Warren Throckmorton Takes on Kirk Cameron: Not Feeling the Love

Warren Throckmorton, who's a psychology professor at Grove City College in Pennsylvania, has been on my radar screen since 2005, when he was thickly involved in the debacle that resulted when the parents of a young teen, Zach Stark, sent him against his will to the Love in Action program in Memphis for ex-gay therapy.  At some point after this happened (and after it received international attention), Throckmorton began to question his previous support for ex-gay movements--to his credit--and has now become something of a watchdog for those movements.

And because he seems to be a man of integrity who is willing to revise his views when they're based on erroneous information that leads to conclusions which inflict injury on others, I now read what Throckmorton writes with great interest.  I'm interested today to see him weighing in on the controversy actor Kirk Cameron has just created by telling Piers Morgan on a television program that, in his view as a Christian, homosexuality is "unnatural" and "destructive to so many of the foundations of civilization."

Cameron now claims to be the victim of a nasty attack from the gays and our allies, who (he says) disrespect his right to profess his religious views.  But Throckmorton (who is also an evangelical Christian) begs to differ.  His advice to Cameron: if you don't want a fight, then don't pick a fight.

As he notes, Cameron is absolutely within his rights to hold and express his own moral views.  But he is astonishingly short-sighted in failing to recognize that there are also other citizens (and other believers) who hold countervailing moral views in direct contradiction to his, and who are contesting his statements because we see them as harmful to a great number of human beings:

He is right, of course, about his ability to express his moral views. However, I think other people have the right to express their moral view of his moral views. When those offended by his comments say he is a homophobe, they are expressing a moral view, right? 

This seems so elementary to me. If you say a group of people is “destructive to the foundations of civilization,” you might expect members of that group to react. Like if you say, Christianity is destructive to the foundations of civilization, then one might expect a reaction from members of that group.

I particularly like Throckmorton's conclusion, which blows out of the water the insincere and self-serving claim of many right-wing Christians that they just loves them some gays when they inform us that we're the vilest of sinners--but we can find grace and affirmation if we will only decide to become (or pretend to be) somebody other than who God made us to be.  Somebody more like those loving Christian brothers and sisters for whom our very existence is a problem and an affront . . . .  

Throckmorton writes:

One of my mentors often told me that discretion is the better part of valor. I agree. Cameron says he is a Christian. The Bible teaches us that all things are lawful, but not all things edify. Just because you have a right of free speech doesn’t mean you should use it. Sometimes it just confuses things. Like how Cameron now says he loves everybody. I never tried that in my old neighborhood, but I doubt it would have worked — hey you’re a jerk! But I love you! I am trying to figure out how to tell people I say I love that they are destroying the foundations of civilization and make that work. 

So I think Mr. Cameron needs to understand that when you use your free speech, people will reciprocate. When you call people names, they often call you some back. The best thing to do is to stop whining about it and stop calling people names. If you can’t help yourself, then don’t feel surprised when the targets of your free speech don’t feel the love.

I doubt Cameron will pay much attention to the advice of his fellow evangelical Christian here.  He should, though, if he wants to understand why people will push back when their humanity and lives are defined as intrinsically disordered and "destructive of the foundations of civilization."

Particularly by people who claim to be motivated by love in defining others this way--but who are lying through their teeth when they utter the word "love."

The graphic is a depiction of an agape feast or love meal from the earliest period of Christianity; the fresco is in the Catacombs of Sts. Marcellinus and Peter in Rome, and shows a female figure holding the chalice at the meal.