Does anyone else find it at all suspicious that "The 700 Club" would approvingly profile Andrew Marin, a supposedly gay-friendly minister evangelizing in Chicago's gay neighborhood of Boystown?
Andrew Marin is trying to bridge a gap that has widened remarkably in recent years.
It's the gap between conservative Christians and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender community.
Marin's vision is bold and his commitment is deep. The evangelical and his wife recently bought their second home in Boystown, Ill., -- Chicago's official gay neighborhood.
Stroll down the streets of Boystown and you'll find a multi-faceted gay world -- low-key couples carrying groceries and dining out in trendy restaurants -- to the more flamboyant types and rainbow themes that abound everywhere.
Marin has lived in Boystown for 10 years. The densely populated neighborhood is the home to many gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people and all the businesses that cater to them.
It's not your typical ministry setting. However, Marin is about as comfortable here as any straight, fresh-from-the-suburbs type evangelical could hope to be.
When exactly was the last time you saw Pat Robertson's television network dedicating this kind of coverage to a gay-friendly minister?
If this all seems rather suspicious, that is probably because it is. In fact Michelangelo Signorile was warning about Marin just last month:
If Andrew Marin has lied about The Advocate having "retracted" my 2006 expose of him, what else is he lying about? And shouldn't LGBT people be concerned about that?
I've written about Andrew Marin and his surfacing again, with his group, The Marin Foundation, showing up at Chicago Pride last month, and "apologizing" for Christians. His group claims to be a "bridge" between Christians and gays but in fact he refuses to say homosexuality is not a sin and tells gays and Christians both whatever they want to hear while he tries to promote himself. Below are some audio clips which we played on the show two weeks ago when his group received some attention on the blogs for the Pride "apology." The audio is from a 2008 seminar where he counsels youth pastors on how to deal with gays, and I think you'll agree -- though I'd like you to judge for yourself -- that what he says is very disturbing and ultimately antigay.
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I think it's important to refute the lies and distortions of Andrew Marin ... I worry about young LGBT people, many brought up in very religious homes, who really want to believe Marin is a "bridge" between gays and evangelicals. Because it seems to me, from the audio clips below, his goal, beyond promoting himself, is to try to get to young LGBT people before they come out, so they can find his version of Christ and take a different route -- and one decidedly not about being out and proud or within the LGBT community. His disdain for the LGBT community and LGBT culture is evident here and his disdain for those who "come out" is obvious.
