Soulforce responds to the arrest of Southern Baptist Convention pastor Rev. Lonnie Latham:
Robyn Murphy, Director of Public Relations and Media, for Soulforce:
“Many people are attacking Rev. Latham for his hypocrisy, but instead we should be asking ‘what informs that hypocrisy’? The answer is the SBC’s vicious and non-stop campaign of defamation against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people and same-gender families.”
Jamie McDaniel, a spokesperson for Soulforce who works to change the antigay policies of the SBC:
“It’s tragic that so many, like Rev. Latham, have never been told the truth that they can live with dignity and express their God-given sexuality in ways that are open, honest, loving and life-affirming. Trapped by Southern Baptist misinformation, many people of faith think their only option is to live a dark and secretive double-life. The SBC needs to be held accountable for causing this kind of needless suffering.”
Rev. Mel White, founder of Soulforce:
“No one should have to come out via an undercover sting operation. That is its own evil. Until the Southern Baptist Convention ends their spiritual violence against gay and lesbian people, tragedies like this will continue.”
Blogger Pam Spaulding isn’t quite so compassionate. She has posted Latham’s letter of resignation along with excerpts of antigay smears posted about Latham at the social-conservative web site FreeRepublic.com.
I have developed a slightly different take on this, reading between the lines of various posts here and elsewhere. Apparently undercover cop was trailing Latham from his hotel, which, apparently was not at the Habana, to the Habana’s parking lot. The lawyer in me asks, why would an undercover cop want to go to that effort apparently without any evidence that anything criminal was going on beforehand?
The lawyer in me responds that it is probable that the cops were “tipped off” by a competitor of Latham, who wanted to bring him down. Something similar to what happened to Jimmy Swaggart a few years ago.
This is an incredibly stupid response from Soulforce on so many levels.
First, there are plenty of “out and proud” gay men who do the same thing that Lantham has been accused of doing. It is a stretch to blame these “secret lives” on the nasty-wasty Southern Baptist Church. Lantham was sexually aroused, wanted to find a man for a quick tryst, and that’s that.
Second, I want to raise what may seem to be a pedantic point – but I think it is an important one in highly inflammatory matters such as this one. Lantham is not, strictly speaking, a hypocrite for crusing for gay pickups while preaching against homosexual sex. As the old Catholic Encyclopedia says “Hypocrisy is the pretension to qualities which one does not possess.” Hypocrisy – in its classic definition – does not necessarily mean failing to practice what one preaches. All of us do this sort of thing all the time. A religious person would call a failure to practice what one professes to be sin in the generic sense. Latham has never posed as an “ex-gay” or without homosexual impulses as far as we know: he simply chose not to tell anyone that he had homosexual impulses and chose not to tell anyone about his furtive gay trysts because he did not want to be discovered. The latter is not hypocrisy in the classical sense.
In contrast, the somewhat unbelievable story that he was only engaging in ministry to save the poor gays from a life of sin would be hypocrisy to the precise extent that he uttered the statement with the intent to deceive. It may also be true Latham was acting from mixed motives that were diametrically opposed to each other: trying convincing gays not to cruise and to become “born-again Christians,” yet all the while cruising and lusting after the very men engaged in after dark activities that he was trying to “evangelize.” No less a personage than Gladstone had a similar problem, trying to rescue women from a life of prostitution, yet satisfying his sexual desires by posing as a customer, chatting them up, or perhaps even more. Fortunately for Gladstone, the vicious British press never exposed him for these embarassing activities of his.
The orgy of gloating from some quarters of the gay world over this ugly incident is something I find to be quite distasteful. The man is forever ruined. Rather than gloating, it would be much better if the gay reaction should be along the lines of (a) “there but the grace of God go I” and (b) ask why anyone should be charged with a crime for talking about performing an act, the performance of which is no longer a crime.
Patrick you say “Lantham is not, strictly speaking, a hypocrite for crusing for gay pickups while preaching against homosexual sex.”…”Latham has never posed as an “ex-gay” or without homosexual impulses as far as we know: he simply chose not to tell anyone that he had homosexual impulses and chose not to tell anyone about his furtive gay trysts because he did not want to be discovered. The latter is not hypocrisy in the classical sense. “.
You are really splitting hairs on this. A reasonable person assumes someone vocally opposing same sex couplings isn’t doing it himself. That is classic hypocrisy to me and I would think most people. You are correct that no hypocrite deserves to be arrested for that. You say Soulforce’s response is stupid and this pastor’s arrest isn’t hypocritical – absolutely stunning spin.
