I am always dismayed to see Christians acting in a very un-Christian way and so I was really disturbed to see Rev. Billy Graham's son ranting about moving his accounts from Wells Fargo because of a commercial.
I saw this commercial for the first time recently and it made me cry, because it's so beautiful.
There are a number of reasons why Graham's stance and hateful words are so disturbing to me.
First, very few people are willing to adopt a child over the age of 2 -- less than 5% of adoptions are of older children.
Second, of those older child adoptions, an even smaller number are of handicapped children.
The commercial depicts a loving couple adopting a deaf child. Does that sound to you like "a tide of moral decay," as Graham said? It doesn't to me.
In Graham's view only traditional Christian couples are fit to be parents. So he would keep a lot of children in orphanages or foster care, because that's "Christian"?
I know several single moms who have adopted children who were disabled. So Graham thinks those kids would be better off in orphanages or foster care? I also know loving gay couples who have adopted. Their children are healthy and thriving.
The idea that gay couples "recruit" is ridiculous and not true. You can't "recruit" someone to be gay. It's hardwired.
Where Franklin Graham Has Gone Wrong by Peter Wehner [a Christian conservative] is a good article. He makes a lot of good points about Graham's anti-gay bias including:
"I just don’t think a fair-minded reading of the Bible would correspond to the central place (and threat) Graham gives homosexuality. The people who have to answer for the weakening of marriage in American society are overwhelmingly heterosexuals, including professing Christians, rather than gays. And when speaking about God’s judgment on America, why is homosexuality at or near the top of the list of offenses while indifference to the poor, not caring for the stranger and alien in our midst, vanity, self-righteousness, our idols and the counterfeit gods we create, a judgmental spirit and avarice are left off? Surely Graham knows that the greatest hostility that occurred was between religious leaders and Jesus, not those viewed as outcasts and sinners."
I am going to pray that Franklin Graham will come to understand that preaching hatred is NOT in line with the teachings of Jesus.
