Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Or so says this lunatic:
A Cypress man charged in the death of a Southwest Airlines flight attendant said Saturday that he was doing God's work when he went to a Montrose-area bar last month, hunting for a gay man to kill."I believe I'm Elijah, called by God to be a prophet," said 26-year-old Terry Mark Mangum, charged with murder June 11. " ... I believe with all my heart that I was doing the right thing."
It only gets more chilling:
Mangum, who described himself as "definitely not a homosexual," said God called on him to "carry out a code of retribution" by killing a gay man because "sexual perversion" is the "worst sin."Mangum believed Cummings to be gay.
"I planned on sending him to hell," he said.
Cummings disappeared June 4. His charred remains were found June 16, buried on a 50-acre ranch near San Antonio owned by Mangum's 90-year-old grandfather...
Mangum -- who claimed he has studied the Bible for "thousands and thousands and thousands of hours" -- said God first commanded him to kill during a "visitation," or dream, while he was in prison in 2001. He said his victim must be a man because men "carry the harvest of the sinner."
After six months' planning, Mangum said, he went to E.J.'s, a Montrose-area club, where he met Cummings. After they drank a couple of beers, he said, the two went to Cummings' home in Pearland.
Mangum said he stabbed Cummings with a "6-inch blade."
"It's not that I'm a bad dude," he said, expressing concern that people might view him as "strange." Pausing briefly, he said, "I love God."
But here's my real question: what exactly is the difference between this guy and the God of the Old Testament? The only possible difference is "well, God later changed his mind." In the book of Leviticus, God clearly does order the death of homosexual men. If one believes the Bible to be the word of God then, at the very least, God commanded his followers, for hundreds of years, to do exactly that.
Moses says God told him that gays were to be killed. So why does virtually everyone, including those who believe the Bible is the infallible word of God, think this guy is a total lunatic, yet those same people consider Moses to be a great man of God? I say they're both lunatics, either falsely claiming to hear God's voice to justify what they wanted to do, or being mentally ill enough to actually believe that they hear such voices.
Comments
I wish someone would do a study; we need to try to figure out "why" the hyper-religious always single out gayness for a special, virulent--and persistent--hatred. What's especially puzzling is the contradictory nature of this hatred. Apparently, as you know, homosexuality is such a seductive, insidious sin that mere knowledge of its existence, or exposure to those who engage in it, is enough to turn God-fearing Christians into rainbow flag wearing sodomites. We sodomites also, apparently, possess the power to bring down society as it has been known by the mere fact of pairing up monogamously with each other and saying "I do" in front of a Justice of the Peace. That's a lot of power to be possessed by such a filthy, disgusting (yet irresistable) sin.
Absolutely, some social worker/psychologist type really needs to do a study.
Posted by: gary l. day | July 17, 2007 9:40 AM
Just as we reject "creation science" we should reject literalist readings of the bible. Moses didn't write the Torah.
Posted by: IanR | July 17, 2007 10:37 AM
Sodomy is a sin you can really get worked up about, I guess. I find it hard, but the G man gets pissed about everything. He even burned some guys alive for presenting him with incense. The story is in Leviticus I think, but I don't feel like finding the citation. It really is curious that one sin gets so much of the irrational hatred pie.
Posted by: Iskra | July 17, 2007 10:42 AM
When it comes to religion, a lot of people apparently change the framework from which they view the 'story of their life' from first-person-limited narration to third-person-omniscient. If someone hears God's voice telling them to kill someone, they're crazy -- UNLESS this is a story where you already know it's really God, in which case they're a hero if they quell their doubts and go ahead.
This is why theists who tell me they're more certain of God's existence than anything else in the world scare me. They've lost the ability to say "I might be wrong." Not when it comes to God they can't be -- there, they just know, and are proud of the 'humility' that allows them to confuse doubting themselves with doubting God.
If you ask a child "In the story "Jack and the Beanstalk," did Jack make the right choice to trade the cow for the "magic" beans?" the answer is always "Yes." That's because the beans really WERE magic, and his mother was therefore wrong to be mad at him for being conned. But if taken seriously, an honest, mature answer would be "No. It was too much of a risk. They were starving, and the cow was all they had, and the area was rife with con artists." It shouldn't matter that well yes, it turned out to be a good choice. It still wasn't a wise choice.
Theists who admire the obedience of Abraham are like children who admire Jack. They judge the wisdom of an act only on the consequences, instead of on what a reasonable person should take into account at the time.
Posted by: Sastra | July 17, 2007 10:57 AM
It will be fun to watch all the tap dancing among the various right-wing religous groups to justify this.
Do you think Fred Phelps will establish a defence fund.
Better yet, maybe George can commute his sentence.
