Alas, A Blog comments today on DefendMarylandMarriage.com — another one of those antigay web sites that names none of its authors, but lobbies for discrimination against people who happen to have real names and real families.
As blogger Ampersand (Barry) notes, the web site’s home page now says:
We want to be perfectly clear. We do not hate those who live the
homosexual lifestyle. Those who would label the defenders of
traditional marriage as homophobes or with any other mean spirited word
should know that we love and pray for all men.
This passage’s claims may be seen by some as unimaginative or counterproductive, but not inherently hateful.
However, just a few sentences later, DMM resorts to some harsh words:
No longer will we be suppressed or intimidated by the enemies of decency and godliness.
And, as the Alas blog points out, Google’s cache indicates that until recently DMM reprinted these excerpts of a speech by Maryland state lawmaker Don Dwyer:
We believe it is necessary that church leaders across
Maryland be exposed to the vile and militaristic agenda of extreme
homosexual activists. Moral leaders must become aware of their intent
to sodomize our children. For this reason, we continue to schedule
Pastor, Elder, Deacon and Church Leader meetings wherein we show
firsthand the words and plans of these activists.We are
committed to unifying the universal church (God’s Church) into action
and we urge that every church exposes the ugly realities of the
homosexual movement to its members. Their intent is to indoctrinate our
children with the homosexual lifestyle. This is currently happening in
many public and private schools across our state. We will remain silent
no longer!
As of this moment, Google searches turn up traces of the text, but the cached pages have been cleansed. And DefendMarylandMarriage.com is not archived at archive.org — perhaps because the site was only launched a couple months ago. However, Google continues to list a handful of web sites that reported the site’s language before the apparent cleanup.
Since DMM.com endorsed Dwyer’s language, one might expect the site to defend its position — or perhaps to apologize, if it in fact regretted posting defamatory statements. But when Ampersand/Barry contacted DMM.com regarding the language and its disappearance, DMM’s response was curt: "The goal of this organization is not to satisfy your need to know."
Perhaps these were just the words of a disgruntled soul in need of God’s grace and hospitality.
Then again, maybe not:
According to a WHOIS search, the site owner is Pastor Rick Bowers of Columbia, Md.
According to an article in the Jan. 30 edition of The Baltimore Sun (free subscription required), Bowers is co-pastor with his wife Sheryle of Living Stone House of
Worship. Bowers also is the leader of a group of evangelical pastors that created the
Defend Maryland Marriage political action committee. The Bowerses’ bio does not detail their educational background, except to say they
were ordained by an unaccredited outfit in Plano, Texas.
Pastor Rick uses the resources page of DMM.com not to foster healthy heterosexual marriages, but rather to promote exgay outfit Harvest USA, Take Back Maryland, an anti-ACLU web site, and pro-exgay propagandist Scott Lively — whose PDF-formatted autobiography equates same-gender attraction with Nazism and, for good measure, opposes U.S. treaties with foreign powers.
Is Rick Bowers married to or otherwise related to Betty Bowers? Looking at the quotes, I can see that this is surely an outreach from Landover Baptist. Now, I know there are those that think Landover is a parody, but I am sincerely convinced it represents the very best in contemporary American Christianity.
Wikipedia profiles the creators of Landover Baptist, a parody website and store:
How can they be such blatant two faced liars and why doesn’t the media expose these people for who they are? Hell, why don’t moderate Republicans and not-so-far-right Republicans expose them?
Co-pastors + Diploma Mill + anti-gay Website = anti-gay CULT.
Anti-gay CULT= easy Republican $$
Any ??
Unfortunately, these “pastors” and their partners in the DMM lobbying group drew 1,000 people to a recent rally, according to the Baltimore Sun article.
I don’t see how they qualify as a cult. But I do question the credentials and integrity of DMM’s other “pastors” who chose to recognize Bowers as their leader.
I grew up in a fundamentalist religion and all it took to be a church pastor in that denomination was to “feel the calling”. No education requirements, no certification, nada. And so many of those so called pastors did extensive damage to people’s lives, which was a result of their lack of training. Those type of people are attractive to the uneducated and uninformed. I’m glad I’m out of it.
Dobson will ally with Hindus, MOSLEMS, and other Christian sects that he considers heretical, in order to go after gay people.
Note, I am not disparaging Moslems, or others, my point is that Evangelicals like Dobson detest their doctrines and consider them leading people to a death for eternity in the lake of fire! (They even think that no group has recently killed more Christians than Moslem fundamentalists!) . However, they are willing to drop all of their principles to go after gays and send them back into the gulag.
I found another anti-gay blog called Massresistance at blogspot. It too publishes items however you cannot contact any of the people who print that shit. There are so many articles I would love to debate them on but they must be too afraid to accept other views.
That seems to be a regular pattern, Buddy. Alan Chamber decided to shut down his comments when people confronted him on his fundraising tactics.
Randy Thomas also runs away when you ask him hard questions.
They don’t like reality at all.
The information regarding Landover is incorrect. Frank Tozour created a thought provoking humorous show, just for fun. Chris Harper was a main contributor, but when Tozour graduated, the show lost its satirical edge and under Harper’s direction the humor turned scornful. Tozour intended to use satire as a way to express and inspire critical thinking, self-examination, and for lack of a better term–authenticity. The show was instrumental in helping me to process-out some of the consensus, yet false assumptions of the educational establishment in our society. In my view Chris is on the fringe end of that false yet majority thinking.