As we’ve discussed before, the IFI protest at the Gay Games in Chicago were highly ineffective. The protesters were outnumbered and then rain washed them out after about an hour and a half.
Previous reporting discussed singing atheletes from London, but James Hartline, ex-gay activist from San Diego, gave AgapePress a different report about those who challenged LaBarbera and Hartline.
“When we went inside of the homosexual community,” the Christian activist recalls, “it had to be one of the ugliest spiritual experiences that I’ve ever experienced, because of the hostility that was directed towards us specifically by members of that community. It was like a mob mentality.”
Other folks might think that James’ numerous drug and sex binges and the years he spent incarcerated might be uglier. But James found this visit to harrange gay people to be so discouraging because he faced not just the “hundreds” of demon possessed homosexuals (previous reports mentioned a couple dozen), but ministers as well.
What was most disappointing about the whole situation, the ex-homosexual speaker observes, was the fact that some clergy members in their religious garb stood alongside the homosexual activists, shouting at the Christians. This scenario presented “one of the more telling signs about how far away from the Word of God some of these churches have gotten,” he says.
What was hard to get over, Hartline explains, was “the idea that [although] we’re Christians and we’re doing what the Bible has asked us to do — what the Lord has that told us to do, which is go spread the Word of God and its truth — we would actually be attacked by people wearing collars as ordained ministers, calling us ‘bigots’ and ‘hateful.'”
It can sometimes be difficult to know whether what James Hartline reports actually happened anywhere outside his own head (his blog only mentioned one minister, the AgapePress story sounds like several). But assuming there were ministers present countering LaBarbera and Hartline’s message of condemnation and fear, they are a welcome addition. It is important that people come to recognize that anti-gay zealots do not hold a monopoly on Christianity.
“It is important that people come to recognize that anti-gay zealots do not hold a monopoly on Christianity.”
Exactly, Timothy! Thanks for that reminder!
love,
grace
THUNDERCLAP. Not every Christian views God, morality, or sexuality in the same way as Hartline et al.
Also, if you make a career out of demonizing people, you shouldn’t expect them to welcome you with open arms.
Sounds like Mr. Hartline has had a visit from the Reality Fairy. 🙂
So the hostility that James Hartline expresses regularly to LGBT people in San Diego is un-ugly? From the The James Hartline Report Action Center; July Action Alert:
As an LGBT military veteran, I find Hartline’s invoking of servicemember’s deaths filthy and ugly. While I served in the US Navy for 20-years, Hartline just served time in prison.
May we all remain ugly in his addled eyes forever.
However many ministers there were who opposed them, I’m glad he/she/they showed up to remind everybody that the Hartlines and LaBarbaras aren’t the only Christian game in town.
And Autumn, I’m sure even many people who agree with Hartline on the surface understand where you’re coming from. *hug*
Hartline sounds like he should just plead “insanity” and wait for the promised Rapture.
grace,
Haven’t heard from you in a while. Good to see you again.
I recently decided to entertain myself and read some of the things that Hartline has written. Honestly, I think the guy did one or two (heck, maybe three) too many drugs in his day. He clearly doesn’t have a very good grasp on reality. It is rather like he looks at the world through glasses that have become fogged over by his own heavy breathing.
j.
I don’t know which “god” that Hartline worships, but it certainly ain’t the God that I know, love and revere. The recorded sayings of Jesus do not include a single mention of homosexuals, same-sex couples, etc. So what part of “the Word” would Hartline be trying to spread?
I wish that these people would stop cloaking their hatred with the name of Jesus. To do so is decidedly un-Christian. Truth in advertising, people!
I had never read this much detail of Hartline’s delusions until now. This man has serious issues. His delusions of Grandeur, comparing himself to Moses, believing that God is giving him special revelations about the future and preparing him to be an integral part of it, these are red flags for sure. This goes way beyond the calling that a pastor or missionary may feel on their lives – this is Jim Jones territory. What concerns me most is the lengths to which this type of person may go if he feels others are not sufficiently heeding his commands.
James Hartline is a textbook example of someone who has come from a highly dysfunctional and addictive past, then after a religious conversion, has (often unknowingly) sought to replace those old addictions with new ones which will meet the same cravings the old ones did. You see this *all* the time in church. Rather than shooting up to get high, they now go to a praise service every time the doors are open to get the same feeling on a regular basis. Now, I’m not saying a person’s conversion isn’t real or that singing praise songs is the same as abusing drugs (!), but it’s obvious that many new and spiritually immature Christians simply trade in old addictions for a new ones. Their faith often becomes unhealthy and unbalanced, to where having constant “mystical God experiences” is the only thing that matters, others be damned. The most obnoxiously zealous Christians generally come from such a background.
Now, let’s look at Hartline. If you look past the kinds of activities he was involved with to the *types* of addictions they were, you discover that they all feature an element of danger to them (unprotected sex with strangers, burglary) which contain a high level of excitement. In addition, they were activities that were socially unacceptable and ones that the majority of people would frown upon and openly verbally condemn. The fact that such reaction is negative is in a strange way, a good thing, since it gives one the rush of being an “outlaw.” (Hartline’s experiences in prison also contribute to this.)
Flash forward to now. You’ve got a guy who has positioned himself as an “outlaw” within the gay community (and somewhat of an outlaw in the Christian community, too, because of his continued openness about his sordid past). He deliberately goes into (and lives in) situations where he knows he will be actively opposed and where danger might lurk. It’s exciting, and gives his life a sense of purpose he didn’t have before.
Nothing much has changed in Hartline’s addictive need for an emotional rush and constant validation. He’s just changed where he gets it from. The truly sad part is that the far-right Christian media has taken the role of drug dealer to this man, giving him what his addictive personality so craves. Attention. Which is probably the biggest addiction of all. Just ask Paris Hilton.
Because of this, it will be very challenging for the GLBT community to combat Hartline. We’re dealing with a very committed, unbalanced individual that, quite frankly, has nothing to lose. And those kinds of individuals are the most dangerous.
Many of us here in San Diego have underestimated Hartline in the past because he does appear to be at first glance to be unhinged. The James Hartline Report Archive Of Accomplishments (middle of the webpage — especially accomplishment items 2 through 4, and 7) speaks to the success of the tactics he and his “Not On My Watch” Team employ.It’s easy to underestimate folk like James Hartline because their rhetoric sounds incredibly bizarre. LGBT activists in San Diego don’t underestimate Hartline’s ability to wreak havoc anymore.