Pastor Aaron Fruh of Knollwood Church in Mobile, Alabama is a regular guest on wingnut radio shows. He was on American Family Radio recently making the bizarre claim that God sent the flood (you know, the non-existent global flood with the non-existent Noah’s Ark) because they gave our marriage certificates to gay people back then. Yes, I’m serious.
The one society in history that first offered marriage certificates to same-sex couples, you know you’d think it would be Sodom and Gomorrah or Rome or Greece, was actually the society just prior to the flood of Noah. And in the Mishnah, which is the rabbinical interpretation of the Torah in Jewish theology, they say that that’s why God brought the flood, because civilization was destroying itself, because there would be no more procreation, there would no longer be husbands and wives having children and furthering society.
So much stupid in one place. First of all, there is no evidence at all for this claim. None. Second, notice the bizarre claim that allowing gay couples to get married means no more procreation and no more husbands and wives. Do they think that allowing gays to get married means that there can be no more straight marriages? Seriously, how fucking stupid are these people?
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Michael Heath
July 31, 2012 at 1:36 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It’s a descent into world salad and then, “get the [insert target group here]!”. Another vivid illustration of the Palinization of the U.S.
busterggi
July 31, 2012 at 1:37 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
As an atheist I feel obliged to educate believers about their holy books that they have never read but which I have.
The OT passages interpreted as being against homosexuality are in Leviticus, the flood story is in Genesis.
Therefor, according to the bible, the flood occurred before Yahweh informed the Hebrews of the laws so homosexuality could not have been against Yahweh’s laws – they didn’t exist yet.
Nathair
July 31, 2012 at 1:38 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It’s very, very special stupid because, if you can see, the numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven…
DaveL
July 31, 2012 at 1:39 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Aaron Fruh doesn’t believe in straight people, apparently.
Moggie
July 31, 2012 at 1:42 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
And that would be bad. So he killed everyone except eight people. Seems reasonable.
The aforementioned eight survivors were one family, of course. Nope, nothing problematic about the procreation issue there.
peicurmudgeon
July 31, 2012 at 1:45 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It’s all a part of all morality coming from their god’s commands. In the same way they have decided that without religion, we atheists would murder, rape, pillage, and eat babies, they beleive that everyone would give in to homosexual impulses.
rturpin
July 31, 2012 at 1:48 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Ed, when you say there is no evidence for it, do you mean that there is no evidence for a antediluvian civilization? That would make your comment rather obvious. Or do you mean that what Fruh claims isn’t described in the Mishnah?
I ask, only because I’ve never read the Mishnah.
arakasi
July 31, 2012 at 1:50 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
If this were true, then why would god bother with a flood? If gay marriage meant no more procreation, he’d just have to wait for everyone to die out except for Noah & his family. It might take a few more centuries, but what is time to a diety?
gworroll
July 31, 2012 at 1:52 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Even if gay marriage would lead to the end of straight people, this wouldn’t end procreation.
Gay people still like to have children. We have the technology to remove the requirement to have sex, and artificial insemination at least could still be done if our infrastructure were to collapse for whatever reason. And if somehow that were removed as an option, gay people can still have straight sex. They aren’t likely to have it for its own sake, but if they want a kid and that is somehow the only option available, many would do it. There are gay people who choose this route even now for various reasons. In a disastrous scenario where it became the only option, it’s a pretty safe bet that it would become pretty popular.
Even taking his premises as self evident(which is bullshit), the conclusion of an end to procreation is utterly ridiculous.
We might see a reduction in unwanted procreation, though. Which is probably a good thing.
Strewth
July 31, 2012 at 1:53 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Some comments like this must be self-closeted projection. I mean if your thinking is “I’m totally not gay, but without god’s law I’d totally do that checkout boy at the grocery store.” it isn’t hard to think that all other ‘straight’ people would switch teams as soon as the ref looked the other way.
slc1
July 31, 2012 at 1:59 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Shorter Reverend Fruh
Without god looking over my shoulder, I might get to like anal sex.
