210.4 - Clown Award: Arkansas pastor Tim Brooks

Clown Award: Arkansas pastor Tim Brooks

Now for one of our regular features, the Clown Award, given as always for meritorious stupidity.

Some weeks picking that week's outstanding clown is hard. Sometimes it's easy. This week it was easy.

The winner of the Big Red Nose this week is Arkansas pastor Tim Brooks.

Appearing on a radio show called Wallbuilders Live hosted by fundamentalist Christian wacko David Barton, Brooks asserted that America has gone the way of Sodom and Gomorrah and then declared that "the only thing" that will "satisfy" the homosexual "agenda" - and "it's very clear," he says - the only thing that will satisfy the homosexual agenda is "participation."

And he meant that literally and said so in so many words:

We want you to come out of your house and participate with us. ... [C]ome out and have sex with us.... They're going to force participation and that's what we're seeing around the country. It's unsafe in a city where the homosexual agenda has control.

What really makes this truly bizarre is that in saying this he refers to the story of Lot and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The story is found in Genesis 19:1-11. It says two angels came to Sodom and Lot took them into his house. But before they went to sleep, the men of the city surrounded the house and demanded Lot bring out the two strangers "that we may know them."

Lot goes out and responds by saying "I have two daughters who have not known any man. Let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please. Only do nothing to these men."

The crowd spurns the offer and tries to break in but the strangers pull Lot back inside and strike the men in the crowd with a blindness that made them unable to find Lot's door.

Tim Brooks

The lesson Pastor Brooks takes from that story is that "Lot was not forcing his lifestyle on them. Lot never tried to force his lifestyle on them, he never even brought that up. They are trying to force their lifestyle on him."

But note that Lot's way of dealing with the situation was to offer his two virgin daughters to be gang-raped by a mob. That was to be preferred to any possibility of gay sex.

It's hard to see how that bit slipped by his notice. On the other hand, I suppose it's easy - if you're a clown like Tim Brooks.

As a quick footnote, Sodom and Gomorrah were not destroyed because of homosexuality. They were destroyed, according to the Bible, because their inhabitants were selfish, greedy, inhospitable, prideful, and idolatrous.

The destruction is mentioned twice. One is Ezekiel 16:49, which reads

This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.

The other is Isaiah 1:10-17, in which the prophet, speaking in the voice of God, tells the "rulers of Sodom" and "people of Gomorrah" to not bother making any more offerings or prayers because "I will hide my eyes from you ... I will not listen" until you "cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow."

Sources cited in links:
https://soundcloud.com/rightwingwatch/tim-brooks-warns-that-america-is-modern-day-sodom-and-gomorrah
http://biblia.com/bible/esv/Gen%2019.1%E2%80%9311
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekiel+16%3A49&version=NIV
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+1%3A10-17&version=NIV