Letter to someone who won't respond, but I'll feel better for having written it.

[stoney321]

Dear Mr. Clint McCance,

Your recent spate of hateful anti-gay comments and your understanding of what Christianity means has me worried. Not for the children whom you encouraged to kill themselves, and that's mostly due to how cartoonish your anger has come off to the rest of us, but my concern is for your everlasting soul. When you state that you are a Christian that implies one thing: you believe in the teachings and preachings of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. The entire religion is based on the ten commandments of the Torah, then built upon with the teachings of Jesus, who actually gave two new commandments and claimed they were the most important of all.

"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." and "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." He furthered defined that latter one by stating, "As I have loved you, love one another."

Spitting and hissing at children (they are children, sir, be wary of that millstone about your neck) and encouraging them to end their lives, lives that are a gift from your Lord and Savior, does not sound like loving one another. Calling them derogatory names does not sound like love. In fact, it sounds a lot like the word "Raca," and Jesus Christ of Nazareth told his followers in his Sermon on the Mount that calling their brother (which is a general term, for aren't we all children of God and therefore brothers and sisters?) Raca, or a slur, puts you in danger of hellfire. And since you're living your life under the banner of Christianity, I know that hellfire is the ultimate evil as it forever keeps your from your God and your eternal joy and probably would hurt an awful lot. One could logically deduce that a Christian would do all they could to not go to hell.

I always find it curious that devout - some could say rabid - Christians foam at the mouth about homosexuality when Jesus of Nazareth spoke not one word about it, not in any of the four Gospels of the New Testament, which as you know being the devout religious type that you are, chronicles the teachings of Christ both before and after His miraculous resurrection, and in His own words. One could surmise that since Jesus had ascended to heaven and felt it necessary to come back and teach a few more things to His people that He would distill His words to the most essential pieces of doctrine for Man's salvation. And one could also surmise that since Christ didn't discuss homosexuality after His resurrection that it wasn't as key a topic to Him as, say, declaring peace unto His followers and saying for His disciples to "feed [his] sheep." That can obviously be taken literally and metaphorically. Metaphorically means that it's an example to be applied to something else as a representation, and in this case, "sheep" means his followers and all of the people on earth. That includes homosexuals, Lutherans, Bangladeshis, and NBA players.

(I defined that because I noticed that you used a word that doesn't exist, "thereselves" and didn't know if I was using language that you weren't familiar with, and it is very important to me that I feed you this knowledge of your Lord and Savior who promises eternal glory to all that will come unto Him. I'm using the word "feed" to represent the idea of teaching.)

"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." Now put that in context of saying that you would cast Jesus out of your house, or you hope Jesus would commit suicide or contract AIDS (that's capitalized, by the way) and die a painful and slow death. How will you stand before your maker with love in your heart when you have cursed at your Lord and Savior who shed His blood for you that you might have everlasting life?

"Wherefore by their fruits shall ye know them." The fruits of your labors appear to be hate and evil, sir. Blessed are the peacemakers and the merciful. It would behoove you to spend some time actually learning the teachings and meaning of the words that your God has given you. Focus on Christ so you can call yourself a Christian. Recognize that the one word Jesus used more than almost any other was the word "Love." Love is the key to your soul enjoying everlasting peace and joy. Love is smiling, love is joyfulness, love is embracing those that would not otherwise embrace you, love is putting others before yourself, love is wishing well of others.

Who knows how much time you have on this earth to turn your heart around and open it to your fellow man so that your Lord and Savior can take you into his loving embrace (not in a gay way) for the eternities? Maybe you should start now.

With your best interests at heart,
Laura, a loving atheist.

Comments

[wolfshark]

I'm continually amazed at your ability to stay calm in the face of such... stuff. I know that my response would not be so reasonable.

[stoney321.livejournal.com]

If I go bananas on him, then I've just lowered myself to his ass-hatery. Also, I get to feel superior this way. ;)

[maybe1ce.livejournal.com]

Jesus was all about peace and love, unless, of course, he was flipping over the tables and freaking out.


If Jesus met this dude? The crockery would not survive. We are talking a Level Ten Son of God Smackdown.


I'd like to see that.

[stoney321.livejournal.com]

Jesus was from Jersey?

And yeah - this brohan knows nothing about his "Lord and Savior" if he thinks it's okay to think and act the way he does.

[oatmellow.livejournal.com]

This has been such a sore spot for me these past few days. I hate that he's an Arkansan. We already have a ton of things going against us...and now this. People will make the assumption that we're all this way...I fight that sterotype constantly. He's a douche-nozzle and certainly doesn't represent anything I know and love about my state.

Hate is bad in any form...but hate against children? In the name of a God who taught love and forgiveness? really sir. Shame on you!

[stoney321.livejournal.com]

Oh, his state is irrelevant to me, stupidity has no borders. I've known loads of lovely people from Arkansas to know that it's not the state, it's the idiocy. I mean, unless you're from Mississippi. ;)

Hate against children... That was what blew me away. How dare he, number one, and how on earth can he reconcile that hatred with Jesus? I mean, I don't believe in Christ's divinity [finish singing "I'm a Jew" from South Park] but I sure do like the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount. You know, all of that love each other hippie crap.

