by Larry Smith
Pastor Lyall Bethel responded to my recent article that criticised his obsession with an imaginary plot to take over the world that he and others like to refer to as "the gay militant agenda".
"(Smith) wants to call me 'ayatollah' because I, representing the vast majority of Bahamians, don't want to see our nation turned into Sodom and Gomorrah...One need only watch what is going on in the U.S. and around the world to understand what compliance or refusal to take seriously the homosexual agenda will bring about."
I referred to Bethel's newspaper submissions as "pompous faux scholarship" that present "false, out of date and grossly misrepresented statistics that can be found almost verbatim on a multitude of neo nazi, white supremacist and extreme theo-con websites."
I also noted that the multitude of social ills afflicting our small population should be enough to occupy any self-respecting religious leader from now until the second coming, without having to resort to punitive campaigns over non-issues like sex and gambling.
But according to Bethel, "truth (including the truth about homosexuality) always marches on, undeterred by those who fight against it. That is my consolation in this debate."
Now another Baptist pastor has weighed in on this subject. Bishop Simeon Hall officiated at a recent funeral for an apparently gay woman."I have suffered some criticism for this funeral," Hall said. "It's time for Christian churches in our Bahamas to broaden their repertoire of concerns.
"Issues about homosexuality and gambling must not be the extent to which the Christian community is heard."
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