Gay and faithful
Responding to what they see as an anti-LGBTQ message, area faith groups and the Triangle Community Center of Norwalk will hold an interfaith celebration at 7 p.m. the night after Graham’s rally at the United Church of Christ of Bridgeport, 2200 North Ave., according to the Rev. Sara Smith, senior minister. (The Smiths are unrelated.)
“The idea is not to go negative about what someone else is doing or saying,” Sara Smith said, but to gather as “communities that love and support and nurture and affirm and include GLBTQ folks, and our church is one of them.”
Smith, who said she is her parish’s first openly lesbian pastor, said, “At our community we celebrate that you can be gay and be faithful, whatever tribe you belong to. … There are places where you will be loved, not just tolerated, but loved and celebrated just like you are.”
She said that while the event won’t be advertised on Interstate 95 billboards like the Decision America tour is, they’ll “have little rainbow cookies for everybody.”
Graham took to Twitter on April 24 to criticize Buttigieg’s statement to CNN that “God does not have a political party.” Buttigieg also said in that interview, “It can be challenging to be a person of faith who’s also part of the LGBTQ community and yet, to me, the core of faith is regard for one another. And part of (how) God’s love is experienced, according to my faith tradition, is in the way that we support one another and, in particular, support the least among us.”
In his tweets, Graham first said Buttigieg “is right — God doesn’t have a political party. But God does have commandments, laws & standards He gives us to live by. God doesn’t change. His Word is the same yesterday, today & forever.”
Next, Graham tweeted, “Mayor Buttigieg says he’s a gay Christian. As a Christian I believe the Bible which defines homosexuality as sin, something to be repentant of, not something to be flaunted, praised or politicized. The Bible says marriage is between a man & a woman — not two men, not two women.”
Finally, Graham said, “The core of the Christian faith is believing and following Jesus Christ, who God sent to be the Savior of the world — to save us from sin, to save us from hell, to save us from eternal damnation.”
Buttigieg has criticized Vice President Mike Pence for using his Christian faith to “harm other people,” such as when, as governor, Pence signed a law allowing people and businesses to refuse to serve others based on their religious beliefs.
Buttigieg also questioned Trump’s faith in an interview with USA Today, saying, “I’m reluctant to comment on another person’s faith, but I would say it is hard to look at this president’s actions and believe that they’re the actions of somebody who believes in God. I just don’t understand how you can be as worshipful of your own self as he is and be prepared to humble yourself before God. … And the exaltation of yourself, especially a self that’s about wealth and power, could not be more at odds with at least my understanding of the teachings of the Christian faith.”
Graham has been a strong defender of Trump, who has been divorced twice and has been accused of having a porn star paid hush money. On “Axios on HBO,” Graham said, “Now people say, ‘Well Frank but how can you defend him, when he’s lived such a sordid life?’ I never said he was the best example of the Christian faith. He defends the faith. And I appreciate that very much.”
Dean Andrew McGowan of Berkeley Divinity School, the Episcopal seminary at Yale Divinity School, said Graham has made “a number of very distinct choices, in particular about the nexus of religion and politics” that he called “dubious to say the least and have contributed to the dubious kind of alliances” that many evangelical believers would find objectionable.
“I think he represents this kind of way in which a significant chunk [of evangelicals] has failed to distinguish itself from the kind of conservatism associated with Trump,” McGowan said,
McGowan said that Graham attacked President Bill Clinton “over Clinton’s moral foibles, (while) Trump I think is a figure who makes Clinton look almost pure as the driven snow … in personal morality.” Instead of calling out the president, Graham acts as an “apologist for Trump and making up all kinds of special pleading arguments … that evangelicals should be supporting Trump.