Yes, Conservative Christians Are 'Triggered' By LGBT Pride Flags. Here's Why
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
In late March, House Democrats temporarily replaced the POW-MIA flags hanging outside their offices with pink flags celebrating transgender identity. Family Research Council (FRC) President Tony Perkins called the flags an " unpleasant reminder ." In early March, a high school girl responded to LGBT pride flags by posting Bible verses. Last year, a Chicago priest burned an LGBT pride flag that also had a cross on it, calling the flag a "sacrilege."
Why do conservative Christians have a visceral reaction to LGBT pride flags? Can't they just get along with LGBT people? What's the big hangup? Why are they "triggered"?
The problem is, LGBT pride flags represent the antithesis of many things conservative Christians believe, and every so often this symbol is thrust in their faces. Some schools, cities, and governments have flown these flags in order to show support and compassion for LGBT people, but in doing so they also proclaim a message that Christian beliefs are stigmatized and will not be tolerated.
People who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender have been mistreated in the past, and still are mistreated in some parts of society. They were excluded from bars and businesses, their lifestyles were penalized by law, some of them were put through crackpot treatments like shock therapy (not to be confused with psychologically sound treatments like reparative therapy ), and too often other Americans looked down on them.
Christians need to love everyone, including their enemies. They need to preach the gospel, encouraging non-believers to repent, but they need to do so "with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that when you are slandered, those who revile your good name in Christ may be put to shame" (1 Peter 3:15-17). After all, every Christian is a repentant sinner.
That does not mean that Christians should celebrate LGBT lifestyles, however. It is possible to treat people with respect while disapproving of their sexual activity or their cross-sex identity.
The Bible is clear that God made humans male and female (Genesis 1:27, Mark 10:6, Matthew 19:4) and that marriage is between one man and one woman (Genesis 2:24). The male-female definition of marriage is not just a lifestyle in the Bible — it is a mystery that prefigures the marriage between God and His church (Ephesians 5:31-32).
Homosexual activity is consistently denounced as sinful (Leviticus 18:22, 20:13; Romans 1:18-32; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10; 1 Timothy 1:8-10). That does not mean that same-sex sexual relationships do not involve love and self-sacrifice, but they also involve sin.
This does not mean that people who are attracted to members of the same sex are inherently condemned. The Bible does not uphold the Westborough Baptist Church's "God hates f*gs" rhetoric. Same-sex attracted Christians who choose celibacy to follow Jesus have extremely powerful testimonies.
I heartily recommend David Bennett's excellent book, A War of Loves: The Unexpected Story of a Gay Activist Discovering Jesus . In a sex-obsessed culture, celibate gay Christians can live out the truth that God fulfills human needs better than sexual desire, whether heterosexual or homosexual.
Similarly, the Christian teaching that God created human beings male and female does not mean Christians must turn a blind eye to people who struggle with gender dysphoria (the persistent condition of identifying with the gender opposite one's biological sex). Their struggles are real, but Christians — and many non-Christians — believe that the solution is not to encourage a transgender identity at odds with their biological sex.
Men and women who once identified as transgender have later rejected this identity, even after taking cross-sex hormones and having transgender surgery. Indeed, they have lamented permanently scarring their bodies in search of a false identity.
Former transgender Christians like Montreea Bailey also have compelling testimonies. Jesus saved Bailey from her transgender identity as a man, and she found the answer to her struggles in the Christian faith.
People like David Bennett and Montreea Bailey know that Christian faith and LGBT pride are fundamentally incompatible. The promises of ultimate fulfillment in homosexual sex and transgender identity are false, just as the promises of ultimate fulfillment in heterosexual sex and other identities are also false.
According to Christian teaching, only God can satisfy the deepest longings of the human heart, and LGBT lifestyles are an idol, a competing god.
LGBT pride also presents an alternate worldview incompatible with Christian teaching. According to the LGBT narrative, the fundamental problem is social stigma and the fundamental solution is an acceptance of gay and transgender identity. It is not enough for society to accept them; people must celebrate their identities.
In Christianity, the key problem is the separation between human beings and God, and Jesus Christ is the solution. Following Jesus enables Christians to overcome sin, and repentance is key to the Christian life. Humility is arguably the centerpiece of Christian ethics, following Jesus's example of God humbling Himself to become a human being (Philippians 2).
The pride in and celebration of sin is anathema to Christianity. LGBT pride represents a rejection of Christian sexual morality and the ideas behind it. The celebration of pride is the opposite of humility.
Yet the LGBT pride flag also represents a social movement that opposes the religious freedom of conservative Christians. Bakers like Jack Phillips gladly serve LGBT people, but they refuse to craft a wedding cake to celebrate a same-sex wedding. Florists and photographers have made the same decision.
State governments in the form of civil rights commissions have prosecuted these convictional Christians, claiming that their free speech refusal to craft art to celebrate an event they disagree with constitutes discrimination. Jack Phillips won his Supreme Court religious freedom case last year , but the commission went after him again , anyway. The issue continues to be divisive, and LGBT activists firmly declare that bakers like Phillips are guilty of discrimination.
Animus against conservative Christians has emerged at Google and at Yale Law School just in the past few weeks. Cities have banned Chick-Fil-A from their airports — most recently San Antonio, Texas and Buffalo, N.Y. — because the owner has donated to Christian organizations that uphold traditional sexual ethics.
Yet that's not the worst of it. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has branded conservative Christian nonprofits like Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) and FRC "hate groups" due to their beliefs on marriage and sexuality, listing them along with the Ku Klux Klan. ADF has won nine Supreme Court cases in seven years. A terrorist attempted to kill everyone in FRC, thanks to the SPLC's "hate map."
