RHETORICAL VIOLENCE IS ONE SMALL STEP AWAY FROM PHYSICAL VIOLENCE

The ex-wife of the Atlanta megachurch leader accused of coercing young men into having sex with him claimed in divorce papers that the pastor was physically abusive.

Bishop Eddie Long's ex-wife, Dabara Houston, said she was 7½ months pregnant when Long beat her with his fists. She accused her husband of having a "vicious and violent temper," according to a 1985 divorce filing obtained by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

In divorce papers filed in 1985 against embattled Bishop Eddie Long, shown Sunday at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta, his wife said he was abusive and that she endured "cruel treatment."

Long and Houston married in 1981 and have one child, a son. They divorced in 1985. Houston said she endured "cruel treatment" and "had to flee [the couple's home] in order to ensure their safety," according to the court papers from Fulton County Superior Court in Georgia.

[For the full article, see here.]

When people are stridently homophobic, it's a good bet that they possess many emotional/sexual problems that can manifest themselves in many ways.

Rhetorical violence is but one small step away from, and can easily lead to, physical violence; that physical violence may or may not have as its object the object of that rhetorical violence!

Social Psychologists have long known that when a person is discriminatory against one minority group, there's a good chance he/she is discriminatory against one or more other minority groups.

And, in a society still characterized by its fair share of patriarchy, women are in this sense a minority group; wives are all too often viewed by their husbands as mere possessions, and domestic abuse is not at all uncommon in such a society.

Rev. Eddie Long, a strident homophobe who has been accused of having sexual relations with young men, also seems to have had a problem dealing with violence with at least one woman in his life.

In addition, even after all these years, I never cease to be amazed at how so many seemingly limited human beings can listen to displays such as the following and take them seriously, as we see here with the Rev. Eddie Long in action:



As I wrote in an article entitled, Why Every Church Must Be Open And Affirming:

The seemingly oracular pronouncements regarding GLBT people and their relationships by those who parade their ignorance as “Godliness” have helped lead to the suicides, bashings, and murders of countless GLBT people. Indeed, in this connection, it is estimated that gay youth have at least three times the suicide rate of non-gay youth.

Make no mistake, every drop of blood shed by GLBT people either through suicide, bashing, or murder, are on the hands of all those religious leaders, their followers, and their allies who spew forth their ignorance, prejudice, and hate against GLBT people and their relationships! These wolves in sheep’s clothing take the Bible, God’s love letter to His children, and selectively and perversely use it as a club to condemn others, and deny GLBT people full inclusion in the Church and in society.

The tradition-bound parts of the Church have so indoctrinated people, many of whom have never even set foot in a house of worship, that many people even disown their own children when they “come out” and divulge their sexual orientation to those whom they thought unconditionally loved and cherished them. There are many children living on the streets because their own parents trusted ignorant clergy and their followers over their God-given duty and privilege to nurture and embrace their own children!

The nature of those people in congregations that take seriously the displays such as the one seen here, and the one seen in the September 26th post, are those who are very likely to mirror the homophobia of their pastor that causes more harm to people than they could ever fathom.

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