Ministers Hate Fags Too

The Rev. Jerry Johnston is telling an Overland Park room filled with about 150 Kansas City-area church leaders on July 6 about a certain group of unrepentant sinners who may bring about the end of the world.

According to Johnston, the Almighty's wrath is so great, he may very soon call down Armageddon on the people of the Earth.

Such is the Lord's displeasure, apparently, with one group of backsliders in particular.

The Kansas Statehouse.

Johnston and other conservative preachers are still seething over the Kansas Legislature's decision in May not to join with other states, such as neighboring Missouri, that have placed constitutional amendments on their ballots to ban same-sex marriage. (Gay marriage is already against the law in Kansas. Proponents of the failed amendment, however, argue that a state constitutional ban will protect the law from "activist" judges and fickle legislators.)

The Sunflower State would seem the least likely place to make a stand for gay rights. Its capital, Topeka, is home, after all, to that most visible -- and most easily dismissed -- of homophobic clowns, the Rev. Fred Phelps, whose rallying cry, "God hates fags," has long made him synonymous with the word intolerance.

But just 2 and a half miles from Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church, state senators and representatives have twice torpedoed the proposed amendment -- even though such a ballot measure probably would enjoy wide support among the voting public. Polls show that Missouri's proposed amendment will pass with ease on August 3, making a same-sex marriage ban part of the state's primary legal document. But Kansans won't have that same opportunity.

And that's left Johnston seeing red.

And orange and yellow.

Johnston's has become the loudest voice in northeast Kansas rallying other ministers in a highly visible campaign to wreak vengeance on state lawmakers who voted against the proposed amendment.

His campaign is so well-organized that it's color-coded.

During the July 6 seminar at his First Family Church, Johnston projects the images of Kansas legislators like so many mug shots on a 15-foot screen. Each is accompanied by brief texts -- name, district and the lawmaker's stance on only two issues.

The names of representatives and senators who support the constitutional gay-marriage ban and who oppose legal abortion are printed in bright, sunshiny yellow. The names of representatives who oppose the amendment and support abortion rights are printed in blood-red. Those with mixed records have their names printed in orange.

The message is simple: The ministers in the room want the red-colored lawmakers to pay for their votes. But such a blatant political goal, rousing Kansas congregations to throw the bums out in future elections, can put the ministers and their churches in jeopardy. As nonprofits that don't pay taxes, churches are banned from endorsing or opposing particular candidates. Doing so means risking their tax-free status.

But Johnston and his colleagues believe they have that figured out as well.

The July 6 seminar begins with a pep rally of sorts when Johnston introduces his first featured speaker, former gay activist Joe Dallas.

Dallas has made a career talking about how he gave up being gay. And, as his book explains, you can, too. Desires in Conflict -- Hope for Men Who Struggle With Sexual Identity, the title reads. "You may know someone who needs this book," suggests the cover blurb of the book, which is handily available in the First Family lobby.

Addressing the pastors, Dallas draws comparisons between proponents of gay rights and Nazis in Denmark during World War II. The mass murder of Danish Jews began with a rock thrown through a synagogue window and anti-Semitic graffiti painted on the property of Jewish shopkeepers, Dallas says.

Those relatively minor acts were intended to gauge the reaction of the rest of the Danish people, to see if they'd go along, Dallas explains.

Television shows such as Will and Grace and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy are like that rock, Dallas argues. The couple of gay men who demanded to be served communion during a 2002 Catholic bishops' conference are like that graffiti.

None of the ministers in the room bother to point out to Dallas that thousands of homosexuals actually were victims of the Holocaust along with Jews and that equating gay activists with Nazis is, well, rather queer.

Instead, the audience appears very receptive to Dallas' message. "The true horror of the gay rights movement ... is only coming to us slowly," Dallas says. "It is as though they are testing us."

Johnston and his group of like-minded Kansas pastors are determined to pass that test -- but still stay in the good graces of the Internal Revenue Service.

After Dallas' rallying cry, Johnston introduces a representative from the Alliance Defense Fund, who goes over the dos and don'ts of their nonprofit status. The Alliance Defense Fund was founded a decade ago by thirty Christian ministries. The group challenges perceived discrimination against Christians by employers, the government and the American Civil Liberties Union, an organization the ADF's Web site calls "radical."

Pastors can talk all they want about issues, the ADF representative says. They can speak about what they believe are the dangers of homosexuality or the problem with legalizing gay marriage. But to avoid running afoul of the law, they must stop short of speaking for or against individual candidates when representing the church.