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Episcopalian Bishop Leopold Frade had some strong words for President Obama last week: “I am asking President Obama to stop being a sodomite!”
Now, before jumping to conclusions, know that Episcopalians are totally down with the gays, and in 2012 Frade personally authorized the church’s first recognition of gay marriage in South Florida.
Frade’s remarks had nothing to do with homosexuality, but rather immigration.
For some reason a lot of people think the Biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah is a condemnation of modern homosexuality. Others, however, believe that the great sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was being inhospitable to outsiders (AKA immigrants) who came to the towns asking for help.
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Frade gave the remarks last week while standing with immigration activists. Here, from WLRN, is the full context of his remarks:
“It is horrible,” Frade, in his purple robes, shouted from the steps of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, “to see the people being deported, being separated from their children, being separated from the people that they love because we have insisted on not doing what we need to do as a country.”But here’s where it did get strange. In his anger over the country’s dysfunctional immigration system, the bishop called the president a nasty name: sodomite.
“He has been the president that has deported more people than even Bush did!” Frade said. “And I am asking President Obama to stop being a sodomite!”
So not only was Frade calling on Obama to be more hospitable to outsider looking for help, he’s also slyly condemning the view that the tale of Sodom and Gomorrah was a condemnation of homosexuality in the first place.
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