Patrick, it is Lonnie Latham. And please do not suggest that the Catholic Encyclopedia has anything to do with reality.
“A reasonable person assumes someone vocally opposing same sex couplings isn’t doing it himself.”
Of course. But that’s beside the point. What constitutes a hypocrite is not that other people reasonably think he posesses a quality that he doesn’t have, but the intent of the hypocrite to deceive. Until he was interviewed after the arrest, I haven’t seen anything in the stories that the minister tried to dupe his congregation about his own lack of homosexuality. The most likely scenario – in my view – is that he sincerely believed that homosexual sex was wrong and that homosexuality was a dark impulse that society should discourage. In fact, it is very likely that his homosexual impulses which he could not control informed and reinforced his anti-homosexual viewpoint. Whether he should feel this way about his own sexual interests is beside the point.
The minister’s unpleasant predicament is in direct contrast to someone like John Paulk who waged a highly-publicized political campaign in which he posed as a man freed from homosexuality by the grace of God (or whatever) while at the same time cruising gay bars. This IS total hypocrisy and a form of hypocrisy that seems to be endemic in many ex-gay outfits.
At the same time, the minister’s set-up claim sounds completely preposterous and is very likely a lie. Hypocrisy? Probably, if one can be a hypocrite after the fact.
Patrick Rothwell at January 9, 2006 12:13 AM
I have a different take on things. Latham himself may not have viewed himself as having been hypocrtical, if he was not (as has been reported elsewhere) as being anti-gay. But it doesn’t end there. He was a high official in, and assistant of, an organization that opposed equal rights for gay people. Hypocrite? Maybe not 1st degree (preaching against it but doing it), but definitely 2d degree (being the high official in an anti-gay operation).
BTW, I disagree with you about the set-up claim. I find it incredulous to believe that the police would select his car to tail unless they were (i) tipped off, or (ii) traffic in OK City is awfully light. I’d settle on the former, until there was evidence to the contrary.
My statement was: “A reasonable person assumes someone vocally opposing same sex couplings isn’t doing it himself.”
Patrick replied “Of course. But that’s beside the point. What constitutes a hypocrite is not that other people reasonably think he posesses a quality that he doesn’t have, but the intent of the hypocrite to deceive.”
That’s far from besides the point Patrick. It should have been obvious to the pastor that people would assume he was not involved in gay behavior if he was preaching against it. Its very hard for me to imagine he didn’t believe people would assume his anti-gay preaching meant he wasn’t gay himself. An honest same sex involved person would qualify anti-gay rhetoric with the statement that he himself was unsuccessfully trying to resist such behavior. This guy doesn’t deserve the kind of slack you’re trying to cut him.
His behavior is not in direct contrast to John Paulk, there is a slight, not very substantive difference. John may have explicitly stated he was not involved in gay behavior, but this guy implicitly stated he was not involved in gay behavior with his repetitive anti-gay rhetoric. To suggest he could spout anti-gay rhetoric and not be aware he was sending the hypocritical message he was not gay strains credulity.
“An honest same sex involved person would qualify anti-gay rhetoric with the statement that he himself was unsuccessfully trying to resist such behavior. This guy doesn’t deserve the kind of slack you’re trying to cut him.”
False. You mistake “honesty” with “full disclosure.” No one is under any moral obligation to manifest his conscience to others. If I publicly say that lying (in most cases) is wrong, I am under no moral obligation whatsoever to disclose that I sometimes have trouble keeping from lying. A pulpit – bully or otherwise – is not a confessional, nor is it a cross-examination at trial.
Posted by: Patrick Rothwell at January 9, 2006 03:54 PM
Its a strange world you live in Patrick when honesty has nothing to do with full disclosure, especially in this circumstance. As I see it those in particular who would tell others to restrict their lives when those lives hurt no one, those people in particular are morally obligated to make full disclosure of where they fall short of the ideals they advocate. I feel morally obligated to and do point out that I am sometimes far from perfect in achieving the fairness ideals I advocate for all of society. To do otherwise, as did this pastor, would be very hypocritical.
I’m not sure what your vision of a pulpit is. If its a one way street from god to the public the inherent weak link of a fallible human who can’t be proven to actually be communicating God’s word is not morally neutral or irrelevant as you seem to be saying.