To no one’s surprise, Billy Graham has endorsed North Carolina’s Amendment One, which would ban same-sex marriage in that state. Again. Yes, it’s already illegal there, but apparently it has to be made even more illegal. And he offered the same tired rhetoric:
“Watching the moral decline of our country causes me great concern,” said Graham, 93, who lives near Asheville. “I believe the home and marriage is the foundation of our society and must be protected.” …
“At 93, I never thought we would have to debate the definition of marriage,” Billy Graham’s statement said. “The Bible is clear – God’s definition of marriage is between a man and a woman. I want to urge my fellow North Carolinians to vote for the marriage amendment” Tuesday.
Yes, marriage and family is the foundation of society and must be protected … against those who want to get married and form families. Because if gay people can get married, then no straight people will get married anymore. QED. It certainly isn’t a surprise that Graham doesn’t like gay people; he didn’t like Jews either.
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Spanish Inquisitor
May 7, 2012 at 1:38 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
And of course there is that God gene infecting his brain.
tuxedocartman
May 7, 2012 at 1:39 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Yeah, and I never thought we’d be debating whether TORTURE was right or wrong either. But here we are…
robb
May 7, 2012 at 1:39 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
i wonder what his stance on affordable public housing is? it would be nice for these married couples to have a home to rasie a family in.
shouldbeworking
May 7, 2012 at 1:50 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
No mention of affordable housing, other a than a manger, so no, he’s against the very idea. And voting is a no no too.
matthewgreenberg
May 7, 2012 at 1:55 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
haven’t divorce rates been escalating for the last 50 years without gay-marriage? i say us “heteros” are bad at marriage and maybe we should give gay folk a chance to see if they can do better.
seriously though, 50 years from now we will find it hard to believe this was ever an issue. these dinosaurs will be gone. hopefully, their religion will go with them.
davidct
May 7, 2012 at 1:55 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Where does Graham get his view of family values. Jesus, the failed apocalyptic prophet, was clearly against marriage of any kind.
Where is all this moral decline these holy men keep talking about? He must mean disrespect for his views.
Modusoperandi
May 7, 2012 at 1:59 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
matthewgreenberg “haven’t divorce rates been escalating for the last 50 years without gay-marriage?”
But that just shows how powerful The Gay Lobby is!
Michael Heath
May 7, 2012 at 2:00 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I was hesitant about criticizing Billy Graham given his age. Especially since my grandmother is 94; whom I dearly love and greatly respect. Few if any at 93 enjoy the mental acuity they had when they were younger. However my grandmother currently has the wisdom to recognize this and is therefore careful about promoting her opinions. In addition she’s the best example I’ve ever encountered of someone who demonstrates unconditional love to others – no exceptions even to a few in her circle who can’t be avoided and give her a hard time. So given Mr. Graham’s willing to put out a statement which disparages others . . .
Billy Graham states:
If that were actually true you’d be voting for the protection of gays to marry. The fact you aren’t makes you a liar and demands we consider you have an ulterior motive – I think you’re most likely a hateful bigot who despises our DofI and Constitution.
Billy Graham states:
More lies, three to be exact. First Mr. Graham has no evidence his god exists and he certainly has no evidence what this god thinks or argues. In addition the Bible does not make it clear that marriage is only between a man and woman; there are many bible heroes where the marriage was between a man and women where God didn’t punish them for such.
rikitiki
May 7, 2012 at 2:05 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“The Bible is clear – God’s definition of marriage is between a man and
a womanmultiple women.”There FTFY.
The Lorax
May 7, 2012 at 2:22 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Ten bucks says James Randi could kick this guy’s ass.
Dr X
May 7, 2012 at 3:27 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The Lorax says:
When my eyes first landed on this sentence I thought it was:
Which could mean the same thing… or not.
Stevarious
May 7, 2012 at 3:43 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Close. Alas, in 50 years, whatever breed of backwards conservatives that exist will be claiming that it was the deeply religious that spearheaded the push to legalize gay marriage, just like they did for civil rights and women’s suffrage – even as they work to ban human-android marriage or whatever new group they’ll hate in the future.