Gregory in Seattle
July 31, 2012 at 2:01 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The blathering idiot doesn’t even know his own scriptures: the Bible is quite clear that God sent the flood because there was TOO DAMNED MUCH procreation:
Interpretations differ as to who were the “sons of God”: angels, fallen angels, or mortals of exalted social status. The Nephilim were either apostates or giants. In any case, God murdered almost every human to wipe out this “taint” that had entered the world.
Methinks the laddie is obsessively protesting too much.
roggg
July 31, 2012 at 2:02 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I gotta get me some of that gay marriage. It must be good stuff if simply allowing it would put an end to heterosexual relations and human procreation.
jnorris
July 31, 2012 at 2:03 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
This god gave long lists of law after law on everything from how the priests are to dress, what to sacrifice, who gets how many virgin slave girls, and what to eat. Yet god said nothing about what to do with stupid people like Pastor Aaron Fruh. Nor what to do about the people of Knollwood Church who hired him and the seminary, if any, that trained and certified him.
mucklededun
July 31, 2012 at 2:11 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I am old enough to remember when Roe v. Wade came down. An elderly gentleman in our church wrote an impassioned letter to the editor decrying the supreme court because it had ‘outlawed motherhood’. I see the same logic at work here.
Chaos Engineer
July 31, 2012 at 2:13 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The Bible is perfectly clear about the cause of the Flood. It was due to intermarriage between humans and angels. Presumably these were fallen angels because the offspring – called Nephilim – appear to have been corrupted somehow. Noah and his family were most likely the only remaining pure-blooded humans.
We know that this part of the Bible is true, because there aren’t any Nephilim around today.
I don’t see how Fruh could have missed this. It’s right near the beginning of the Bible, at Genesis 6:1-7
Randomfactor
July 31, 2012 at 2:14 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I think he’s got the Flood confused with Sodom and Gomorrah. Remember how everyone there died, except Lot and his family minus the wife?
Who quickly discovered the joys of incest?
oranje
July 31, 2012 at 2:14 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
And the David Barton award for history scholarship for today goes to…
Tabby Lavalamp
July 31, 2012 at 2:25 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I was purely 100% heterosexual until same-sex marriage was legalized here in Canada. Now the soft, tender touch of another woman is all that I can think of.
Tony •King of the Hellmouth•
July 31, 2012 at 2:27 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Yahwallah hates queers, but loves incest.
anubisprime
July 31, 2012 at 2:43 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Gregory in Seattle @ 12
Well now I am confused cos that does not tally with the ‘originals’ described in Vampire Diaries, nah, not buying it, just far to fanciful.
As for Aaron Fruh, he really had better go back and think it out again cos his nonsense gells with neither explanation!
Tony •King of the Hellmouth•
July 31, 2012 at 2:46 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Tabby@19:
+1
Where would you like your shiny Internet delivered?
Hercules Grytpype-Thynne
July 31, 2012 at 2:48 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
If there was going to be no more procreation, why did God bother? Couldn’t he just wait, say, a hundred years for everyone to die out?
Also: what does God need with a starship?
Tony •King of the Hellmouth•
July 31, 2012 at 2:50 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
If he was trying to eliminate the Taint, he didn’t do a very good job.
Raging Bee
July 31, 2012 at 3:00 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Well, he’s right to the extent that the mere mention of gay marriage causes a flood of something. I don’t think it’s coming from God though…
roggg
July 31, 2012 at 3:30 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
He wasn’t trying to get rid of it…just wipe it. You know…cleanliness being next to godliness and all.
Marcus Ranum
July 31, 2012 at 3:43 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Way to go with the moral teachings, christians!!! Because wholesale slaughter of entire populations is the moral way to punish a subset of those populations. God and his worshippers – are assholes.
hexidecima
July 31, 2012 at 3:53 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Let’s see, an ignorant evangelical Christian running to the Mishnah for evidence to prove their hateful ideas are “true” all the while insisting that the Jews will be damned.