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

Amen.

[stoney321.livejournal.com]

We should now all turn in our hymnals to page blah blah and sing something about blah. ;) (True fact: singing hymns was always my favorite.)

[wickedsin.livejournal.com]

*applauds*

[medland.livejournal.com]

Marry me?

[fishwithfeet.livejournal.com]

Do you mind if I reposted this on facebook for my friends to see with all credit given?


Also, there is a petition out there on the interwebs requesting that he be removed from his position for saying these things. I can pass the link on if you're interested.

[stoney321.livejournal.com]

Sure, this is a public post.

I've seen that floating around, too.

[kuzu-no-ha.livejournal.com]

You are my hero.

[adamolupin.livejournal.com]

Sorry, just had to pop in and say HEY! I know that picture! I have it tattooed on my back. :D Although the tattoo artist made her a wee bit, uh, bustier than the original. >_<

And yeah, Stoney about rocks all socks and casbahs.

[shadowvalkyrie.livejournal.com]

Very well said! Now, if only the hate-mongers would listen... *sigh*

[cabbagemedley.livejournal.com]

"so that your Lord and Savior can take you into his loving embrace (not in a gay way)"

That made my day. :D

[nemesisstar.livejournal.com]

This was AMAZING. I think that's all there is to say about this post and about you in general. :o)

[geminai5.livejournal.com]

I'm not religious, but "Amen, sista!"

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

Regrettably, he'll probably end up keeping his job (http://advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2010/10/27/Will_McCance_Keep_His_Job/).

“In Arkansas law, the only way to recall a school board member is over a felony [committed by him or her] or absentee issues,” said Julie Johnson Thompson, the director of communications for the Arkansas Department of Education in Little Rock.

On Wednesday, Thompson’s office released the following statement: “The Arkansas Department of Education strongly condemns remarks or attitudes of this kind and are dismayed to see that a school board official would post something of this insensitive nature on a public forum like Facebook. Because Mr. McCance is an elected official, the department has no means of dealing with him directly.

[sockmonkeyhere.livejournal.com]

He resigned yesterday, thank God. I hope he's never, ever allowed near children again.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/10/28/arkansas.anti.gay.resignation/index.html?hpt=C1

[fatpie42.livejournal.com]

Proviso: Agreed with pretty much everything you wrote and certainly the general sentiment.

Just one minor correction:
Jesus, who actually gave two new commandments and claimed they were the most important of all

Actually both of Jesus' "greatest commandments" are found in the Torah. To love the Lord with all your heart, soul and might, is the beginning of the Shema, the most important prayer in Judaism. Meanwhile the commandment to love your neighbour is found in Leviticus.

That the Shema is important to Jews hardly needs to be argued. Meanwhile I believe it was the major Jewish figure Maimonides who asserted that the command to love your neighbour was "the whole of the Torah".

Yeah, sure, I'm being picky. I just wanted to quickly dismiss this whole idea of "New Testament good, Old Testament bad", which some people might take from your statement.

Great letter. Probably would have been more effective if you hadn't mentioned being an atheist tbh, but then again, as you say, you probably wouldn't get a response anyway.

[stoney321.livejournal.com]

The point of my letter is to speak to him in his terminology. Christians believe in the official 10 commandments, and then the two things Jesus added. [/Summation] Of course there are good things in the old testament, but that was not the point, I focused on the four books where quotes from Jesus are, which is the basis of his religion.

And the point of me signing as an atheist is to point out how much I know about his religion and how little he does.

...I thought all of that was clear.

[sdwolfpup.livejournal.com]

Preach it.

[jerusha]

I couldn't have said it better. This guy just...there are no words for that kind of hatefulness.

[kseenaa.livejournal.com]

The Bible is an amazing book, with an amazing story in it, isn't it? It is to bad people missread it all the time. :-P

And yes, I am an atheist to.

[flyingichthyo.livejournal.com]

Yes, Stoney, YES. Everybody needs to be reminded of this! xoxo

[strtmyorange.livejournal.com]

I <3 you so hard, Stoney! But not, like, in a gay way. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Your letter is wonderful and well written and I'm going to repost it. And, even though I'm a godless heathen, it reminds me to be nicer to everybody.

Thank you.

[raven-tiger.livejournal.com]

THIS letter so much.
Thank you for writing this. :)

Stoney.... you ROCK.

[(Anonymous)]

Absolutely brilliant letter!

[deird1]

Stoney, you're wonderful.


(As a Christian, I'd just like to apologise profusely for fellow Christians who do this sort of stuff. We suck.)

[mumsisdaughter]

Hatred and bullying justified by referring to religion is so cowardly. That guy would be a bully whatever religion he found a safe place to vent from.

Marvellous letter, Stoney.

[altyronsmaker.livejournal.com]

♥

[lynnenne]

*stands and applauds*