'Truth Academy' is just hate-mongering

In the Gospel of John, Pontius Pilate poses a rhetorical question to Jesus: "What is truth?"

The so-called Americans for Truth about Homosexuality (AFTAH), a nationally recognized hate group, would do well to ask themselves this very question. This is an organization dedicated to aggressively countering what they call the "homosexual agenda," as though homosexuality is a choice at all and not a natural orientation - and the American Medical Association is with me on this one, people.

Like so many other ill-conceived movements before it, AFTAH is building its momentum on an interpretation of scripture that one might expect from a first-grader. The Bible was composed by a wide variety of authors, all of them living in a time and place and culture so alien to our own that they might as well have been on Mars.

The Bible is a record of their experience of God, colored by their own prejudices and assumptions. It's a valuable record, because their experiences can tell us some things about God, and a lot of things about the barbaric world they lived in, a world that necessitated a strict code of laws in order to survive. But those laws and regulations should probably be taken with a veritable pillar of salt - unless you support human slavery, too.

On Aug. 5-7, AFTAH will be hosting a "Truth Academy" in Carol Stream. As a local clergyman and religious leader, I find their presence among us offensive. Their so-called truth is nothing but a vicious pack of lies, aimed at a segment of society that wants nothing more than to be treated like human beings and accepted for who they are. And if I'm not mistaken, Jesus was a lot more interested in treating people with decency than in upholding the Deuteronomic law.

Rev. Seth Ethan Carey

Lisle

Associate minister, First Congregational Church of Glen Ellyn