If Naz Shah’s idea of moving Israel to the USA had been implemented not only would there be peace in the Middle East but Trump would still be President!!

70% of Israelis would, if they could, have voted for Trump and just 13% of Biden! This is Israel today 

Cast your mind back to 2016 and the ‘discovery’ that in 2014, at the height of Israel’s genocidal bombardment of Gaza, when 2,200 people, including 550 children were murdered, Naz Shah, not yet an MP, dreamed of transferring Israel to the United States realizing that Israel would finally be rid of the Palestinians and have no more excuse to engage in blood letting.

The two states get on so well, and the USA has land in abundance. It seemed an obvious solution. It would also save the USA a small fortune in military aid.

By 2016 we were in the middle of the fake Labour ‘anti-Semitism’ attack on Corbyn so Naz was forced to humiliate herself and apologise for ‘anti-Semitism’ to the ‘Jewish community’ (i.e. the Israel lobby) in order that she could stay in Parliament.  Ken Livingstone got suspended defending her and Corbyn went along with all this and ended up getting suspended himself.

However imagine what might have happened if Naz Shah’s fantasy had been acted out.  Is it a crime to fantasize? We all dream of a better world!

A brilliant idea

I have to confess I never understood this ‘anti-Semitism’ stuff.  All Naz Shah and others were suggesting was a change of scenery for Israeli Jews!  There was no hint of extermination or anything. Now today, just imagine what would have happened if that dream fantasy had been fulfilled. 

70% of Israelis supported Trump compared to just 13% for Biden.  Even Jeremy Corbyn got more Jewish voters than Biden got Israeli Jewish voters!!  Imagine what would have happened if we had put half Israel’s Jewish populace in Michigan and the other half in Pennsylvania?  Between them they had 38 electoral college votes and that would have enabled Trump to win by a slender 2 votes.

McDonnell and Owen Jones did more to destroy the Corbyn Project than Boris Johnson - this was the time to tell the Zionists the difference between satire and anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitic? Why?  There’s plenty of rustbelt land filled with abandoned factories and foreclosed land that Israel could colonise and call home. They could establish settlements galore on the ruins of rusting factories.  Indeed they could have rejuvenated them and put back life into America’s industrial economy.

Meanwhile the Palestinians could return to their own home.  Even better the Israeli settlements could be demolished, brick by brick and in that way the old Biblical scenery of the West Bank could be restored to what it was before these ugly concrete structures.

In other words everyone would benefit!

The fact that 70% of Israelis would have voted for the anti-Semitic Trump demonstrates once again that the best friend of Zionism is anti-Semitism. Trump has claimed that Henry Ford, the legendary anti-Semite who printed the Czarist forgery the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in his Dearborn Independent, was his ‘inspiration’. The same Henry Ford that Hitler also claimed as his inspiration and who hung a life-sized portrait of him by his desk.

This is the man that Israeli Jews would have voted for by a factor of over 5-1. So when you see someone like Keir Starmer describe themselves as a ‘Zionist without qualification’ then you know that what they mean is that they are a racist ‘without qualification’.

So loved was  Trump that West Bank mayors and settlers held a religious ceremony, complete with the blowing of the shofar (a ram’s horn) to pray for the re-election of Trump.  Unfortunately god seems not to have been listening!  If this is god’s attitude then if I were a settler I would be very worried that the great bearded one might be angry again with his people! Exile to the United States would be a fitting punishment - again!!

Below are 3 articles, two  from the Times of Israel and one from Gideon Levy in Ha'aretz.

Tony Greenstein

Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks at a rally at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines, Iowa, Friday, Oct. 30, 2020. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

 By 70% to 13%, Israeli Jews say Trump is better candidate than Biden for Israel

Israel Democracy Institute poll also finds 42% of Israeli Jews believe the US-Israel bond will weaken if Biden is elected, with only seven percent saying it will strengthen

3 November 2020, 4:30 am  

Some 70 percent of Jewish Israelis believe a victory for Donald Trump over Joe Biden in the US presidential election would be preferable for the Jewish state, an opinion poll indicated on Monday.