The SPLC also marked the small Catholic charity the Ruth Institute a "hate group," citing the Catechism of the Catholic Church as a "hate" document.
The SPLC is quite mainstream, but the vitriol against Christians is not limited to this powerful organization. When news broke that Karen Pence, wife of Vice President Mike Pence, had gone back to teaching at a Christian school — that, SHOCKER, holds to the Bible on sexuality issues — outrage ensued , with people declaring, "f**k these homophobes!"
In the book So Many Christians, So Few Lions: Is There Christianophobia in the United States? sociology professors George Yancey and David Williamson painstakingly document the presence of bias against conservative Christians, proving that it is as real as animus against Muslims and Jews.
Indeed, Yancey's most recent research shows that animus against Christians leads some people to support LGBT activism , even when they have a low opinion of LGBT people.
So, when conservative Christians see LGBT pride flags, they see the symbol of people who hate them, who want to weaken their constitutional rights, and who fundamentally disagree with their view of the world, celebrating the sin that they think separates people from God. If they weren't just a little "triggered," there would be something wrong with them.
Follow Tyler O'Neil, the author of this article, on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil .
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How timely...
Stop pretending it's a choice for them.
By the way, per your seed, how do gay people weaken your constitutional rights?
Freedom for all?
Many religious conservatives view homosexuals as, in biblical terms, "unclean". They are the spiritual equivalent to infectious lepers, who, while they shouldn't necessarily be hated, should be pitied, discriminated against and kept away from the rest of society. In their minds, if an island leper colony isn't available the nearest closet will do.
This is the uphill battle the LGTBQ community has had to wage to remove this unfair unfounded character assassination of an entire section of humanity that just happened to be born gay. Much like the claim made by religious conservatives of the past about the "curse of Cain" afflicting blacks thus making them "unclean" which made it okay to enslave, discriminate and treat them as less than human, some religious conservatives today do the same to those of the LGTBQ community.
And the fact is, in their homes and their personal lives, those bigoted Christians have every right to be prejudiced, to think of gays as virulent lepers. But when it comes to how gays are treated under the law and in the public spaces and businesses licensed and open to the public, they should be treated as any other tax paying, law abiding citizen. That's what it comes down to, and that is the law. The complaint by some religious conservatives seems to be they are being denied what they perceive is apparently an extra right granted by their religious freedom enabling them to cross over into the public spaces and public businesses where they can authorize legal discrimination against those they and their religion have deemed "unclean".
If there were some way to physically tell who had masturbated in the last six months, and a religion deemed masturbation "unclean", would religious conservatives be okay allowing business owners to deny service to anyone with "the mark"? Should those with "the mark" be denied marriage licenses? As I ask that seemingly rhetorical question I realize there are some fundamentalists who would likely support that kind of legislation. But seriously, are we really going to allow any religion to legislate its religious prejudices? And if we do, doesn't that open the way for other religions to try and legislate their religious prejudices?
They either don't think that far ahead or think their religion is the only one with these special rights.
Some of these fundamentalists think the land of the free only applies to them.
Do fakeass small c christian fundies oppose Liberty, Freedom and Social Justice?
Of course they do...
Reparative therapy is just another term for conversion therapy, and it is absolutely NOT psychologically sound.
There is nothing wrong with gay people that they need to be "cured" of - the only people who need to be cured are the ones who want to discriminate against them, in direct opposition to Jesus' teachings.
Yes, Conservative Christians Are 'Triggered' By LGBT Pride Flags
I presume they are aware that gayness is not contagious. Other than that I can see no reason why ones personal preferences would have any impact on another, unless you happen to be a peeping Tom that is.
I find it hard to believe that folks are still tied up in knots over the three sillies, race, religion and sexuality. For a change how about attempting to attend to ones own life and quit telling others how to lead theirs. ( a nice way of saying mind your own business)
Then you presume too much. There are still many people who don't want gay people teaching or supervising their kids, and many churches who won't accept gay pastors or church leaders. This, in spite of the fact that such gay people have no intention of trying to persuade anyone to be gay (something I don't think I've ever actually seen). The only thing left is that it must be the gay cooties.
I still come to the conclusion that the most virulent about it are afraid they might act on their own desires.
They should probably try to grow up and get over it
You would think that they'd be "triggered" by the swastika's and confederate flags flown together by the tiki torch mob, but no, it's the rainbow flags that really get them riled up.
They must really get pissed after a rain storm.
You know what should trigger everyone? Bigotry, Ignorance, Hate and Intolerance...
Should anyone give a flying fig if a bunch of fundie haters are triggered? Not at all.
Nicely said.
Faux christians need a safe space from rainbow flags.
They have their home, their church, Chick-Fil-A and Fox News.
And walmart for their Sunday.
AAHHH....The colours....
Careful lady. You might "trigger" someone. Lol
wait, what ? how about the Cross - a popular symbol for conservative Christians and it represents the advocation of taking away a same sex couples' secular legal right to Marriage, along with many members of the LGBT community constantly " condemned to Hell " just for being who they are and were born as ...... which symbol is older and has been in society's face longer ?
for the most part - mostly true except that reparative therapy isn't psychologically sound .. just ask Robert Spitzer ( who recanted his study in 2012 ) or talk to Exodus International ... oh wait.. you can't... they apologized as well and no longer exist ...
celebrate their identities ? i don't remember anyone being asked that .. oh wait.. you are probably referring to baking cakes aren't you ? i guess owning a public business and serving the actual public is too much for some people's sensitive, fragile religious " beliefs " .