Amanda Marcotte on How Conservative American Christians Frequently Choose the Wrong Side of History

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice ~ Martin Luther King.

Here's the opening paragraph of an essay by Amanda Marcotte you really do need to read:

When Christians get political, they often do so because they believe that they have God on their side. This is true whether they are progressive or conservative, and throughout most of American history there have been both. (You’d think that the conflicting claims about what God wants would lead to more doubting, but here we are.) Looking over the long history of people claiming to be speaking for God’s wishes, it quickly becomes evident that Christians are frequently on the wrong side of history. Here are 10 things that American Christians of the conservative stripe got completely wrong when they were so sure they were speaking on God’s behalf.

Slavery, women's rights, segregation: you name it, conservative Christians in the U.S. have persistently chosen the wrong side of the moral arc of history. And, as Marcotte notes in conclusion, they're replicating the pattern today in their opposition to the human rights of people born gay — as if they had never been spectacularly wrong about human rights issues in the past.  

Using the same recycled biblical and theological arguments to resist human rights for gay folks that they used to resist rights for people of color and women . . . . 

The graphic: a photo of the ceiling of the Thanksgiving Square chapel in Dallas, Texas, uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by user Romary, as an illustration of Martin Luther King's statement, "How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."