fault that we voted for Donald Trump.