Yes, I know. That’s a “dog bites man” headline if ever I wrote one. Responding to President Obama’s tepid but important announcement of support for marriage equality, Graham released a statement saying that the president had “shaken his fist” at God. And there’s an odd twist on a familiar but false claim:
“While the move to pass amendments defining marriage is relatively new, the definition of marriage is 8,000 years old and was defined not by man, but by God Himself,” Graham said in a statement. “In changing his position from that of senator/candidate Obama, President Obama has, in my view, shaken his fist at the same God who created and defined marriage. It grieves me that our president would now affirm same-sex marriage, though I believe it grieves God even more.”
Wait, 8,000 years? Where does that come from? Even the usual Christian nonsense on this is 6,000 years. Where did 8,000 come from? And by what possible method could it be derived? The 6,000 year figure comes from adding up all the ages of the patriarchs in the Bible. Did Graham discover 100 more generations that no one else has? Or a document showing that God invented marriage 2,000 years before he created Adam and Eve? Even from a Christian perspective, this is weird.
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gvlgeologist
May 13, 2012 at 9:36 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Not intended to be a factual statement.
matty1
May 13, 2012 at 9:39 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
My guess is he doesn’t even know his own mythology. He heard somewhere that the world was 6000 years old and misremembered it as the world was made in 6000BC then added the current date and voila! 8000 years-ish.
dwb1957
May 13, 2012 at 9:39 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Graham? Crackers.
slc1
May 13, 2012 at 9:50 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Graham says something stupid. In other news, water is wet.
Brett McCoy
May 13, 2012 at 9:54 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
He’s a closet evolutionist
Michael Heath
May 13, 2012 at 10:07 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The most common perspective of Franklin’s argument relative to all anti-gay Christian arguments (including Barack Obama’s) is his cowardice and dishonesty. Cowardice in avoiding the best arguments which make his perspective irrelevant, that while one can follow their conscience informed by their religion to moderate their own behavior, we’re not free nor can promote freedom with any credibility if we demand others submit to our dogmatic prohibitions. Dishonesty in misrepresenting the very dogma he claims is the inerrant word of God, which does not reconcile to his claim here irrespective of his mangling the period referenced.
I’ve long lumped George W. Bush and Franklin Graham into a category of people whose parents:
a) set a better example,
b) acted unselfishly and strove for a laudable higher purpose,
c) were far more emotionally intelligent, and
d) demonstrated far more integrity.
Since 2007 as I came to know Mitt Romney, I also lumped him into that category.
I suspect many readers in this venue object to Billy Graham being lauded. However I tend to consider where people come from and the opportunities and experiences that formed them. In the older Graham I perceive him as a man of his time without the opportunities to move beyond his belief system, where he did appear to me to be genuinely concerned for his fellow man – fully cognizant of a handful of gaffes which argue others. Franklin Graham had ample opportunities to seek objective truth, but instead exploits the legacy of his father with no demonstrated concern for Americans or the national interest – just like W.
I also find Franklin, Mitt, and George W. to be representative of their age-group at large. More conservative than their parents; a generation which inherited a bright new world who both inherited and amped up the level of entitlements for themselves which they seek to deny others. No group has ever railed about others wrongly claiming to be entitled when it’s this age-group whose benefitted the most, by far, by American entitlement programs. The veterans of WWII and the prior generation who survived the Great Depression were far more empathetic and concerned about the state of affairs and the future rather than exploiting others in a manner which knowingly increases human suffering now and in the future. I think of this age-group as the worst generation. Southern traitors from the Civil War get a reprieve since the North stood against their tyranny.
raven
May 13, 2012 at 10:35 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Cthulhu, these fundie xians are hypocrites.
This biblical marriage invented by god that Franklin talks about includes as many wives as a male can chase down and as many sex slaves as he can buy.
Franklin Graham knows this and is counting on his audience between profoundly ignorant about the bible.
God also ordained slavery which is why his cult even exists. They split with the northern churches over this during the civil war.
paulburnett
May 13, 2012 at 10:49 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Setting aside Adam’s and Eve’s marriage, exactly who did their children marry?
I don’t suppose Lot’s relationships with his daughters counts as marriage, but it did produce descendents.
Gregory in Seattle
May 13, 2012 at 10:59 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
This fabulous video is something we should be pushing: Betty Bowers explains Bible-based marriage.
