There’s no spiritual message so clear and straightforward that a creative Bible-beater can’t find a way to claim it means the opposite of what the original source intended. How many Christians do you know who somehow never understood — or more accurately, never lived by — one of their prophet’s purported core messages — to love one another, to love your neighbor as yourself, etc.?

Add to that pantheon of hypocrites and obfuscators the officially disgraced Reverend Gordon Klingenschmitt, a.k.a. “Dr. Chaps.”

Whoops, sorry, wrong picture.

They’re easy to confuse, because “Dr. Chaps” is obsessed with gay sex. He’s infamous for (falsely) claiming that Justice Anthony Kennedy called Jesus “evil” and the Holy Spirit “a demon” after Kennedy wrote a majority opinion in the ruling that gutted government discrimination of same-sex couples.

Right Wing Watch explains what Klingenschmitt pulled the other day:

On his most recent “Pray In Jesus Name” program, “Dr. Chaps” Gordon Klingenschmitt added his voice to the never-ending Religious Right outrage over a proposed San Antonio anti-discrimination ordinance that would supposedly ban Christians for serving in public office or in any way working for the city. It is all nonsense, of course, but that didn’t stop Chaps from attacking the proposal by saying that gays should be discriminated against … and citing Martin Luther King to prove it.

It’s priceless to see Klingenschmitt spin his interpretation of Dr. King’s words, at some point (0:58) confusing himself with his up-is-down convoluted mess of an argument. This is what he ends up squeaking out:

“When these confusing statutes now try to redefine ‘discrimination,’ and say that you can no longer discriminate against character, that anyone who discriminates against character is guilty of discrimination and therefore ought to be discriminated against, they’re actually saying Martin Luther King himself ought to be punished for his views, and that’s not right.”

Watch:

In case you’re wondering if Martin Luther King, Jr. really thought that gay people should be judged and discriminated against, consider that one of his friends and longtime allies was Bayard Rustin, the chief organizer of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom at which King gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

Rustin was an openly-gay black man, and a life-long fighter of anti-gay bias.

Case closed.



