Harlem Hate Pastor: Confederates Were Biblically Correct About Slavery

"The south was right! They were noble! They were biblical! They were righteous! They had states' rights! They were RIGHT! The north was and remains wrong to this very day."

(Tipped by JMG reader John)

George Takei Raises Eyebrows With "Blackface" Comment About Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas

Via The Hill:

Actor and gay rights advocate George Takei is slamming Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas after his dissent to last week's decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide claimed that the government can neither give nor take away human dignity. "He is a clown in blackface sitting on the Supreme Court. He gets me that angry," the former "Star Trek" star said in an interview with Fox 10 this week in Phoenix, standing alongside his longtime partner and husband. "For him to say slaves had dignity ... I mean, doesn't he know slaves were chained? That they were whipped on the back?" Takei asked.

Dissenting in the 5-4 Supreme Court same-sex marriage case, Thomas, an African-American, reflected on the origins of human dignity within society, invoking the belief that humans have God-given "inherent worth." "That vision is the foundation upon which this Nation was built. The corollary of that principle is that human dignity cannot be taken away by the government. Slaves did not lose their dignity (any more than they lost their humanity) because the government allowed them to be enslaved," Thomas wrote. "Those held in internment camps did not lose their dignity because the government confined them," Thomas wrote. "And those denied governmental benefits certainly do not lose their dignity because the government denies them those benefits. The government cannot bestow dignity, and it cannot take it away."

Southern Baptist Leader Russell Moore: Take Down The Confederate Battle Flag

"The Confederate Battle Flag may mean many things, but with those things it represents a defiance against abolition and against civil rights. The symbol was used to enslave the little brothers and sisters of Jesus, to bomb little girls in church buildings, to terrorize preachers of the gospel and their families with burning crosses on front lawns by night. That sort of symbolism is out of step with the justice of Jesus Christ. The cross and the Confederate flag cannot co-exist without one setting the other on fire. White Christians, let’s listen to our African-American brothers and sisters. Let’s care not just about our own history, but also about our shared history with them. In Christ, we were slaves in Egypt—and as part of the Body of Christ we were all slaves too in Mississippi. Let’s watch our hearts, pray for wisdom, work for justice, love our neighbors. Let’s take down that flag." - Russell Moore, president Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptists Convention.

Todd Starnes is ever so pissed.

RELATED:  The Southern Baptist Convention formed in 1845 expressly to support slavery after Baptists in northern states joined the abolitionist movement. But it wasn't until 1995 that the SBC marked its 150th anniversary by issuing a formal apology. An excerpt:

WHEREAS, Our relationship to African-Americans has been hindered from the beginning by the role that slavery played in the formation of the Southern Baptist Convention; and

WHEREAS, Many of our Southern Baptist forbears defended the right to own slaves, and either participated in, supported, or acquiesced in the particularly inhumane nature of American slavery; and

WHEREAS, In later years Southern Baptists failed, in many cases, to support, and in some cases opposed, legitimate initiatives to secure the civil rights of African-Americans; and

Therefore, be it RESOLVED, That we, the messengers to the Sesquicentennial meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention, assembled in Atlanta, Georgia, June 20-22, 1995, unwaveringly denounce racism, in all its forms, as deplorable sin; and

Be it further RESOLVED, That we apologize to all African-Americans for condoning and/or perpetuating individual and systemic racism in our lifetime; and we genuinely repent of racism of which we have been guilty, whether consciously (Psalm 19:13) or unconsciously (Leviticus 4:27); and

Be it further RESOLVED, That we ask forgiveness from our African-American brothers and sisters, acknowledging that our own healing is at stake.

ALSO RELATED: Several days ago the Southern Baptist Convention issued a formal declaration of civil disobedience against the Supreme Court should it rule in favor of same-sex marriage.

Southern Baptists Issue Call For Civil Disobedience Against Same-Sex Marriage

The Southern Baptist Convention closed out this week's annual meeting by issuing a formal call for civil disobedience against same-sex marriage. The statement was issued jointly by current SBC president Ronnie Floyd and 16 former SBC presidents.

