I think Twitter covered the basic idea.
Last week 150 or so evangelical leaders singed a document called the Nashville Statement, which is a treatise of some sort regarding sexuality as God intends it. Of course, being from the religious right, it focused heavily on homosexuality and transgenderism and how those are the Bad Things. It even went so far as to say that you can't be Christian and gay/transgendered. There was a bit of a backlash, to put it mildly. Which prompted a backlash to the backlash from the religious right, in which we saw a reframing of the narrative: the Nashville Statement was merely "printing basic Biblical truths which have been believed unanimously for 2000 years" and everyone who disagreed was a "progressive throwing a fit."
The further into the Trump-era we get, the clearer it is that the right, in particular the religious right, is mentally incapable of separating manner of articulation and content.
This isn't the only instance. Remember last month when a Google employee sent a 10-page manifesto about how women weren't as good as men? Yeah, that guy got fired. But people on the right were very quick to step up and complain about it. As they put it, Damore (the guy who wrote the manifesto) was fired "for expressing his opinion."
For fuck's sake.
Do people not understand anymore that not all manifestos are made equal? If I say that I like chocolate ice cream more than vanilla, that is an opinion. If I say that women are not biologically fit to be software engineers, that is also an opinion. But it's clear the opinions are extremely different. No one is going to seriously fight me about ice cream, but if I believe women are inferior to men, I should expect resistance. Only a complete fool would suggest that somehow because both of my statements are opinions, they are functionally the same thing.
That's what the right argues when they say Damore was merely expressing his opinon. They are saying that because opinions are expressed in the same manner, they should be treated with the same severity. You wouldn't fire someone for saying they like chocolate ice cream, they insinuate, so it would be silly to fire someone for denigrating women. The right suffers from the inability to understand how two similar expressions can differ in content.
In addition to that, they seem to be unable to discern context. With this whole Google thing, I suppose you could argue that much of what Damore had to say was worthy of debate. He may be wrong and sexist, but that doesn't mean the opinions shouldn't be heard, right? But this idea just assumes that the context - the time, place, and political climate surrounding the situation - should not be factored in or discussed at all.
We live in a time when women in software are a minority. They are not treated seriously. They are told women are bad at math. They are sexually harassed online. So, when a Google employee tries to start "reasonable debate" questioning the validity of women in the workplace, we can't just pretend this is an argument that can be approached with a blank slate. The questions themselves are loaded. When a dominant group questions the necessity of the minority group, the dominant group can't claim they are just asking an innocent question. Google employee James Damore is part of the dominant group - men - asking if the minority - women - are necessary in his field. That is a threat. Richard Spencer is part of the dominant group - whites - asking if the minority - blacks - are necessary in America. That is a threat. And the Nashville Statement is written by the religious right, stating that the homosexuals and "transgenders" (their term) have no place in their Christianity.
See that? That was my brilliant segue back to the Nashville Statement. Let's talk about it. It's a series of fourteen articles, each affirming a certain position and denying its opposite. Fortunately, not every single article is a disaster, so let's just talk about the ones that are.
ARTICLE I
We affirm that God has designed marriage to be a covenental, sexual, procreative, lifelong union of one man and one woman...
Check out "procreative." God's design for marriage is to produce offspring. So, what if you're barren? Do you get to be married? Is there something wrong with you? Are you a sinner?
Of course not. Being barren isn't a sin, as I'm sure the signers believe because nearly all Christians do. But if you are barren, you cannot possibly have a procreative marriage. And if that doesn't make you a sinner, it follows that if you do not conform to other parts of this article, you are not necessarily a sinner in those cases either. In other words, it's illogical to say that breaking one element of this article is bad but another element is not.
But that's not what the Nashville Statement says. It is pretty strongly against homosexuality. So why is it okay to have a marriage which is non-procreative, but not a marriage that is not between a man and woman? Are there some parts of God's design that are okay to ignore, but not others? To be consistent, we should either condemn barren women and sterile men, or be as accepting of homosexuality as we are childless marriages. The fact that the Nashville Statement goes on to condemn one but not the other shows they are far more concerned with being anti-homosexual than with being pro-Bible or pro-marriage.
