HomoQuotable - Andrew Sullivan

"Many evangelicals loathe my use of the word Christianism, rather than Christianity, to describe the fusion of political power and religion to police the moral lives of others. They recoil at the echo of Islamism - although we know many Islamist parties, as in Turkey or Indonesia, that do not engage in terrorism, but merely believe in the fusion of church and state as emphatically as older American evangelicals do.

"That's why it's revealing to see a major figure in the American Christianist movement, Pastor David Dykes, - he opened the 2008 Congress with a prayer - openly advocate the execution of gays, and criminal penalties for exercise of free speech in defense of gays, in Uganda. If these people could, they would do the same here. The constitution protects us - especially our right to speech. But what these theocrats want is as undeniable as it is repellent in a free or humane society.

"More to the point, here is an alleged Christian demanding that those on the margins of society not be embraced, as Jesus practised, but be executed, as Jesus' Roman executioners did. It doesn't get more anti-Christian than that. To even associate the word Christianity with these sentiments is an attack on Jesus Christ." - Andrew Sullivan, reacting to this Box Turtle Bulletin story.

American Pastor David Dykes Works For Passage Of Uganda's "Kill The Gays" Bill

Box Turtle Bulletin has the quote from Pastor David Dykes during an interview with Ugandan television:

I’m extremely upset that our state department is putting pressure on Uganda to recognize homosexual behavior. And I’m praying that Uganda will say, “We don’t want your money, America. It is blood money. It is sin money.” I hope that you will continue to stand strong on what the Bible defines as the definition of a real marriage. Already in Canada, there’ve been pastors who have been arrested for simply saying from their pulpit that a union between two men or two women is an abomination in the sight of God. A Canadian pastor was arrested for that. But there’s also maybe a law soon that says we could be arrested if we say anything bad about gay marriage or about homosexual behavior. It would fall under the category in America of “Hate Crimes.”

According to Dykes, if the United States cuts foreign aid to Uganda over the bill, American evangelists will "step in as the Church in America to try to make up sending resources over here."

UPDATE: BTB's Jim Burroway sends us an update noting that David Dykes delivered the opening prayer to Congress in 2008. Burroway adds that Dykes is a "very big wheel" in the Southern Baptist Convention's overseas missions. Note that wingnut Rep. Louie Gohmert praises Dykes in the below clip.