As Southern Baptist Christians, we are committed to Biblical faith and ethics. As a result, this body of Believers stands on the authority of Scripture and God's Truth as central to our lives.

What the Bible says about marriage is clear, definitive and unchanging. We affirm biblical, traditional, natural marriage as the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime. The Scriptures' teaching on marriage is not negotiable. We stake our lives upon the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus.

Consequently, we will not accept, nor adhere to, any legal redefinition of marriage issued by any political or judicial body including the United States Supreme Court. We will not recognize same-sex "marriages", our churches will not host same-sex ceremonies, and we will not perform such ceremonies.

While we affirm our love for all people, including those struggling with same-sex attraction, we cannot and will not affirm the moral acceptability of homosexual behavior or any behavior that deviates from God's design for marriage. We also believe religious freedom is at stake within this critical issue – that our first duty is to love and obey God, not man.

Therefore, we strongly encourage all Southern Baptist pastors, leaders, educators, and churches to openly reject any mandated legal definition of marriage and to use their influence to affirm God's design for life and relationships. As the nation's largest non-Catholic denomination with over 16 million members, we stake our very lives and future on the Truth of God's Word.

We also join together to support those who stand for natural marriage in the corporate world, the marketplace, education, entertainment, media and elsewhere with our prayers and influence, and resources.

Earlier this week Floyd declared that God will punish any Christian who does not oppose same-sex marriage.

Southern Baptists Head: God Will Punish Us If We Don't Fight Same-Sex Marriage

"While some evangelicals may be bowing down to the deception of the inclusiveness of same-sex marriage, we will not bow down nor will we be silent. We do not need to redefine what God Himself has defined already. America – we stand believing that marriage is the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime. We have believed this and do believe this and will continue to believe this as a convention of churches. We stand for biblical and traditional marriage. Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act." - Southern Baptists Convention president Ronnie Floyd, speaking today at their convention in Columbus, Ohio.

NOM Money Begs On Slavery

Today's money beg from Brian Brown:

The Dred Scott decision was wrong on so many levels that it’s difficult to cover them all in this email. But the most important thing to realize about the decision is that it ignored both natural law and the principles of the American founding to impose a political ideology on the country. Does that ring a bell for you with anything in the news today? Some people think that the US Supreme Court is the final arbiter of controversial topics — whether slavery or marriage — and we must accept whatever they decide.

We don’t.

My friends, we have an opportunity right now to act to avoid a Dred Scott decision on marriage. In a little over five weeks, the United States Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case that could give us a legal definition of marriage that either complies with natural and moral law and the principles of the American founding, or like Dred Scott ignores those principles to impose a political ideology on the nation. What we do together between now and then is critical. Will you help us do everything we can to avoid a Dred Scott decision on marriage?

The money beg contain eighteen links to NOM's donation page. Eighteen.

Wingnuts: Gay Marriage Is Like Slavery

Founded by former NOM chairman Robert George, the Witherspoon Institute today argues that the Supreme Court's Windsor ruling is just like Dred Scott, the infamous 1857 ruling which held that African-Americans could not be considered citizens. From their site Public Discourse:

In legal form and substance, the decisions in Windsor and Dred Scott are surprisingly parallel. Windsor involved a same-sex marriage that was recognized by the state of New York but not recognized by the federal government due to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). The Court held that DOMA denied “due process of law” because it withheld federal recognition to a state-law legal status. That is exactly the same thing the Court did in Dred Scott. Instead of marriage, Dred Scott involved the status of slavery, which was recognized by the state of Missouri, but not by federal law in federal territory. Scott’s master, a captain in the army, had taken Scott to Fort Snelling, in the free federal territory of present-day Minnesota. The federal Missouri Compromise of 1820 banned the status of slavery in federal territory north of a designated line. Dred Scott held that the Missouri Compromise denied “due process of law” because it withheld federal recognition to a state-law legal status. That is just what Windsor did with respect to DOMA.

