Student Expresses View on the Treatment of Homosexuals

As previously printed in the University Daily Kansan, The University of Kansas' school newspaper.

Many people in the United States who are against homosexuality claim God’s word as the basis for their convictions. However many of them don’t apply God’s other teachings to their own lives.
One of the most well known preachers of God’s “zero tolerance for homosexuality” policy is Fred Phelps, pastor of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka.
For anyone unfamiliar with Phelps, he has become famous worldwide for coining the phrases “God Hates America,” “God Hates Fags” and is known for rioting at the funerals of fallen homosexual soldiers.
While Westboro’s Web site lists biblical reasons why homosexuals “will burn in hell for all eternity” unless they “listen to the preaching of Westboro Baptist Church,” the site takes the claims too far by attacking homosexuals on personal levels disconnected with sexual orientation.
Among the malevolent claims are,“17 % of fags eat and/or rub the feces of their partners on themselves” and “about 50% of the women on death row are dykes.” The fact that the site gives sources for the claims is irrelevant; in today’s technology based society, statistics on the Internet can be found to support almost any claim.
However, the Pope gives a more appropriate solution to the issue while still taking a strong stance against the lifestyle. In a “Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons” in 1986 he preached, “Therefore special concern and pastoral attention should be directed to those who have this condition, lest they be led to believe that the living out of this orientation in homosexual activity is a morally acceptable option. It is not.”
As Phelps claims that the term “gay Christian” is an oxymoron, the Pope reveals contradictory values in the term ‘violent Christian’ by stating, “It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the Church's pastors wherever it occurs.”
Yet we cannot blame Phelps for disregarding the Pope’s words. In fact Phelps is probably not even aware that he and the Pope have differing opinions; planning riots and Hurricane Katrina with God is serious, time-consuming business.
I do not believe in the divine right of the Pope nor am I Catholic. Even so, it would do Phelps and other Americans good to follow the words of the Pope. If people are going to claim the Bible is the written word of God, then they cannot pick and choose which scriptures to live their lives by.
In I Corinthians 6:9b-10 Jesus states, “Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”
If homosexuals are damned to hell for their behavior, then Fred Phelps and others like him will be equally judged for their own actions. “For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you,” Matthew 7:1.
Americans have the right to believe in whatever or whoever they want. Their “walk with God” is no one else’s business but their own. People need to start being less concerned with the actions of others and more concerned about saving themselves from eternal damnation.