Phillip IV
May 13, 2012 at 11:15 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
No idea. Perhaps he was thinking of Moses and the Ten Commandments, then he wouldn’t be that far off – I don’t see the connection to marriage, but some fundies assume Moses as the source of any kind or rule or order.
slc1
May 13, 2012 at 11:56 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Apparently, these rules didn’t apply to Solomon who had hundreds of wives and hundreds of concubines. Quite a randy fellow that.
D. C. Sessions
May 13, 2012 at 11:56 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Arithmetic has a well-known liberal bias.
LightningRose
May 13, 2012 at 12:26 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
paulburnett @#8,
The dirty little secret that the Xians like to forget (well, one of them anyway) is that Adam and Eve were *not* the first humans, they were the first, and only, humans made by Yahweh. When Adam and Eve were expelled into the land of Nod, the Earth was already populated by a great many people.
Here’s a good, if justifiably irreverent, explanation.
http://www.paganlibrary.com/fundies/other_people.php
Gretchen
May 13, 2012 at 12:40 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Michael Heath said:
If you’re alive and capable of observing the world around you– especially if you also have the means to travel and the power to confer with significant public figures, all of which Billy Graham has– you are hardly without the opportunity to move beyond your belief system. Instead, this man has dedicated himself to entrenching himself further in that belief system in spite of the opportunity to learn better, and is now spending his remaining years fighting to forbid gays the right to marry. There is nothing laudable, unselfish, or emotionally intelligent about that.
cynix
May 13, 2012 at 12:43 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I understand it wasn’t until the 12th or 13th century CE that the RC Church added marriage to the sacraments. Even after that it was more about property and legitimacy of inheritance than anything.
Reginald Selkirk
May 13, 2012 at 1:35 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So marriage is between one man and one woman, just like it’s always been.
It occurs to me that candidate Mitt Romney, a Mormon, is going to have trouble with the second clause.
Reginald Selkirk
May 13, 2012 at 2:21 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Graham released a statement saying that the president had “shaken his fist” at God.
I presume that would be President Lincoln, who signed the Emancipation Proclamation? Now that was unbiblical!
Aratina Cage
May 13, 2012 at 2:58 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“God” = “Franklin Graham’s cloud-sized imaginary best friend who is a projection of his own most authoritarian self aspects”. And Clinton shook his wiener at “God”. So what?
Michael Heath
May 13, 2012 at 3:42 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Gretchen argues against my claiming Billy Graham was one of the good guys:
Which is precisely why I described Billy Graham as a man of another time. While he doesn’t get off as well as the founding fathers for not fighting for the equality for all, the reality is this fight comes within the context of the times we live in and therefore we’re all flawed to some degree where I do attempt of avoid fallacy of balance conclusions. Jimmy Carter shouldn’t be held in contempt solely because he failed to use his bully pulpit to promote gay marriage, we need to consider the full suite of his behavior and the times within which he operated. Where I don’t hold it against 90 year olds for not changing their minds.
I’m not claiming Mr. Graham’s innocent and I present my conclusions about him humbly. I am claiming he laudably demonstrated and practiced genuine concern for his fellow humans albeit from a fatally flawed point of reference. I’m confident that his motivation was laudable and his actions practiced with integrity; but because he was so wrong, he’s done more harm than good. But I think he did go about his mission with integrity and genuine altruism. His son Franklin demonstrates the exact opposite behavior in the U.S. So I’m comfortable claiming Franklin fell far from the tree equivalent to W. and Mitt.
I’m confident and hopeful that future generations will look back with contempt for how even we liberals treated others. ‘Hopeful’ because that will happen only if our moral progression continues. One critique we’re unfortunately earning will be how we treat very old people who suffer, another will be sentinent non-humans, a third women – who still get the short end of the stick when it comes to how we structure society when it comes to careers and family. I’m sure there are others. So when it comes to character, I do think it requires some relative factors put into the context of our times, where Mr. Graham obviously fails on the objective yardstick, e.g., promoting beliefs he failed to adequately investigate where if he had – he’d find they’re obviously false, promoting behavior which science has found increases suffering where again his failure in character was inadequate investigation. But on intentions within his effective framework, I find him to be generally good person and far down the current list of evangelical scoundrels to the point I have hard time identifying him as such. The generation of Mitt’s, W.’s, and Franklin, and younger who are adults, we have no excuse when it comes to the beliefs Billy Graham championed.
Tabby Lavalamp
May 13, 2012 at 6:55 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Some YECs put the age of the Earth at 10,000 years. Perhaps Graham is just taking the average.
aussieseculardad
May 13, 2012 at 6:56 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@LightningRose: I think any Christian that accepts your premise about the other people would go on to point out that they were all wiped out in the flood. Are there more bible-based arguments to address that point?