In both Dred Scott and Windsor, the Court’s legal analysis was transparently result-oriented: the justices wanted a particular result, and manipulated the law to reach the outcome they thought preferable as a social-policy matter. In both cases, the majority’s “reasoning” wanders aimlessly before finally settling into the same oft-discredited judicial invention of “substantive due process”—the idea that it is simply morally wrong, or mean, for a democracy to deny a legal right or status conferred under the law of a different jurisdiction. In both cases, the majority opinions were subject to devastating dissents, and they produced greatly divided public reaction. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Dred Scott and Windsor are two peas from the same judicial-activist pod.

Public Discourse is the occasional blogging home of Mark Regnerus and Ryan Anderson.

MAP: What EU Nations Are Worst At

The categories for France, Denmark. and Romania are really dumb compared to the seriousness of the others. Visit Thrillist for a breakdown. A huge version of the map is here. (Via JMG reader Aaron)

Thanks, Christian White Men

In April, Truth Revolt writer Andrew Klavan declared that gays should thank Jesus for giving us our civil rights. Today he says that we should thank all Christian white men for...well, basically everything.

Black Pastors Compare Same-Sex Marriage To Slavery, Segregation, & The KKK

Jeremy Hooper writes at Good As You:

The Coalition of African-American Pastors is intimately aligned with the National Organization For Marriage (CAAP head William Owens is listed as NOM's religious liaison) and is one of the co-sponsors of NOM's upcoming March For Marriage. Now look on as this organization helps NOM in its stated goal to "drive a wedge between gays and blacks" with a video that promotes the upcoming NOM march by directly comparing "the same-sex marriage agenda" with the KKK, segregation, slavery, racism, and the destruction of the black family. It is beyond disturbing and should disgust many.

Tweet Of The Day - Rachel Held Evans

Evans, a Christian writer, was tweeting from a panel discussion held at the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty forum. Here's the "ironic" history of how the Southern Baptist Convention came to be:

Largely comprised of slaveholders, the gathering at the First Baptist Church of Augusta, Georgia, in May 1845 publicly pled their case. Slavery was biblical. Therefore abolition was sinful, and Baptists of the North were wrong to oppose slavery. Abolitionists of the North were responsible for the Baptist division; southern Baptists had been patient with the agitators, but enough was enough. Pledging allegiance to slavery, they vowed “we will never interfere with what is Caesar’s” (a biblical allusion implying it was their moral and legal responsibility to uphold the legal institution of slavery). And for good measure, the delegates expressed outrage that a northern Baptist missionary had “actually remitted money to the United States to aid in the assisting of slaves to ‘run away from their masters.’” (See Proceedings of the Southern Baptist Convention, 1845.) From this point forward, white Baptist leaders in the South through the end of the Civil War openly and insistently championed and defended white supremacy and black slavery, along the way migrating into a form of Christian nationalism heretofore foreign to the very Christian denomination that had been the most vocal champions, since the seventeenth century, of the separation of church and state.

In 1995 the SBC finally issued a formal apology to African-Americans for having supported slavery and for having supported segregation right through the civil rights era.

RELATED: One of the panelists at the SBC's forum was Mark Regnerus. The event closed with the announcement that in October the SBC will "hold a conference exclusively focusing on homosexuality."

PETA: Eating Meat = Human Slavery

PETA, as they so often do, has caused quite the firestorm with today's co-opting of Martin Luther King Day. "The fate of animals today is similar to that of humans who were subjected to slavery and other civil rights injustices—they, too, are tortured, abused, and neglected as humans once were and sometimes still are. More than 63 billion animals are slaughtered every year in the United States for the food industry, without even a thought to their feelings or needs." The right wing site Townhall is directing readers to a photo of MLK eating meat.

