Graham's words show us how far we've come

It’s been a little while since Franklin Graham offered up a shovel of moral manure, so let’s go over the drill when the reverend does his thing.

In a recent tweet, Graham blasted presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg for having the nerve to be publicly gay. Homosexuality, said Graham, was not something to be “flaunted.” He called on Buttigieg, a Democrat from Indiana, to instead repent.

It was a typically ripe bite of bigotry from Graham. As before, there are some things to remember:

Graham does not represent most Americans. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showed more than two-third of Americans — 68 percent — are either enthusiastic or comfortable with a presidential candidate who is gay or lesbian. About the same numbers believe that homosexuality should be accepted and same-sex marriage should be legal.

Graham also doesn’t represent most Christians. An American Values Atlas survey released last month showed that Christians overwhelmingly support non-discrimination protections for the LGBT community. That support ranged from 71 percent of white mainline protestants to 54 percent (with only 38 percent against) of white evangelicals.

All of which might explain why Graham’s pulpit pounding is getting a different kind of response these days.

Used to be that when Graham told people to boycott Wells Fargo or not buy cookies from Girl Scouts because they treated gays and lesbians as real people, the reverend’s comments would be worthy of big headlines and cable TV crawls. This time, there were a few frowns, but mostly, America shrugged.

Why? Graham is not the Christian leader he once was. He’s a man whose organization does wonderful work, but he’s also one whose words have become increasingly and gloriously irrelevant.

Franklin Graham’s words used to remind us how far the LGBTQ community and its supporters have to go. Now he shows us how far we’ve come.

— The Charlotte (N.C.) Observer