The Israel Democracy Institute survey, released a day before the US election day, asked whether Republican incumbent Trump or his Democratic challenger Biden is the preferred candidate, “from the standpoint of Israel’s interests.”

Among Israeli Jews, 70% said Trump is the preferred candidate, 13% said Biden, and 17% don’t know.

Support for Trump was markedly lower among Arab Israelis, with 36% saying he was the preferred candidate, 31% saying Biden, and 33% saying they didn’t know.

Among all Israelis, 63% favor Trump, 17% Biden and 20% don’t know.

Broken down by political camp, 82% of right-wing poll respondents, 62% of centrists, and 40% percent of left-wingers said Trump is the better candidate for Israel. 

Foreign Affairs Minister of Bahrain Abdullatif bin Rashid Al-Zayani, Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu, and US President Donald Trump participate in the signing ceremony of the Abraham Accords on the South Lawn of the White House on September 15, 2020, in Washington, DC. (Alex Wong/Getty Images/AFP)

 If Biden wins the race, 42% of Israeli Jews believe the US-Israel bond will weaken, with only 7% saying it will strengthen. Among Arab Israelis, those figures were 24% and 16%, respectively.

“Presumably this pronounced preference among the Jewish public for Trump to keep serving stems to a large extent from the assessment that Biden’s election would weaken US-Israeli relations, and strengthen the relationship between Washington and the Palestinians,” IDI said. 

The survey polled 611 men and women in Hebrew and 150 in Arabic, constituting a representative national sample of the population of Israel, with a margin of error of  +/- 3.7%.

Trump has been viewed by many as one of the most pro-Israel US presidents ever. 

Marc Zell - Chair Republicans for Israel Overseas

The Trump administration has used the final months of the campaign to further seek support from pro-Israel Jewish and Evangelical Republican voters. In just this past week, the State Department updated its policy to allow US citizens born in Jerusalem to list Israel as their country of birth on passports and US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman signed an agreement with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu extending US scientific cooperation to apply as well in the West Bank — a move viewed by many as a first step toward American recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the settlements.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid of Yesh Atid-Telem is pictured during an interview with AFP at his office in the Knesset, Jerusalem, on September 14, 2020. (Emmanuel Dunand/AFP)

But opposition leader Yair Lapid on Monday said that whoever wins, “the next president of the United States will be a friend of Israel.”

“Both Donald Trump and Joe Biden are friends of Israel, with a deep commitment to Israel and to Zionism,” Lapid said in a statement, while adding he had seen hostile “radical voices” growing stronger within the Democratic Party.

Several rabbis, including Haim Druckman, an influential former member of the National Religious Party, have urged US citizens in Israel to vote for Trump.

And on Monday evening around 150 Trump supporters waving US and Israeli flags rallied in the city of Beit Shemesh south of Jerusalem, where many Israeli-Americans live.

An Israeli supporter of the re-election of US President Donald Trump waves American and Israeli flags from a car at a rally outside of the US Embassy, in Jerusalem, Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2020. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

The Trump administration has also sought to expand the list of Arab and Muslim-majority countries to normalize relations with Israel in the final months of its current term. Last Friday, Sudan agreed to become the third country to do so in recent months. Sudan followed the lead of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain after weeks of pressure from Washington, which conditioned removing Khartoum from its blacklist of state terror sponsors on Sudan making peace with the Jewish state.

These moves follow decisions by the Trump administration to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, transfer the US embassy there, recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, scrap previous policy deeming settlements to be illegal, release a peace plan widely deemed to be the most favorable to Israel yet, take a far more combative approach toward the Palestinians than previous administrations and pull out of the Iran nuclear deal, which the Netanyahu government opposed aggressively.

On the other hand, Trump’s critics point out that he has turned the issue of Israel into a political football when for decades the bipartisan nature of support for the Jewish state had been touted as something that kept Israel more secure. Polls of Jewish voters in the US show that at least two-thirds prefer Biden over Trump, many of whom blame the president for the rise in white nationalism in the US, which has seen Jews targeted in record numbers of anti-Semitic attacks.

Moreover, these more dovish voters are less supportive of the Israeli settlement enterprise in the West Bank and tend to oppose moves the Trump administration has taken to solidify the Israeli presence there at the expense of efforts to reach a two-state solution.

