Out / 6-27-09

Three disclaimers are in order here, before we get going.

1. This isn't going to happen in your mainstream Sunday morning worship service.
2. Exorcisms are documented in the Bible.
3. The teenager is said to have requested the "procedure."

With that out of the way...

"Rip it from his throat! Come on, you homosexual demon!" a woman yells. "You homosexual spirit, we call you out right now! Loose your grip, Lucifer!"

She's addressing the body of a 16-year-old boy.

"Come out of his belly," someone commands. "It's in the belly. Push."

The teenager submits. Several people are holding him immobile. He vomits.

"Get another bag," a voice calls out. "Make sure you have your gloves."

Those are the "highlights" from the casting out of a homosexual demon. It happened recently in a small Connecticut church. The video got posted on youtube but the church took it down soon thereafter. Not soon enough.

(For the video, by the way, click here, that should do it. I feel like I should include a warning, but I guess we're all big boys and girls here.)

So the church's pastor, later, offers this explanation, which I got from msnbc.com, so take it for what it's worth.

"He was out of control in the church," she said. "This young man came to us. We didn't go to him." She wasn't calling it an exorcism, choosing instead to term it a casting out of spirits. "He was dressing like a woman and everything. And he didn't want to be like that," she said.

It's easy to get mad at all kinds of people here. The pastor, the churchgoers, the larger Christian community, the kid himself. For my part, I wonder if the church routinely performs other exorcism-type services. Like for stealing. Or for pride, or maybe even for adulterous behavior. For lust? It sounds like I'm being flippant, but I'm not -- maybe they do. I can see that happening... some congregations are pretty immersed in the Angels vs. Demons business. So maybe during this particular "casting out" adventure, everyone got a little carried away because of the gayness factor? No... my gut tells me this is just another way for small minds to brand homosexuals as the scary subhuman other.

The video leaves me a little sad, plenty angry and more than a little ashamed, as a guy who still likes to call himself a Christian. But maybe the fact it got publicized nationally and then got mentioned on a few thousand blogs here and there will change something somewhere.

I'm left shaking my head. And thinking the same thing as this gay rights advocate, quoted in the same msnbc.com story: "What saddens me is the people that are doing this think they are doing something in the kid's best interests, when in fact they're murdering his spirit."