Honestly, I'm pretty disappointed by all the protests gay-marriage advocates are holding outside Mormon temples. Yeah, the Latter-Day Saints hierarchy urged their faithful to donate millions of dollars to the Yes on Proposition 8 campaign, but Mormonism has always been upfront in their homo-hating–too easy a target. Much more devious and hypocritical in their approach is the Calvary Chapel movement. They're the ones whose primary spark, the Original Jesus Freak Lonnie Frisbee (pictured), was gay and booted out for it. And they're the ones whose faith seems to be predicated on transforming new acolytes into fag-bashers as quickly as possible.
Case in point: yesterday, I ran into a kid I hadn't seen in about a year. I asked him how his music was going (the Weekly has featured him before), and the young man said he doesn't practice it anymore. “But Jesus saved my life!” he proclaimed from his car. He grabbed a copy of the Bible from the driver's side of his seat and held it proudly.
“Cool!” I proclaimed. “What church do you go to?”
“In Costa Mesa.”
“Which one?”
“Calvary Chapel. God loves you!”
I was shaken immediately. Quickly, I applied my litmus test: “God loves the gays, too, you know.”
“Yeah, but Jesus doesn't love the sin. That's what people don't understand.”
This is a young man that, for the past couple of years, has surrounded himself with gays and lesbians, specifically a committed lesbian couple. Who accompanied said lesbians to protest Sarah Palin when she held a fundraiser in Orange County just a couple of months ago. Who was accepting and friendly of everyone–and now, he's spewing homophobia just a couple of months after encountering Calvary Chapel's brainwashers?
I shook my head at his response. “You take care of yourself, man,” I said, as I walked away and he drove off. Anti-Prop. H8 folks: forget the Mormons and go after Calvary Chapel. They are the true danger to a peaceful society.
