As we have noted before, Glenn Beck is fond of bragging that he doesn’t even know anyone who could be considered to be “anti-gay” despite the fact that he works closely with a great many such people on a regular basis. The only way Beck can plausibly claim not to be aware of the anti-gay views espoused by even close personal friends like David Barton is if he is intentionally choosing not to listen to what they say, which actually seems to be the case.
Last night, Beck featured Barton on his television program for the entire hour and much of the discussion involved efforts to protect the “rights” of Christian business owners to discriminate against gay people in the name of protecting religious liberty. At one point, Barton made the argument that the government is overstepping it jurisdiction by requiring Christians to violate their consciences because that is a right granted to them by God, which he sought to illustrate by comparing it to someone repainting some else’s car simply because they didn’t like the original color.
Beck agreed, saying that, by the same token, “the government can’t say ‘you can’t be a homosexual’ because … that’s how you practice your life.”
Not so fast, Barton responded.
“To some degree. But the government has always taken stands on behavior that undermine the government itself,” Barton said. “And that’s where morality has always … see, consanguinity, the government’s always gotten involved; you can’t marry your brother and sister, you can’t marry your first cousin. So there’s always been things that protect the moral climate of the society … You’ve always had standards on behavior”:
Barton was very clearly pushing back on Beck’s notion that the government has no right to outlaw homosexuality, which, given Barton’s anti-gay rhetoric and belief that our public policy must operate according to the Bible, would only come as a surprise to someone who has intentionally been trying to ignore Barton’s well-documented views.
