A white-washed tomb looks good on the outside but within is full of dead men’s bones and smells of decay.

Dear frantic Texas legislators bound and determined to continue to maintain your heterosexual privilege by disguising your fervor and prejudice as religion:

It’s going to happen.

Just like they had to force you to let women vote.
And make you stop owning slaves.
And force you to let blacks vote.
And make you allow black children in your white schools.
And let mixed-race couples marry.

We ARE going to be able to marry the person we love, regardless of her/his gender. You can scream and foam at the mouth and call special sessions and malign the greatest commandment and make horses’ asses of yourselves all you want but you’re going to lose.

YOU are the tyrants. The white-washed tombs. The charlatans. False prophets.

With your scare-tactics and false doctrine, you are maligning the very word of the God you claim to follow. Love your neighbor as yourself does not include creating laws to deny your neighbors rights or access to what citizens are entitled to. Love your neighbor as yourself does not mean you get to pick and choose whom you love. Love your neighbor as yourself does not mean you get to claim religious superiority while mis-interpreting the word of God or worse, claiming God is anywhere in your words whatsoever.

Shame on you for your un-loving stance toward all people. Oh sure, your grandstanding and religious superiority makes you think you appear to be a bastion of Christianity. But really, you’re nothing more than a graveyard full of white-washed tombs–freshly-painted and clean-looking on the outside but inside full of decay and rotten smells and death. For the hate you spew belies the love of Jehovah God, (and the Buddha, Allah, all of the prophets–and Jesus Christ himself). Your hate contradicts the holy text that says every person is fearfully and wonderfully made by that God. Your hate causes people to flee organized religion and mistrust people of faith. Your hate causes people to feel like they have to hide and lie who they are and hurt people. Your hate causes parents to turn against their children. And your hate causes young people to kill themselves.

By whipping up fear among people who trust your authority, you influence people to hate like you hate. Peddling your snake oil to fund your campaigns of deceit and homophobia (and transphobia and misogyny and racism and Islamaphobia…) , you are the modern-day charlatans among us. Exploiting people and discarding those who cannot advance your cause. By upholding yourselves as moral leaders, you twist the words of God into such falsehoods until what’s left is not morality but corruption and deception. You call press conferences and proclaim the end of civilization if gays are able to marry and predict that God will destroy this nation because of it. I think God is more concerned about the words of false prophets than she is about same-gender-loving marriage.

So, charlatans, false prophets, and white-washed tombs: let me be clear: you’re going to lose this fight just like you lost on slavery and so many other social constructions your ancestors designed to maintain your chokehold on society and your privileges. You’re going to lose another one–not due to what you perceive as immorality, but in spite of your own.

We’re sick and tired of your chokehold on the love of God and what that’s supposed to look and sound like. So you can also be sure our fight is not near over. Because unlike you, we believe LOVE–not hate and false doctrine–will prevail. We will see to it that everyone you continue to try to marginalize and hold down will have the aid they need to fight for their equality too.

So chill the hell out. You’re embarrassing yourselves.

And God.

Sincerely

Todd Whitley, a recovering Christian liberated by the transformative love of God

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