Posted by: Jim Ramsey | July 17, 2007 10:59 AM
Leviticus 10, Iskra, is the actual burning, but you have to look back in Exodus and earlier in Lev to see why.
The kid's insane, and he's using Christianity as an alibi. As disgusting as it is, and as silly as the whole homophobic hate is in general, this shouldn't be an indictment of Christians in general. If it hadn't been this, he would have found another reason to kill someone.
What would be nice, though, is a very vocal condemnation from Christians nationwide. Isn't that what people seem to want from Muslims when there is a suicide bomber?
I'm surprised Phelps hasn't written anything about this yet.
Posted by: Andrea | July 17, 2007 11:17 AM
Well, there is some tap-dancing to be done if you want to argue that the Bible is the word of God and still tolerate homosexuals. The two most popular arguments is that the line in Leviticus refers to gay rape, not gay relationships, or that the laws of the Torah were issued specifically to that generation of Hebrews, because they were desperately in need of a larger population and gay sex was a waste of man-seed.
But yeah, you have to eventually come to the conclusion that either the Bible is not the literal word of God, or the Bible was only meant to be relevant to ancient times.
Posted by: Brandon | July 17, 2007 11:30 AM
Andrea said: "The kid's insane, and he's using Christianity as an alibi. As disgusting as it is, and as silly as the whole homophobic hate is in general, this shouldn't be an indictment of Christians in general. If it hadn't been this, he would have found another reason to kill someone."
Why do you assume it was insanity that caused iron age justice, and not iron age mythology that caused insane behaviour?
Maybe this guy actually believes what he says he believes. As in, not just for reasons of an alibi.
It's insane either way, but there's a big difference.
Posted by: Gordon Stephens | July 17, 2007 11:33 AM
Sodomy is a sin you can really get worked up about, I guess. I find it hard, but the G man gets pissed about everything... It really is curious that one sin gets so much of the irrational hatred pie.
I think at least part of this is because it's societally acceptable right now to hate gays. I.E., perhaps they get worked up about this particular "sin" because they can still get away with doing so, as much and as hard as they want, and still get an audience; whereas attacking other, previously focused-on "sins", like interracial marriage, gambling, or women wearing pants, results in today's society in being ostracized or just plain ignored.
In this sense we should probably even be looking at the current attempts to ground homophobia in religion the same way we often today look at past attempts to ground racism in religion, as not really specifically religious at all, but just external cultural and political sentiments expressing themselves in the religious sphere, using religion like a hand puppet or something.
I'm not entirely sure about all this, though. I mean, religion does seem to have some kind of surprisingly consistent thing against sex of various kinds. Maybe they see it as competition for people's attention.
Posted by: Coin | July 17, 2007 11:40 AM
Gordon -
Why do you assume it was insanity that caused iron age justice, and not iron age mythology that caused insane behaviour?
Maybe this guy actually believes what he says he believes. As in, not just for reasons of an alibi.
It's insane either way, but there's a big difference.
Fair enough, I guess. But I'll go with ... "cuz I said so." :)
Posted by: Andrea | July 17, 2007 11:44 AM
Fair enough, I guess. Not often someone outright admits the vapidity of their own arguments, and still claims them to be correct.
Posted by: Gordon Stephens | July 17, 2007 11:54 AM
One of the popular supports for religion is that it is necessary for morality. But of course, you can make a perfectly fine secular case against rape, murder, stealing, and doing anything that hurts people. And injunctions against causing unnecessary suffering are in all the religions. You don't need any particular religion, or religion itself.
But if the religion manages to provide not only the solution to the problem, but the problem itself, THEN it can claim to have a unique lock on morality. Homosexuality causes no harm. But when seen as an offense against God and Nature, the special believers of the special religion can now honestly claim that only their religious viewpoint can understand the difference between right and wrong.
They need crimes which make no rational sense, to demonstrate the critical ethical need for a particular faith.
Posted by: Sastra | July 17, 2007 11:55 AM
It isn't fair to complain about fundamentalists claiming to dominate religious discourse one minute, and then taking their assumptions to be true the next.
Ian, I don't think that Ed is taking the fundamentalist assumption to be true. (Ed will correct me if I'm wrong here.)
Instead, you and I must accept that the fundamentalist believes his own assumptions to be true. If they do assume Moses to be a great man who recorded Leviticus, then we must ask them why they think Mr. Magnum is a lunatic. "Mr. Magnum is a lunatic for acting out Leviticus" is directly contradicted by "Leviticus was dictated by God and written down by the great and trustworthy hand of Moses."
Ed isn't being inconsistent: he's asking fundamentalists why they are being inconsistent.
Posted by: Elf M. Sternberg | July 17, 2007 11:57 AM
Ed wrote:
This is not true. God ordered the death of men who engaged in homosexual behavior. Nowhere in the Bible is homosexuality condemned, for the simple reason that the concept did not exist.
