I lived and taught on both coasts and in the middle, in the “Heartland”, a name, based more on location than any claim to the overabundance of love or charity. A common experience I have had and have witnessed others having as Gay people being somewhere in public doing something unremarkable, such as eating in a restaurant, and being assaulted by someone who approaches throwing out Bible verses like some flower girl at a wedding because they saw you were Gay yet doing the same thing that the bible verse hurlers are doing.

You have done nothing to call for this, but your simply existing is enough justification.

As a teacher, I have been called to too many meetings in the Bible Belt that were called by an administrator, leading one to believe it was a standard parent/teacher meeting, only to have the parent, and sometimes even the administrator, hurl Bible verses at me because in class I mentioned an author was Gay or I was not hiding the fact I was a Gay man.

If the district curriculum requires me to bring up the heterosexuality of authors by mentioning their spouses whose only claim to fame is they are married to someone say, for example Anne Hathaway whose only claim to fame is that she got knocked up by William Shakespeare and so, had a shotgun wedding, and tell my students all about Elizabeth Barrett Browning and her doting husband, Robert, and cover Romeo and Juliette in class with the two minors falling in love and committing suicide, a wonderful story for kids entering the dating game who have the same emotional maturity that the two star crossed lovers had, I would not be honest with my students if I did not give equal respect to a Gay poet.

If the parent at one of these was a man, I would ask that they only quote the Latin and Greek originals as translations can be influenced by the translator, or, if a woman, quoting the line in Timothy that women must be quiet and not lord it over men.

In both cases I would ask to see their Bibles and having an almost 100% guarantee of being right, would flip to that place where the book of Sirach that is contained in the Jerome, or “Catholic” Bible, but not in their King James, I could not accept the veracity of their source so it was useless to cite it.

I and others have been accosted entering or exiting a Gay establishment heading toward my car with questions about my having accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior followed by the Bible verses that should influence me to do that.

Jesus can’t take the wheel if you don’t let me get into my car.

They have leaned on the door while preaching so I couldn’t open it, making my entry real inconvenient by having me go to the passenger side door and climbing from the passenger seat to the driver seat over the stick shift between the two. Jesus’s getting in was His problem.

While Gay people were denied the right to marry civilly, the Bible quoting was applied and the sum total of it was that, while we are told sex outside of marriage was a sin, we were condemned for having it outside the marriages we were denied.

Don’t tell me I can’t have what everyone else is eating because you have decided i won’t like it.

The Bible and any out of context verse was considered fair game to hurl at Gay people.

Once during the Gay Pride Parade in Long Beach California, a minister, nicknamed Bible Bill by the Gay Community, had his gathered congregants rush into the parade repeatedly beating the closest marchers over their heads with the obligatory Southern Baptist, leather bound Bibles resulting in their only being able to attend the event in the future if they remained within a roped off area in lieu of the arrests they had faced for their actions the previous parade per orders of the Long Beach PD who did not want to deal with this foolishness and an agreement with the Gay Community as “We are a gentle loving people fighting for our lives.”

I have been at a religious gathering at a state capitol where a state representative, using the Bible as justification, told the Praise-Jesus crowd that like cancer, Gay people must be cut out and killed off.

Preachers have called for the government to execute Gay people because their version of the Bible claims God wants that in spite of neither Father or Son even mentioning Homosexuality anywhere in either the old or new testament in the original languages of the books contained in them.

Some humans might have things to say, but God in any guise remains silent and He has made multiple personal appearances.

There is no modification allowed when verse interpretations do not agree but one Christian is louder than the other and, so, obviously has the correct exegesis, and no way to brush aside a Bible verse when it is hurled at someone like a weapon and, for the sake of others around perhaps having an anniversary, a birthday, or all important first date dinner in a fine restaurant who could be negatively affected, the target chooses not to add to the scene and thinks of other things while there is a hum in the background.

I have often used that time, and they were often at one point, to come up with a cartoon on a completely different topic as, knowing the bible, like an actor just going through the motions of a play running long past its relevance, I can automatically hear the word that cues my next line, need to nod, or my giving a look that implies I am paying attention.

God’s word in the Bible is inerrant and cannot be modified for a person’s convenience, unless, of course, you are a Bible-verse hurling Christian.

Congress member Lauren Boebert who, as a Bible thumping Christian, claimed that if Jesus had an AR-15, the Romans would never have been able to arrest him that Thursday night in the Garden, He would not have had to pray to his Heavenly Father to let “this cup pass” because he could blow away those who approached and, thereby, avoiding God’s plan for our Salvation removing any reason to love and revere Him, and preventing the very religion she espouses, showed her deep passion for That man and that religion and her chosen translation of the Bible when she proudly announced that, just like her when she was a senior in high school and got pregnant out of wedlock, her 17 year old son has done the same by impregnating his girlfriend out of wedlock.