Stevarious
May 7, 2012 at 3:46 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
On a completely unrelated note – the ads are getting better.
chilidog99
May 7, 2012 at 4:24 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
In other North Carolina news, a bunch of republican candidates for congress have gone full metal birther. . . . .
eric
May 7, 2012 at 4:28 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Makes me think this is the start of an election year trend. I wouldn’t be that surprised if conservatives tried adding a new anti-gay-marriage measure to the ballot every 2-4 years, even in states where its already illegal, just to beat the drum and increase turnout.
anandine
May 7, 2012 at 4:42 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’d think it was Alzheimer’s, but he’s always been that way.
cag
May 7, 2012 at 4:42 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
slc1
May 7, 2012 at 4:42 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It certainly isn’t a surprise that Graham doesn’t like gay people; he didn’t like Jews either.
In fairness to Graham, he modified his position somewhat when he apparently discovered a liking for the State of Israel and the return of the Jewish people there as the fulfillment of biblical prophecies relative to the Second Coming.
Spanish Inquisitor
May 7, 2012 at 4:46 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
…and they had him on tape disliking Jews.
“Where’s Rose Mary Woods when you really need her?”
slc1
May 7, 2012 at 5:32 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Re Spanish Inquisitor @ #19
That’s true, he was caught on one of the Nixon Whitehouse tapes making derogatory comments about Jews. His “conversion”, if we can call it that, came later and was based on a meme in the conservative Christian sphere that the return of the Jews to Palestine and the resurrection of the State of Israel was a requirement for the second coming of Yeshua of Nazareth. It is my information that this meme is a somewhat more recent development then the early 1970s when Graham made the statements. He is not the only conservative Christian pastor to undergo such a “conversion”. Jerry Falwell was another.
holytape
May 7, 2012 at 5:45 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Marriage = One man + One Woman + a couple of slaves + several concubines + a handmaid + the first woman’s younger sister.
It’s all in the bible, and at the age of 34 I never thought we would have to debate this.
bryanfeir
May 7, 2012 at 6:08 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Actually, from some sources, there has been some surprise on this, simply because Billy Graham has been relatively apolitical compared to a lot of the other big evangelists. Or at least relatively non-partisan. Not to say he wouldn’t have agreed with the statement, he just tended to consider this sort of active politicking as a distraction from the revival preaching.
Now his son Franklin, on the other hand, is as much of a political hack as they come; he may have been the one to actually ‘release’ the statement…
Nemo
May 7, 2012 at 9:24 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Wait — Billy Graham is still alive?
dingojack
May 8, 2012 at 2:12 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Nemo – God’s been putting off the inevitable intial conversation with him for as long as possible*
:) Dingo
——–
* Or perhaps it’s satan balking at the idea of being stuck with him, forever.
democommie
May 8, 2012 at 7:55 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Fuck.Billy.Graham.
And fuck his asswipe son, the morons who send their money to their KKKristianKKKorporation and the ignorant fucks that who lap up their poison.
lynnwilhelm
May 8, 2012 at 11:30 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Update on NC’s Amendment.
Sadly (but not unexpectedly), the amendment passed. Only a few islands of sanity among the counties of intolerance. The counties with more educated people voted against this amendment. No surprise there.
A lot of people don’t realize that civil unions will be affected. Heck, who wouldn’t vote for a “marriage amendment” as it was billed.
NC sucks tonight.
Michael Heath
May 9, 2012 at 8:37 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
lynnwilhelm writes:
One excuse we heard when Michigan passed its anti-gay amendment in 2004 was that people thought they were voting for gay-rights instead of the opposite. The language of the amendment was admittedly confusing. However I’d argue our loss was instead more predicated on non-conservative passivity towards showing up to vote or caring enough to determine how to vote. It was easy to find out which side was which.
I first encountered this phenomena in 1978, the first time I was eligible to vote. Michigan had a voter referendum in 1978 to raise the drinking age minimum from 18 years old back to 21; where it long was prior to getting reduced several years earlier. We were the first state to go back to 21 (our state legislators took it from 18 to 19 in the interim). Voter turn-out was the key, hardly any young people showed up to vote whereas the oldsters turn-up even when they’re turning up their noses at their choices.
The most recent example of that was the 2010 congressional elections, nicely illustrated by the videos reporting Jon Stewart’s event in D.C., where showing up for a party/rally made for a fun day of bliss, but so many attendees couldn’t be bothered to show up and vote.
Liberals have yet to learn to how to win relative to the assets they enjoy, unlike conservatives who do far more with much less. [I make this within the context of conservatives enjoying the beneficence of the fossil fuel sectors.]