ARTICLE V
We affirm that the differences between male and female reproductive structures are integral to God's design for self-conception as male or female.
We deny that physical anomalies or psychological conditions nullify the God-appointed link between biological sex and self-conception as male or female.Basically, God intended for you to be born with either a penis or vagina. If you have a penis, you are male. If you have a vagina, you are female. And that certainly sounds right as a template, but what do you say if someone is born with something else? Some people are born with both sets of genitalia. Some have an XXY chromosome. Others never go through puberty right and thus never develop the correct reproductive structures. How should these people self-conceive? Male? Female? The Nashville Statement does not acknowledge these possibilities. "We deny that physical anomalies... nullify the God-appointed link," it says. In other words, screw science! Since the template for humanity is male or female, all people conform to that template. It's not only unkind, it's factually incorrect.
ARTICLE X
We affirm that it is sinful to approve of homosexual immorality or transgenderism and that such approval constitutes an essential departure from Christian faithfulness and witness.Essential departure?
Essential departure is when someone says that Christ was not the Son of God. Essential depature is when someone says that they don't need God's forgiveness. Essential departure is when someone says that Christ did not really die for us or did not really exist. Homosexuals and "transgenderism" are not the fucking same. The religious right has confused their sexual preferences for essential tenets of the faith.
ARTICLE XIII
We affirm that the grace of God in Christ enables sinners to forsake transgender self-conceptions and by divine forbearance to accept the God-given link between one's biological sex and one's self-conception as male or female.Translation: being saved isn't about Christ removing your sin - it's about God making you not transgender anymore! How small is this God that His only goal in life is to make sure you're sexually well-adjusted?
And finally,
ARTICLE XIV
We affirm that Christ Jesus has come into the world to save sinners and that through Christ's death and resurrection forgiveness of sins and eternal life are available to every person who repents of sin and trusts in Christ alone as Savior, Lord, and supreme treasure.
We deny that the Lord's arm is too short to save or that any sinner is beyond his reach.If this were the only part of the manifesto, there wouldn't be a problem. But context is key. Remember, the previous article states that the power of God enables you to stop being so sexually weird. When the Nashville Statement says that God can save anyone, what it means in context is that God can un-gay anyone. That's the great salvation of Jesus Christ to the religious right: come to Jesus, stop sticking your dick in other dudes.
So basically
When I say that God intends for people to give alms to the poor, I am making a statement intended to be loving that is based on Biblical truths. When the Nashville Statement says that sexuality is primarily defined as being not-gay (seriously, that and "transgenderism" are the only sins they mention specifically), they are making a statement intended to be loving and based on Biblical truths. However, the content is very different, and this supposedly loving statement is really an affirmation of the religious right's insistence that God is obsessed with sex more than with justice, mercy, and love.
This statement is released in a time when the sitting president of the United States, someone that 80 percent of white evangelicals voted for, is by any Christian standard sexually morally bankrupt. Where in the Nashville Statement do we see condemnation of adultery, divorce, inappropriate comments about your daughter, or groping non-consenting women? Nowhere.
This statement is also released at a time when homosexuals and transgender people are under intense pressure from society to conform. Hell, we just had Americans seriously fighting to keep transgender people out of their public restrooms. So, when the Nashville Statement comes out to further denigrate the people who are the subject of persecution in America, that is tone-deaf at best and complicit at worst. I get that we're all sinners, but when you choose to focus on the sinners who are currently holding the short end of the stick, I can safely say you do not care about their salvation. You have declared war against them.
Furthermore, this statement is released during a period of great natural disaster in America, specifically hurricane Harvey in Houston, but there's another hurricane coming to Florida and the Northwest is on fire. Where are the Nashville Statement signers to help the poor and suffering in Houston, Montana, or Oregon? Why was it so important to condemn the sin of the gays, but not go to those places and help the hurting?
Call the Nashville Statement Biblical all you want. That's only because it finds a way to make statements that match a very small portion of the Bible. But when it comes to the character of God, this statement is anything but reflective of the Lord of the Bible.