She made her announcement of this violation of the Bible at CPAC to a group of conservatives, many who do that whole Bible quoting thing because, they claim, this is a Christian Nation founded on the Bible to which we must adhere to avoid the wrath of God descending on the United States.

“I’m going to tell you all for the first time in a public setting that not only am I a mom of four boys but come April, I will be a GG to a brand new grandson.”

Last June, Boebert told people at a Colorado Christian gathering that she was tired of the separation of church and state and would rather have unspecified churches directing the government.

She claimed her opposition to Kevin McCarthy being the Speaker of the House was based on her being an instrument of God who was tasked with standing  up to “demons”.

Obviously then, based on her own experience and her very public promotion of her brand of Christianity, one that would support the negating of God’s plan for salvation in the attempt to put guns, obviously, above all things, even her own religion and the basis of it, the Resurrection, some one was going to ask about this contradiction in her proud announcement that her son had done a very unbiblical thing which brought her such joy.

She publicly rejoiced in sin.

On a conservative political talk show, Dave Rubin, the host, asked if her son’s getting a girl  pregnant out of wedlock which was clearly in violation of hers and his religion went against her beliefs, Boebert responded in such a way that quoting her could be the form of Garlic needed to ward off the religious vampires.

“Obviously, I’m a Christian, and there are standards that we like to uphold, but none of us do it perfectly. We can nitpick what the Bible says is right and wrong, but I think just having that heart posture of wanting to serve God, it’s so important.”

And

“I would I have chose a different path [for him]? Of course, but this is where we’re at, and we’re all embracing it, and we’re so happy.”

She also happily added that because of this her son will remain  close to her rather than attending the university in Florida he had planned to attend.

This is good because,

“I get to instruct him now on how to be a loving father and how to raise a baby.”

Boebert made her 36 year-old mother a grandmother then, and now, she herself will be a grandmother at 36, and, if she is successful in showing her son how to be a good father,  one assumes a Christian one, her son will be a grandfather in another 17 years, keeping the Christian family tradition and her family values alive.

This was not lost on her son who seems to have a belief system that is in some ways different from his mothers religious views or horrifying the same.

When they had their “talk” about the situation, according to Boebert, when she presented the family history, i.e, “My mom—she was 18 when she had me. I was 18 when I had Tyler, and now he’s 18. One of his first comments was, ‘Mom, it’s hereditary’.” said, ‘Nice try. Doesn’t work that way.’ But I’m really proud of him and my grandson’s mom for being responsible, because they could have taken a different route, and both of them chose life,’ she said.

There is an  upside to this hypocrisy. Every non-heterosexual person, every woman, every minority, anyone who has had the experience of a religious ambush should tell every assaulting Christian,

“Oh, you can nitpick what the Bible says is right and wrong, but I think just having that Heart posture of wanting to serve God. It’s so important.”

Now so that you do not think nothing good came of this Child out of wedlock with a grandmother who conceived the father the same way, apparently passing on this very un-biblical cross-generational turning of one’s back on the very religion that should be running this country, Boebert did speak to her son assuring him all would be well and his violation of all she believes in and spews was something for which he could ask God  for forgiveness and then proceed like nothing ever happened and those who continue to disapprove are just nitpicking.

Ironically, the redemption he so easily gets would not have been possible if the plan for salvation never came to pass because on Holy Thursday, coming up this week, Jesus had had an AR-15.

This is a case of convenient morality, situational ethics as, while the son did not commit another Biblical violation this one is, therefore, easily dismissed.

 Boebert maintains that she is proud of her son and the mom to be for being responsible, which the pregnancy shows they clearly were not, because they chose to keep the baby and not abort it. She finds it acceptable  that they violated one rule because they did not violate another, so all is forgiven,

“because they could have taken a different route, and both of them chose life.”

A life that would not be there if the Christian Family Values she wants to force on all of us had been taught correctly and the family members held to them.

Apparently, for Boebert, it is okay to break the rule against having children out of wedlock so long as one does not break another rule.

“Officer, you cannot arrest me. I may have robbed the store, yes, but I didn’t then burn the place down. You have to let me go.”

So, remember when religiously accosted, like if you are a Drag Queen and the local monks come after you for reading to children in the Library, simply quote Boebert, that fine example of the Christians who want to run the country and make law and a fine example of Christianity,

“Oh, you can nitpick what the Bible says is right and wrong, but I think just having that Heart posture of wanting to serve God. It’s so important.”

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