Oh no! “Pulpit Freedom Sunday” is back! The Orwellian-named “Alliance Defending Freedom” typically hosts the annual Pulpit Freedom Sunday in the fall, encouraging pastors around the country to openly violate IRS law by endorsing political candidates from the pulpit. This annual event, in which droves of pastors last fall participated, was one of the reasons the Freedom From Religion Foundation filed suit against the IRS for non-enforcement of its anti-electioneering policy by churches violating the law. Now as the nation awaits a decision on marriage equality by the Supreme Court, the ADF is calling for churches to devote their devotionals this Sunday, June 9, to gay bashing from the pulpit.
According to a post on the speakupmovement.org blog, a wing of the well-endowed, mischief-making ADF, the religious right group is asking pastors to preach about the biblical (read: bigoted) definition of marriage. The ADF wants pastors to “Make sure your congregation knows where the Church stands on marriage,” i.e., “one man, one woman.”
Perhaps these pastors will be reading from the fetching book of Leviticus, which calls homosexuality “an abomination” and demands their execution, “their blood shall be upon them” (Leviticus 20:13).
There’s no reason to keep hating, as FFRF is saying in an ad appearing in Scientific American this month. We’re debuting a new series of monthly ads, “Theocracy Alert.” The timely topic for the debut ad is the religious war against marriage equality, in which we point out, “Polls show more Americans support than oppose same-sex marriage. Yet many religious groups would impose their dogmas on the rest of us.”
Wouldn’t it be nice if our nation could have a Sunday free from pulpits intruding into civil liberties?