Yep, Mr. Fruh, your god is quite stupid according to *you*. You want this being to be so very stupid and violent to kill people for something you’ve made up from Jewish “interpretations”. I suspect that these same Jews are sure that you’re a pitifully deluded follower of a false messiah too. It’s indeed hiliarous to see you so afraid of something different than you that you make up lies that my marriage will somehow fail because other people have sex. Sorry, people have been having non-procreational sex for years and seems that we’re onto 7 billion people so far. The sky again is not falling and Christians are again still lying…poorly.
usingreason
July 31, 2012 at 4:04 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Obviously being gay is just a lifestyle choice that the cool kids choose because it’s not legal. They are all just rebelling against their parents and god. Once it is legalized it will no longer be cool and all the teenagers will go back to being straight again. They may even start going back to church with Mom & Dad.
If the fundies had any smarts at all they would be pushing to legalize same sex marriage asap.
Abby Normal
July 31, 2012 at 4:09 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Wait, I thought same-sex marriage was a radical and unprecedented redefinition of marriage. Now I find out it’s one of the most ancient institutions on the planet.
greg1466
July 31, 2012 at 4:26 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
You know, I’ve suddenly realized that the wingnuts are right, America will come to an end soon. The stupid is approaching critical mass…
caseloweraz
July 31, 2012 at 4:29 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Fruh: “The one society in history that first offered marriage certificates to same-sex couples, you know you’d think it would be Sodom and Gomorrah or Rome or Greece, was actually the society just prior to the flood of Noah.”
Don’t tell me the properly constituted authorities attest to its validity. Where’s your evidence? I want to see the actual marriage certificate — preferably the long form.
Nemo
July 31, 2012 at 4:49 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@busterggi #2:
No offense, but these sound like the weasel words a liberal Christian might use, who wanted to support gay rights but remain a Christian. As atheists, I think we should acknowledge that the Bible is, in fact, against homosexuality. And then point out that this doesn’t matter, because the Bible is a load of crap.
(Hypocrisy alert: I’ve been known to point out that Jesus never mentioned homosexuality. Really though, Paul was against it, and so is Leviticus.)
Marcus Ranum
July 31, 2012 at 5:00 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Abby Normal writes:
Wait, I thought same-sex marriage was a radical and unprecedented redefinition of marriage. Now I find out it’s one of the most ancient institutions on the planet.
Actually, it is. In Zhou period China, it was common. It appears to have been a problem in Roman times, since one of the Roman emperors felt that he had to make it illegal with death as a penalty. In druidic Ireland it was apparently common, and there are special instances of warriors and kings marrying their horses.
I don’t approve of marrying horses because the bride can only say “neigh” and can’t give proper consent.
marcus
July 31, 2012 at 5:04 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“God and his worshipers – are assholes.” I see a great bumper sticker there. Too bad peace-lovin’Christers would probably firebomb my car.
Marcus Ranum
July 31, 2012 at 5:08 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
On a slightly unrelated topic:
I was thinking that Teh Sekrit Ghey Agenda ought to steal a riff from the mormons and begin issuing retroactive post-mortem gay marriages.
whheydt
July 31, 2012 at 5:11 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
And in related news, the anti-SSM/pro-Prop8 crowd have, apparently actually filed their appeal with the USSC. See here: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57483610/same-sex-marriage-ban-backers-look-to-high-court/?tag=stack
–W. H. Heydt
lofgren
July 31, 2012 at 5:13 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Oh, you know “neigh” really means “yeigh.” She just wants you to work for it.
jthompson
July 31, 2012 at 5:14 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@hexidecima: He means there won’t be enough white kids, not that procreation would end in general. It’s not a lie, it’s just a dog whistle.
reverendrodney
July 31, 2012 at 5:49 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Fruh is saying that, given the legal right do do so, ALL humans would stop being heterosexual. Sounds like a little projection going on there.