The crux of the matter is culture, not sexuality. Someone (God, Moses, P, whoever) was concerned about assimilation to the materially superior Canaanite culture. There it became embedded in the traditional Law as legalism replaced searching for God's intent. It's a common pattern, and this confused young man, unfortunately, is caught up in it.
It's just my opinion, but any time a religion becomes a bunch of rules rather than actually seeking the will of God it is headed off the rails.
Posted by: kehrsam | July 17, 2007 11:58 AM
Fair enough, I guess. Not often someone outright admits the vapidity of their own arguments, and still claims them to be correct.
Lighten up, Francis.
If he really believes that what he did was right, he's off kilter. Just because I don't feel the need to break down the motivations of a guy who claims to be Elijah doesn't mean I couldn't, and if you have more information than what was in this article, knock yourself out. I'm all ears.
Posted by: Andrea | July 17, 2007 12:06 PM
IanR wrote:
This isn't really relevant to the point I'm trying to make. Whoever actually wrote it down and said that God told them to kill gay people, whether Moses or some later person claiming to be Moses, is just as out of his mind as this guy. That was the point.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | July 17, 2007 12:06 PM
I maintain that for many, gays are hated because it is a handy group of "others" with which you can get away with hating. It seems to me that a great many human social constructs exist to separate "us" and "them", and in this, "gay" is just the new "jew" (not that there is anything wrong with them).
I am sure this made sense in the past -- limited resources/workforce/defensive force, you had to look out for your tribe, etc. Fortunately we are wealthy enough these days that we are equipped to transcend this mode of thinking, but getting people to actually do it is not so easy.
I am not claiming this is The Truth or any such thing, but it is something I would argue over a beer :)
Posted by: Chris Anderson | July 17, 2007 12:23 PM
Andrea said:
You did exactly that when you decided his motivation wasn't Christian morality.
This is quite amusing, really, since you made a claim on no evidence, I questioned how you could do that, and you have now accused me of making unverified claims. I suppose the implicit argument here is that you are correct, and that the bigotry of the Bible is certainly not an issue.
Nice try, but it makes no sense.
You're the one trying to give religion a free ride without the facts, I'm just keeping options open, until facts present themselves (if they even can, here).
I think it's entirely possible that, rather than grasping for an alibi, this guy takes the Bible seriously.
Posted by: Gordon Stephens | July 17, 2007 12:25 PM
If we're really talking about being "out of your mind" in terms of being actually insane, then arguably there's a big difference between this guy and the author of Leviticus (whoever it was-- it really doesn't matter for the purposes of this discussion). In modern, Western society (including Cypress), it is acknowledged that killing someone because of their sexual orientation is unpardonable, and certainly not excusable by reference to a religious text. At the time Leviticus was written, this was not acknowledged. A big part of mental illness, when it comes to immoral behavior, has to do with inability to acknowledge and obey social norms. Norms as recorded in the Old Testament and other texts are generally a reflection of the moral beliefs at the time, rather than a prescription per se. A modern person who takes them as prescriptions and applies them now, when society has commonly come to recognize them as impermissible, shows a genuine disability to exist socially and I think might qualify as being mentally unstable.
In other words, I think it's similar to if a guy from Illinois 2007 decided to keep some slaves, and did so claiming justification from the OT. It's wrong now, and it was wrong when it was more commonly practiced, but that doesn't mean that somebody doing it now is in the same frame of mind as somebody was when they were doing it then.
Posted by: Gretchen | July 17, 2007 1:16 PM
I once read a book written by a psychologist who had studied an African tribe. One of the members was schizophrenic, and was taken to the author for treatment. The man was hearing spirit voices. However, in this particular tribe's religion, hearing spirit voices was common and culturally acceptable.
So the writer asked "What makes you think he's crazy? Don't you all hear the spirits speak?"
The answer was "Yes, but he hears them at the wrong times."
Posted by: Sastra | July 17, 2007 1:35 PM
Gretchen,
Well said.
Posted by: JuliaL | July 17, 2007 2:28 PM
yep, gay people sure don't need Hate Crimes protection from the religious people who have have Hate Crimes protection.
No siree, not one little bit.
Posted by: SharonB | July 17, 2007 3:01 PM
Gordon, pardon my flippancy. If you knew me, you'd know that I wouldn't be likely to give religion a free ride ... but sometimes people are just nuts.
Posted by: Andrea | July 17, 2007 3:22 PM
Whether he is 'nuts' or not was never the issue. Either he's a crazy religious guy, or a crazy non-religious-guy-who-happens-to-really-hate-homosexuals.