I should admit here that I don’t believe in pagan beliefs any more than I do abrahamic ones, but I do find your argument interesting.
imthegenieicandoanything
May 13, 2012 at 7:06 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It’s how he counts, like King Arthur: “1… 2… 5!”
Also, he a pinhead, and yet motivated by vaguely evil impulses.
fifthdentist
May 13, 2012 at 10:23 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
This guy argues that gay marriage once had a Catholic rite.
http://anthropologist.livejournal.com/1314574.html
Nemo
May 13, 2012 at 10:47 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’ve noticed that not all YECs subscribe to the Ussher chronology, although that’s about all I could tell you. I do know that Harold Camping dated Creation to 11,013 BCE.
escuerd
May 13, 2012 at 10:58 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Michael Heath,
Which is rather cold comfort when he continues existing and doing things in this time.
I do.
When they’re actively campaigning against the rights of others, like Billy Graham (who promoted NC’s anti-gay Amendment 1), I feel perfectly comfortable holding it against them.
I’m sure you’re right that Billy Graham’s intentions have generally been good and sincere. I really just can’t bring myself to care, especially when his primary activity in life has been to promote bullshit that often channels good intentions into harmful actions.
Erp
May 14, 2012 at 12:31 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@Michael Heath
The interesting thing about your description of Billy Graham as a man of his times who couldn’t move beyond is that Charles Templeton (no known relation to the Templeton Foundation Templetons) was a contemporary and close friend of Graham, a fellow evangelist (they worked together on an evangelical trip in Europe in the late 1940s), yet Charles Templeton went in a very different direction (though I’m not sure of his stance on gay rights; he died in 2001 and suffered from dementia in his later years). His autobiography mentions his decision to go to Princeton Theological and his attempt to persuade Billy Graham to go also. http://www.templetons.com/charles/memoir/evang-graham.html (Templeton ended up an agnostic)
A fair number of people have alleged that Franklin Graham is using his father to promote his own views.
Michael Heath
May 14, 2012 at 7:08 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Erp writes:
I think it’s analogous to the U.S. framers regarding their view of slavery, paying particularly close to attention to their times and the attendant ideas and efforts to practice equal rights and promote individual liberty. Some had the character and wisdom to see slavery for what it was, evil, the courage to promote killing the practice, and the integrity to not benefit from its practice. Thomas Jefferson and George Washington are two examples who fail this character test, yet we still present them as net benefactors – I think correctly so.
Therefore we should expect at certain junctures of time that not all good people will get it. I think this latitude ends with Graham’s generation, I do not extend my grace to Mitt, W., and Franklin’s generation since we’ve had ample time to consider the evidence regarding homosexuality and more recently, the social impacts of their being out of the closet while living their lives, which has been validated to be an enormous net benefit.
And I’m not associating the framers’ goodness with Billy Graham’s, their distinguishing arguments have been validated to be beneficial while Graham promotes core theological elements which have been falsified or are without evidence and logically incoherent. I’m merely looking to his background, his motivation, and intentions where I find a generally good man who was badly mistaken. With the rise of the Internet I longer think moral adults can promote falsehoods and absurdities. We adults, at least by the time we reach middle age, are now morally responsible for how our conclusions reconcile to empirically validated reality – ignorance is no longer a valid justification. The cost to validate the premises one uses is far too cheap.
democommie
May 14, 2012 at 8:39 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
This is interesting:
http://www.cephasministry.com/evangelists_bg_whats_wrong_with_this.html
I have no idea as to its factualitynessosity, but $88M, $8.8M or $.88M–any fortune amassed as a servant of the LARD is just flat out fucking wrong. Anyone who is personally well to do, as a result of snookering the rubes, is just a huckster. Robert Preston’s charcter in “The Music Man” was essentially the same sort of person as Robert Duvall’s character in “The Apostle”. That the two Hollywood products have “Hollywood endings”, not withstanding.
Anyone, and I do mean anyone, who keeps a dime for himself from the collection plate is simply a thief. That is not to say that legitimate expenses for preachers should not be covered by their “flock”, but the sort of excesses that the megapastors engage in are NOT excusable, ever. Billy Graham is a grifter, a sortanicegrifter, but a grifter nonetheless.
Michael Heath
May 14, 2012 at 8:10 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
democommie,
I remember a news article back in the days Jim and Tammy Faye were going down that reported that Billy Graham was making $28,000 a year. The purpose of reporting this supposed fact, which I’m skeptical is true when it comes to the totality he was earning at the time, was to note some weren’t in it for the money.