This latest installment of “Self-Loathing Homosexual Homophobes of Christianity” is just another chapter in a story that is now becoming commonplace and exasperating. It’s time for the church to stop acting as apologists for these religious leaders who ejaculate their own repressed sexual orientation through messages of homophobia and intolerance.

Repressed evangelical pastors suffer from adherence to a religious doctrine that is inherently intolerant and hateful. I’ve been on the other side, I know all the arguments. In fact, the compassionate Christians insist that the condemnation of homosexuality is still done in love, with a rebuke that is no different from any other sin. This is the psychological danger of religion. The church is so accepting of the worst kind of hypocrites (those who teach hate and intolerance of their own kind), preaching the grace and forgiveness of god even through their most despicable scandals. Yet the taboo sinners, usually deemed sexual “deviants,” are shunned and hated on like no other. This notion that “all sin is equal in the eyes of god” and that “we are all sinners, in equal part” is a load of bullsh*t. If anyone truly believed that, people like Ted Haggard and George Reker’s punkass would never have been in the positions of leadership from which they now fall.

The sad truth is, child-touching priests and homophobic pastors will be deemed extremist bad apples by many in the church. This is a problem for me. There is a lack of accountability/retribution that doesn’t sit right with me. The number of followers that Christian fundamentalist pastors build up suggest that they are not some small pocket of bad apples. These are leaders who are representative of a significant portion of the church. If Christianity is a tree, I refuse to believe that many “bad apples” really exist; rather, these people are seedlings growing a completely different tree - a f*cked up version with mutant branches and weak roots. Or maybe that’s just me. Either way, whatever tree these “bad apples” grow on, that’s not a place I wanna grow. Don’t ever make excuses for a church doctrine that harbors hate and intolerance… unless it tells you to hate hate and intolerance, I guess.