Colbert rips anti-gay Christians

The Rev. Albert Mohler, president of the flagship Southern Baptist Theological seminary, made waves last month by discussing the possibility that homosexuality is hereditary. Such a circumstance would mean one of two things: Either homosexuality is not a sin because we are created in the image of God or that God does punish children for their parents errors.

The latter circumstance is pretty unlikely based of 2,000 years of theological research. The former also is unlikely based strictly on the energy conservative Christians put into lobbying against gay marriage, though some liberal denominations, like the Episcopal Church and the United Church of Christ, have more inclusive understandings of homosexuality, even if it is splitting the church itself.

As for Mohler, he had the (dis)honor two weeks ago of being the springboard for Stephen Colbert's satirical segment "The Word," which I found being re-run late last night. An often hilarious spin on a single news issue, with the punchlines being delivered as subtitles while Colbert talks, "The Word" on Mohler lacked wit, instead relying on a snotty intellectual elitism.

"We can use science to make the real world look more like the Bible," Colbert says while "Already Working On Flood" flashes on the screen. OK, that's clever, particularly because the next night's Word took issue with the schism forming between evangelical Christians seeking solutions to global warming and those who only want to focus on the "core values" of sexuality and abortion (see the first paragraph here).

But this, not so much. "According to the Old Testament, the sun goes around the earth. So I am calling on NASA to attach giants rockets to the sun and get it to revolve around our globe. And I certainly hope Rev. Mohler will join me. Because then the world won't just be natural. It will be supernatural," Colbert closes with. "And that is The Word."