Martin Bashir Apologizes To Sarah Palin

On Friday, MSNBC host Martin Bashir suggested that Sarah Palin, who had compared slavery to the national debt, would never truly understand slavery unless she too had someone shit and piss in her mouth, as was done to some slaves. Right wing sites went ballistic and there were many calls for MSNBC to fire Bashir. Today he apologized. An excerpt:

Last Friday, on this broadcast, I made some comments which were deeply offensive and directed at Governor Sarah Palin. I wanted to take this opportunity to say sorry to Mrs. Palin and to also offer an unreserved apology to her friends and family, her supporters, our viewers, and anyone who may have heard what I said. My words were wholly unacceptable. They were neither accurate, nor fair. They were unworthy of anyone who would claim to have an interest in politics. And they have brought shame upon my friends and colleagues at this network, none of whom were responsible for the things that I said.

The full apology is below.

More Controversy For MSNBC

As you can see by the headlines above, all of Teabagistan is in an uproar tonight after MSNBC host Martin Bashir mocked Sarah Palin's comparison of the national debt to slavery. After frankly cataloging some of the vile abuses that slaves suffered under one well-known slave owner, Bashir suggested that Palin could never understand really understand slavery without the same being done to her. Here's the clip. Did he go too far?

POLL: Americans Approve Of Confederate Flag Over Rainbow Flag By 4-1 Margin

Public Policy Polling asked the above questions in a just-released survey that primarily focused on prospective presidential candidates for the 2016 elections. As you can see by the final result, respondents approved of students wearing the confederate flag over the rainbow flag by more than a 4-1 margin. The Washington Post's Jonathan Capehart (who is gay and black) goes off:

Folks, the Confederate flag is no better than a Swastika. It is a symbol of white supremacy, hate and oppression that has no place in American political discourse. That Kanye West wants to co-opt the rebel banner is as noble as it is futile. Meanwhile, the rainbow that is the gay pride flag symbolizes inclusion and acceptance. Oftentimes, usually in other countries, the words “pace” or “peace” can be found emblazoned on it. The rainbow flag is the very antithesis of the Confederate flag. That the latter is deemed more acceptable than the former is deplorable.

Defenders of the confederate flag are pouring into the WaPo comments. (Tipped by JMG reader Eric)

NEVADA: GOP State Rep Says He'd Vote For Slavery If Constituents Want It

Byran Fischer Cites Biblical Support For Slavery As Reason To Oppose Immigration

"A young man by the name of Onesimus found Paul in Rome, where Paul was in prison for the crime of preaching about Christ. Onesimus became a Christ-follower through Paul’s influence. The sticky part for both Onesimus and Paul was that Onesimus had no legal right to be in Rome. Onesimus was a slave, and had run away from his master, a man by the name of Philemon, who lived in the city of Colosse. (Christians and Christian influence ended the practice of slavery, but that’s a topic for another day.) So the challenge for Paul was quite simple: he had, in effect, an illegal alien looking to him for counsel. What, Onesimus, wondered, should he do? What was his moral obligation? Paul was quite clear and direct: his moral responsibility was to obey the law and return home. In other words, it was his duty to self-repatriate." - Hate group spokesman Bryan Fischer, citing the Biblical support for slavery as a reason to oppose immigration reform.

Rick Perry: Boy Scouts Must Resist Gays Like Sam Houston Resisted Slavery

Mississippi Ratifies 13th Amendment

It doesn't seem possible, but Mississippi never ratified the 13th Amendment. Until now.

Life really does move slower in the South. One hundred forty-eight years after Congress sent the 13th Amendment outlawing slavery to the states for ratification, Mississippi officially has joined the ranks. The state’s Legislature did vote to ratify it in 1995 — but the vote was never made official because lawmakers failed to inform the U.S. archivist, according to a report in the Clarion-Ledger. They’ve finally finished the job, Newser reports, and it’s official: Slavery is unconstitutional in Mississippi.

According to Wikipedia, Kentucky only ratified the amendment in 1976.

Bible Slavery: Totally Different

Another winner from NonStampCollector.