How must it have been in Noah’s time got to wipe out the entire world when all he did in Lot’s time was demolish a couple of cities.
sqlrob
July 31, 2012 at 7:07 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
You should know better than to ask a question you don’t want to know the answer to.
timgueguen
July 31, 2012 at 7:14 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Funny how God, who supposedly created the Universe single handded, uses such blunt methods of fixing problems, like mass murder. Strangely he doesn’t use his superpowers to simply make people behave the way he wants.
raven
July 31, 2012 at 8:00 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
1. The sin of Sodom was the rich letting the poor suffer while they lived an upper class lifestyle.
This is according to Ezekiel, one of the major prophets.
2. Fruh has no idea what is in his so called magic book.
3. Which doesn’t matter. He is just lying about what is in it, secure in the knowledge that xians lie so often they think it is one of the three major sacraments.
This is another proof that the xian god doesn’t exist. If he did, Fruh and all the Tea Partiers would have all been hit by lightening bolts by now. The biblical sin of Sodom is a sacred principle to those types; help the rich and stomp on the poor.
Childermass
July 31, 2012 at 8:09 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Article: “they say that that’s why God brought the flood”
Who is “they”? The Bible certainly lacks that detail. And even if the Deluge was not a fable, there was certainly no “they” who would provided that detail.
Let me guess. “They” is “you.”
Childermass
July 31, 2012 at 9:14 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Not only did day marriage cause the Flood, but it will also cause certain nations to lose at the Olympics. The “Trustworthy” “Encyclopedia” has the story: http://www.conservapedia.com/2012_Summer_Olympics (Hat Tip: Fark.com Link voting page)
xjustos
July 31, 2012 at 10:00 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
you need to do a search on youtube for your name
Ibis3, member of the Oppressed Sisterhood fanclub
July 31, 2012 at 10:14 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@14
It does mandate the death penalty for false prophets.
Azkyroth, Former Growing Toaster Oven
August 1, 2012 at 1:29 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Then why does the South keep getting hurricanes and tornadoes?
anubisprime
August 1, 2012 at 3:05 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Nemo @ 33
And there…right there is a clue!
That Paul was the architect, manipulator, conman exceptional and particularly ignorant but a ambitious and rabidly exploitative main chancer, really speaks louder then any brain dead sycophantic sheep that pretends some fanciful evangelism is his calling from some spurious figment of a dumb imagination.
When all it really turns out to be is that religion is a perfect cover to express and promote turgid self-righteous bigotry, intolerances, fears and hatreds of the gang against the minority.
Paul discovered that bonus very early on.
Most evangelists style themselves on Paul…or what they think Paul styled himself as.
A priggish pompous identification with the inventor of xianity is about all they are capable of intellectually thing is they do not realize that point, they think they follow Christ but nope tis Paul that yanks their chain and they do not even realize it!
It would explain the obvious jealousies and antipathy to another xian delusion that pretends that their head honcho actually speaks for god himself!
So maybe a little inferiority complex going down there spices the taste.
And further explains why the evangelists themselves elevated Jebus to godhood….something that Jebus himself apparently denied…so they affectively ignore Jebus cos it does not suit their ego.
The irony being that both delusions try to out do each other in the bigot stakes.
It is as obvious as the sun rise that the long term plans, would be after homosexuality is defeated to their satisfaction, they would both turn their hysterical myopic virulence on atheism full blast.
At the moment they are both like dogs with two dicks not sure which one to chew first…but divide and conquer is not just a tactic…it is the very reason for atheist and teh ghey survival.
Scary but debatably true!
eric
August 1, 2012 at 8:47 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Childermass @45 – thanks for that link, its quite humorous. I particularly liked how they are projecting a Djokovic win over Murray in tennis as a win for God-fearing countries. Because, y’know, nobody would ever expect Djokovic to beat Murray otherwise.
Midnight Rambler
August 1, 2012 at 11:22 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Holy crap that conservapedia article was hilarious. I especially like how they have an article on Overrated Sports Stars:
Also, the sheer obliviousness of these two back-to-back:
caseloweraz
August 1, 2012 at 1:18 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Childermass wrote: “The “Trustworthy” “Encyclopedia” has the story.”
Indeed it does…
This was classical Greece: a vile nest of pagans.
Also, it makes perfect sense when discussing the origins of the Olympics to jump right to 1936 Berlin.
/sarc