Posted by: Gordon Stephens | July 17, 2007 3:57 PM
Gretchen wrote:
Well, yes, you believe this, and so do I -- it's a secular analysis of the Old Testament as an historical document. But many, many people today would disagree. While some of the OT norms simply reflect "moral beliefs of the time," others are indeed prescriptions for all times, including ours. As they see it, you just have to decide if "God meant what He said" or not.
Does this apply to considering homosexuality a serious crime, or only imposing the penalty?
I don't know enough to say whether Terry Mark Mangum was mentally ill, or only very, very, very pious, but otherwise sane. That might depend on what his community was telling him, and on what he had been reading.
Posted by: Sastra | July 17, 2007 4:39 PM
Gordon -
Whether he is 'nuts' or not was never the issue. Either he's a crazy religious guy, or a crazy non-religious-guy-who-happens-to-really-hate-homosexuals.
You're forgetting option three, which is really the most likely. That he's a cray religious guy who happens to really hate homosexuals, using his religious beliefs to prop up his extreme homophobia. Homophobia that is all too likely a direct result of his own suppressed homosexual desires.
Posted by: DuWayne | July 17, 2007 5:07 PM
I don't mean to make light of such a horrible situation, but am I the only one who doesnt believe that Mangum stabbed Cummings with a six inch blade? I say more like three inches. Yeah, definantly not a homosexual.....
Posted by: JohnTheStudent | July 17, 2007 10:21 PM
Sastra,
What the authors of the Old Testament intended their moral rules to be (reflections, or timeless prescriptions) is really irrelevant to the question of whether they were insane or not. What I was trying to point out, and what you supported with your post immediately after mine, is that somebody who simply follows or endorses the prevailing moral code of their society at the time-- however reprehensible it may be-- has not really earned the designation of insanity. Going against societal norms in a particularly dramatic fashion is much more likely to be an indicator of mental instability. Speaking in tongues is not likely a sign of insanity in a society where people commonly speak in tongues, although it might be in a society where they do not.
Right, and as far as I know, Cypress in general is not rabidly homophobic to the point of supporting the murder of gay people. So unless Mangum was a member of some insular counter-cultural cult, I am guessing that he did in fact have some mental problems-- or at least, that a diagnosis of mental problems for him would seem much more fitting than one for the OT author(s).
Posted by: Gretchen | July 18, 2007 3:30 AM
Gretchen said -
Right, and as far as I know, Cypress in general is not rabidly homophobic to the point of supporting the murder of gay people.
But, it is likely that there is a prevalence of anti-gay bigotry, at least amongst those that Mangum spent the majority of his time. If, in fact, Mangum was repressing his own homosexual tendencies, he is not necessarily mentaly ill persay, at least not to a significant degree.
Imagine for a moment, a person who is brought up to believe that homosexuality is pure evil. Not necessarily to the same degree of the Phelps clan, but along those lines. I would imagine that even today, this is not nearly as rare as it ought to be. This same person has a natural tendency towards a fairly mild form of bipolar disorder or similar disorder, not extreme enough to be considered a serious illness, may not even take medication for it. Finally, this same person is also gay.
In spite of the fact that the actual disorder is fairly mild, the added burden of internal conflict, probably mostly subconscious - is a recipe for a time bomb. There are quite a few reasons that this person could snap. It is quite possible that he felt he was losing some internal struggle against "Satan," that was manifesting itself in his attraction to men.
It is the statements that Mangum made, that make me feel it is likely this is the case. Especially; "I'm definitely not a homosexual." This smacks of someone who has finally, definitively proven to himself that he definitely isn't gay. That isn't to say for certain that he isn't seriously mentally ill, this psychotic break aside, but he isn't necessarily that seriously insane.
All in all, it is almost certainly a case of someone who is gay, who has been warped by systemic anti-gay bigotry. A sad enough state of affairs when it leads to a person taking their own life, as is all too common. It is far more tragic, that instead he took the life of someone else to prove his "manhood."
Posted by: DuWayne | July 18, 2007 5:15 AM
Quite possible, DuWayne. I probably should have said that the most likely choices are that Mangum has mental problems or is himself a repressed homosexual (which might be considered a mental problem in itself, come to think of it). If he lived in OT times, or in a culture such as Saudi Arabia where homosexuals are routinely killed simply for being such, then I don't think the case for either of the above would be as strong. He would just be one of a number of people "carrying out God's will."
Posted by: Gretchen | July 18, 2007 6:04 AM
Actually, hes not a "christian" hating gays. He has started this to build more hatered between good people everywhere and it looks like its working. Hes nothing more then a sick bastard that has done a horrible act. Now we, feed off his sickness to stir up more hatered. If any of you knew Ken, the victim, he would be sick about all this talk.
Posted by: Family | July 18, 2007 12:17 PM