Posts on Wellington Boone

Televangelist and “Patriot Pastor” leader Rod Parsley announced that he will be taking part in an effort to “take America back for God through the power of prayer” during the 400th anniversary celebration of the founding of the Virginia colony at Jamestown. The “Consecration Conference” at “Assembly 2007” will also feature several other familiar religious-right stars, including Pat Robertson, Bishop Wellington Boone, Harry Jackson, and John Hagee. If you can’t make it to Virginia Beach next month, don’t worry – you can still take part in this effort to declare America a Christian nation by purchasing a “One Nation Under God” commemorative cross. “ Imagine thousands praying simultaneously from coast to coast publicly delaring that America belongs to Jesus Christ! Join the national movement on DEDICATION SUNDAY and renew the covenant with God and America in the prayer of rededication!”

A promotional video for the event makes this more explicit:

In April of 1607, the Jamestown colony landed in Virginia Beach and planted a cross, birthing a new nation dedicated to God. Now, 400 years later, you can be part of history by uniting with Christians at the Assembly 2007 to rededicate this country to Jesus Christ.

Of course, the birth of the new nation didn’t exactly occur until late in the next century – by which time the erstwhile colonists had developed ideas like the First Amendment and the No Religious Test clause.

Bishop Wellington Boone is fast becoming the Family Research Council’s favorite right-wing African American pastor, having participated in an FRC “Battle for Marriage” telecast, a “Take a Stand for Family” rally, a “Watchmen on the Wall” rally, “Justice Sunday III,” the “Values Voters Summit,” and now “Liberty Sunday, where the gay-bashing rhetoric he displayed during the recent “Values Voters Summit” continued.

Relating a conversation he claimed he had with his wife that morning, Boone insisted that homosexuality was unnatural and proposed something that can either be interpreted as evidence that his wife shares his bigoted views or else a clever new plot twist for the next season of “Survivor”

If sodomites - because they’re not gay, it’s a misnomer, they’re sodomites, there were sodomy laws in this country, all over, from 1600 and it was one time a capital offense  … Tell you what, let two women go on an island, all women, sodomites, go on an island, stay by yourself.  Put all the men on another island, this is my wife talking to me this morning, let them stay and tell you what, we’ll come back and see you in about a hundred years.    

Boone then went on to reiterate his view that the push for equality is not a civil rights issue, calling attempts to equate the two a ”rape of the civil rights movement,” a remark that elicited rousing applause from the predominantly white audience.  He then went off on a rather disjointed rant presumably related to the recent swearing in of Mark Dybul, who is openly gay, to be U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator.  During the ceremony, Dybul’s partner held the Bible and, according to press reports, Secretary of State Rice reportedly “singled out … Dybul's partner and referred to [his partner’s] mother as Dybul's mother-in-law.” 

Boone was livid, fuming

And then I look at USA Today and I see, by our Secretary of State, somebody being sworn in with the President’s wife standing up there smiling.  Now I got issues, because we talk about the President reading the Bible every day, we talk about him praying every day. Now I’m not playing with this kind of stuff here …. And then the comments that were made by the Secretary of State related to the partner of the person that was sworn in - their mother-in-law.  What do you mean their mother-in-law? They’re not married, that’s not a family!

Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who spoke earlier in the program, was careful to make to note that the debate over the issues of marriage should be carried out with “respect and tolerance,” a point that was apparently lost on Boone. 

Watch the Video: Broadband or Dial-Up

On the first day of the Values Voter Summit, speakers discussed embryonic stem-cell research (Sen. Brownback: "If you research and you kill a human at that stage [embryo], that human doesn't have a rest of a life"), abortion (Bishop Wellington Boone: African Americans are an "endangered species" because of "black genocide" through abortion), and the war on terror (James Dobson, ever conscious of upcoming elections: "I really see that as a family issue"). But by far the greatest emphasis was placed on the supposed dangers of the "homosexual agenda."

While some speakers, such as Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Sen. George Allen (R-Virginia), asserted that limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples is a "foundational value" upon which America is built, and others proclaimed the unfitness of gays to be parents (Jennifer Giroux of Citizens for Community Values: "The ultimate child abuse is placing a child in a gay home"), many speakers pushed the notion of a "homosexual agenda" to the limit. Dobson asserted that the goal of advocates of same-sex marriage is to simply "bring down marriage." (Family Research Council President Tony Perkins claimed that the divorce of the Goodridges, named in the Massachusetts case that established marriage equality in the state, proves that point. "That tells you the commitment to the institution of marriage," he said.) Princeton Professor Robert George, architect of the "Princeton Principles" against gay marriage, warned that the "forces arrayed against the conjugal conception of marriage are very powerful ... And they will strike hard."

And, beginning with Romney, speakers warned that equality for gays will lead to "repression" of Christians. "The homosexual agenda and [freedom of] religion are on a collision course," said Alan Sears of the Alliance Defense Fund, as Perkins added that "They know they must silence the church." Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colorado), sponsor of the federal constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, said that "If we have gay marriage, our religious liberties are gone!" And Maggie Gallagher, noting the analogy between the gay rights movement and the civil rights movement, said that "They're going to have to start enforcing" some kind of "repression," just as there is "a broad array of ways in which the law penalizes, marginalizes, and punishes racial bigots."

Bishop Wellington Boone, a frequent speaker at Promise Keepers events, reveled in what he thought would be shocking the polite crowd with his unapologetic attacks on gays and anyone who supports them. He touted a flyer he'd written called "The Rape of the Civil Rights Movement," which he said explained how "sodomites" were hijacking the civil rights to "promote perversion."

After recounting the history of violence and oppression against African Americans, from deaths on the middle passage through slavery and Jim Crow, he hollered, "You tell me a gay has a right to get in on some of that? Get out of here!"

Boone recalled that as a young person, he and his friends used the words "faggot" and "sissy" to refer to people who didn't stand on principle. "God has not called us to be sissies!" Boone seemed disappointed that his gay-bashing hasn't gotten more notice. "I want the gays mad at me. I am not on enough of their hit lists."

Boone also seemed to long for an unapologetically Christian nation, when anyone he derides as "unbiblical" wouldn't be serving in office. He read from what he described as an 18th century constitution for Delaware, which required al office holders to pledge fealty to a Christian creed. And he mocked the notion that someone running for Congress would not be "biblically based." "How can someone that doesn't feel the need for God lead me?"