Posted by Hemant Mehta in Uh-oh. Pastor Deacon Fred just found out that South African runner Caster Semenya is a hermaphrodite!
He isn’t sure how to handle this:
Brothers and Sisters, I saw on Fox News the other day that some secular scientists opened up the tummy of this African gal and found a couple of testicles floating around up in there! Oh my Lord! These are truly the last days! Where God Himself has forgotten that He only creates males and females!
…
Lord God, why would You create something that looks almost human — only for it to be damned to Hell from the day they pop their little head out from betwixt their momma’s legs to breath their first breath of air? We’ll never know till we get to Heaven!
Secularists call this abomination a Hermaphrodite, but God… Your Word — The Holy Bible — doesn’t mention Hermaphrodite unless it might have been some small town outside of Philistine that King James could have translated incorrectly.
(via Landover Baptist Church)
Isn’t Landover a Poe?
That’s probably why this post was included in the “humor” category.
I so hope Alan is correct and this is a Poe.
Landover baptist is a Poe. “Pastor Deacon Fred” is actually Chris Harper, an english literature master. But I’m betting Hemant knew that already
[pedant]
She’s not a hermaphrodite: link
[/pedant]
For those who didn’t click jtradke’s link, here’s what you need to know:
There’s no such thing as having BOTH genitalia.
Thus, there is no such thing as a true hermaphrodite, and that term is not actually appropriate to use to describe Semenya.
People with ambiguous genitalia are called “intersex.” (It’s the I in LGBTQQIA, for those familiar with longer versions of the acronym.)
Learn more at the homepage of the Intersex Society of North America: http://www.isna.org.
Pastor Deacon Fred is pastor at my church. I often listen to his
rantssermons. Sometimes I even listen on Sunday. I always find his sermons to be very uplifting(getting up off the floor, I mean).I’m sure glad I don’t have to make this decision.
I’m new to your blog and for a minute I thought you might not have noticed that site is a parody of fundamentalism.
Ah Poe, you genius. I got all the way through the comment thinking this was a particularly stupid fundamentalist before reading “Landover Baptist Church” and realizing it was a joke.
Poe – it happens to the best of us
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landover_Baptist_Church
Hemant, you might edit the post to include this little fact
Damn. I fell for it too until I saw “Landover Baptist.”
Betty Bowers says you’re going to burn in hell for this. http://www.bettybowers.com
Nah
If you can’t figure it out from the Humor tag… or you don’t know Landover by now… you deserve to fall for the ruse.
I knew it was fake… Hermaphrodite was a town just outside Gomorrah…
Landover Baptist Church! I fell for it too, until I saw that! Poe’s Law works!
I can’t resist.
If we read it literally as written, and we believe what the Bible claims, then hermaphrodite is the normal condition and God is a hermaphrodite too.
“Male and female he created them in the image of God . . .” (Genesis 1:26-28)
I fell for it. I read the whole thing, missed the humor tag, and didn’t know anything about Landover Baptist.
I had steam coming out my ears until I read the comments.
Man, am I relieved. I need a drink.
I never read the tags. I thought it was real until the end too.
I wouldn’t have been surprised if the article hadn’t been a parody… I’ve read things far more outlandish from religious extremists. It is a little reassuring and humorous to know that it’s not real, though.
I hadn’t heard of Landover before this.
Given that she’s on suicide watch, this is in pretty poor taste.
Two things. First, I can’t think of a single instance when LBC was NOT in poor taste. Second, I doubt Semenya frequents the site.
That aside, it is sad what this poor girl has been put through considering she’s still a teenager.
Haha, I was about to send it around with the subject: “The most insulting thing I’ve read in a while!”!! Glad I checked the comments first!
WHAT ABOUT “SEMI” SAME-SEX MARRIAGES?
Paul the apostle wrote in the first chapter of his letter to the congregation in Rome that it was wrong for a woman to “burn” for another woman. But what if the other “woman” has both a vagina and a penis (where her clitoris is usually located)? Such people exist. What kind of condemnation should apply to them? Are such people allowed to “burn” for people of either sex?
Cases of inter-sexed human babies include different degrees and types of inter-sexuality. “When all causes of inter-sexuality are considered, as many as one in 2,000 babies are affected.” (Altheaea Yronwode, “Intersex Individuals Dispute Wisdom of Surgery on Infants,” Transgender Tapestry, Issue #88, Fall 1999) The American Medical Association has decreed that doctors ought to operate on the genitalia of such infants to ensure that every inter-sexed baby is “made to fit” into either the “male” or “female” categories that society prides itself on being able to easily distinguish.
In the case of a baby who has not been operated on (because their parents did not allow it), and who has grown into an adult having breasts, a vagina, and a penis instead of a clitoris, what decision should churches make? To allow such a person to wed a partner of either gender is to approve of “semi-same sex” marriages. (How far is that from approving of “same sex” marriages?) Another option would be for churches to insist on operations for all babies born with inter-sexed genitalia–in other words such children must be mutilated for having messed up the neat and tidy categories of human sexuality with which the Bible deals. The AMA is beginning to shy away from continuing such operations, so maybe churches will need to mount a counter campaign to maintain them. Or maybe churches can continue to do what they have done all along, simply ignore the theological questions that “inter-sexed” people raise. Certainly the Bible gives little assurance as to how to proceed and “what to condemn” in such cases.
INTERSEXED CATHOLIC SEEKS ANSWERS AT “CATHOLIC ANSWERS” FORUMS
An individual at Catholic Answers wrote: I am an intersexed individual. I didn’t want to get too detailed, but I will try to use non-offensive language. I have a small penis and also gonads. Biopsies of the gonads showed them to be testicular tissue, but there were stripes of ovarian tissue in them too. However at birth they appeared normal, just small and undescended which is not extremely uncommon in males. That’s why I was assigned male, there wasn’t that much of an issue, I showed no visual oddities until puberty when my breasts appeared.
The priests I have visited have said I am a man definitively because I have something that resembles a penis. They would support me marrying a woman, despite the fact we’d look like a lesbian couple… Being intersexed from birth, I’m somewhat androgynous, I will look “wrong” to someone no matter what gender I present when I attend Mass. If I go dressed as a male many look at me with disgust thinking me to be a lesbian because of my feminine facial features and breasts, when I go dressed as a female no one asks questions regarding my general appearance, but then they notice I’m over six-feet tall and my voice sounds a bit low, and so they assume I’m a transsexual. They may not be intentionally pushing me away, but my life is very lonely, except for my male fiance… whom the church says I should dump and “just be friends” with.