#1427: Michael Brown

Plenty of Michael Browns around, but we’ve singled out Bible-thumper, homophobe, Messianic Jew Michael L Brown, who regularly contributes to Townhall.com and serves as Head of the Coalition of Conscience, a small group of Taliban Fundamentalists, as well as president and professor of practical theology at the Fellowship for International Revival and Evangelism School of Ministry [stay well away from that one, please]. Brown’s primary obsession is with homosexuality and gay marriage, and his primary strategy is pretending to be persecuted by the gays. A good illustration of persecution is the manner in which Rush Limbaugh (yes, seriously) has been intimidated and compromised by the homosexual lobby.

In his book A Queer thing happened in America Brown spells out his persecution complex rather clearly – that gays demand rights just means that they want those who oppose them to lose their rights to bully, harass or discriminate against them. Which, according to Brown, is persecution (gay equality activism is even the “principal threat to religious freedom, freedom of conscience [and] freedom of speech”). It isn’t. But to Brown, the logical conclusion to draw is that gays will eventually want to put anyone who oppose them out of circulation. That’s what we call projection; it says very little about gays ,but probably a bit about how Brown views those who disagree with him. And Brown offers no coherent evidence, though he concludes that “[t]he war is on against people of conscience and people of faith who do not affirm homosexual practice, no matter how loving and fair-minded they may be.” And if you doubted that there was a nefarious conspiracy, Brown can cite a lot of demonstrably bogus articles and hoaxes that suggest otherwise.

According to Brown, homosexuality is caused by demons (the same as, or related to, the demons that according to Brown are responsible for porn and drug addiction): “ ... the battle lines have been drawn, the enemy is taking ground, and many of us hardly realize that the war is on. The devil is moving forward with energy and aggression. What in the world are we doing?” Accordingly, according to Brown, if gays are freed of demonic influence they will become heterosexuals. (“I have friends who [shall apparently remain unnamed and who] identified as transgender and who had GID who are healed and transformed by the power of the gospel.”) After saying things like this, Brown usually points out that he will be called out for saying it, which he probably will be given the sheer stupidity of the claims, but which to him is, once again, proof of persecution. You see, criticism is persecution when Brown is on the receiving end of that criticism. It also proves that Brownis really the victim here, and therefore not a homophobe.

Surely, calling him a homophobe is unfair. After all, he takes pains to emphasize his love and compassion, for instance in his 2014 Can You Be Gay and Christian?: Responding With Love and Truth to Questions About Homosexuality. Among what counts as “truth” is apparently that “gay activism”, rather than bigotry, was responsible for the brutal murder of 15 year-old openly gay eight grader Lawrence King in 2008 because gay kids are not sufficiently discouraged by their communities from hiding their sexual orientation when in environments where bigots like Michael Brown may hate and attack and abuse them. (He later admitted that gay teens do kill themselves because of bullying, but it’s not a big deal since kids kill themselves for all sorts of reasons). Among what counts as “love” is presumably his defense of Uganda’s draconian anti-homosexuality law, which according to Brown is necessary to fight the spread of HIV/AIDS and combat pedophilia: “Uganda has some very strong reasons for having issues with homosexual practice.” So, apparently, does Brown.

Naturally, the reason Brown opposes gay rights is the Bible. The Bible is clear about homosexuality. Of course, Brown admits, the Bible is also clear about slavery. However, according to Brown, “God did intend to legislate slavery in ancient Israel, but in a humane way and as part of a larger economic system.” And “[l]et’s not forget that every Sabbath, slaves rested as the nation remembered Israel’s deliverance from Egyptian slavery.” Indeed.

He also writes about politics (and Michael Sam). For instance, Brown – an avowed theocrat – has argued that President Obama is not a Christian because he supports gay equality and opposes the criminalization of abortion, and is “more a disciple of Saul Alinsky than of Jesus.” (Yup, that’s the level of his contributions to debates). He also compares Obama negatively to Martin Luther King, Jr., whom he said was a “great unifier” while Obama is the “great divider.” Need we remind Michael Brown that MLK was not exactly seen as a unifier by people like Michael Brown in the 60s?

Here is Brown on gays in the boy scouts.

Diagnosis: Yes, evil is good, lies are truth and dishonesty apparently a virtue. With great hatred comes great disregard for reality, evidence and reason. Fortunately there is evidence that howling, lunatic monsters like Michael Brown are in the process of marginalizing themselves (though he thinks they’ll bounce back any moment now). Perhaps zeh gays are just realizing that persecution is way less effective than what Brown is doing to his own credibility through his own words and actions?