Look at Trump and You'll See the Israelis

Gideon Levy

Published on 08.11.2020

Standing in line Friday in the Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Aviv Gimel to pick up the weekend edition of Israel Hayom, affluent residents discussed the likely defeat. “We’re screwed,” one man said sadly; his companions nodded in agreement. It’s a dark day for Israel: Donald Trump has lost the election.

No other country in the world, with the possible exception of the Philippines or Nebraska, was as saddened by his fall. A poll by Israel’s Mitvim think tank found that 70 percent of Israelis support Trump. A survey by the Washington-based Pew Research Center had similar findings. Whereas 75 percent of West Europeans are fed up with the U.S. president, in Israel a large majority – including centrists and some leftists – admires him.

It can be argued, of course, that this support is a way of saying thanks for moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing Israeli sovereignty in the Golan Heights and withdrawing from the Iranian nuclear deal. But these events caused little excitement in Israel. No one jumped into a fountain in a city square to celebrate the recognition of Majdal Shams as an Israeli town, and only a few people were moved by Ambassador David Friedman’s change of address.

The explanation for Trump’s rising popularity in Israel goes much deeper; its roots are much more disturbing. Israel admires Trump not despite his many repellent shortcomings but because of them. Trump is the embodiment of everything that’s bad and ugly about Israel while normalizing and whitewashing them for us. Look at him and you’ll see ourselves. This is who we are, or who we’d like to be. Most of us, anyway.

Trump is the embodiment of Israel the unbeautiful; he could easily be elected prime minister. The vulgarity, coarseness, belligerence, ignorance, scheming and lies; the contempt for the weak, for the law, for justice, the media, science and the environment – all this fits us like a glove.

Who wouldn’t want a prime minister condescending to everyone, someone who always knows best, who will make Israel great again? Who wouldn’t want a prime minister who’s nobody’s fool, who made his fortune through guile and cunning, just the way we like it?

Who wouldn’t want a prime minister who scoffs at political correctness and will bring back the good old days of male chauvinism unhindered by feminism; who won’t bother us with all those threats to the planet and nature, who’ll also bring back racism?

Who wouldn’t want a real man like him? Who wouldn’t like someone who will scorn international institutions, human rights groups and international law, who will violate signed agreements and deride arrogant Europe and its universal liberal values, just as in the secret dreams of many Israelis? Even Benjamin Netanyahu, who’s as similar to Trump as he can be, can’t attain that level of making dreams come true.

Take the typical Israeli driver. He isn’t Trump? The Israeli road isn’t Trumplike? Cut somebody off, honk, curse, break the law, park anywhere, don’t think about anyone but yourself, yours is the biggest, strongest and fastest; look at me.

Take Israeli politics, especially politicians on the right. That isn’t Trump? They wouldn’t want to be like him?

Combine Avigdor Lieberman, Miri Regev, Osnat Mark, Miki Zohar and David Amsalem and you get Trump in Hebrew. Combine their bullying, ignorance, populism, superficiality, populism and vulgarity and you get Israeli Trumpism.

As an encore, add the way Trump humiliated the Palestinians, ignored their very existence. Their rights meant nothing to him, just as they mean nothing to most Israelis, simply because they’re weak. It’s a dream.

It’s an Israeli dream to stop aid to the weak and give it to the strong, as Trump did – from the UNRWA refugee agency to the Israeli army, from the refugees to the force that expelled them. And it’s an Israeli dream to deport asylum seekers, as Trump has, to keep hundreds of children separated from their parents and leave tens of thousands of frightened adults.

That’s Trumpian justice, and it’s Israeli justice. That’s why we’ve loved him so much. That’s why it’s such a pity that he’ll be leaving.

In shadow of patriarchs, settler leaders gather in Hebron to pray for Trump win

West Bank mayors recite psalms, hoping for four more years; cite incumbent’s recognition of Golan Heights and Jerusalem, support for Israel against threats like Iran and BDS

November 2020, 4:53 pm

Hebron spokesman Yishai Fleisher, right, and Marc Zell, the head of Republicans Overseas Israel, blow shofars to show their support for Trump November, 2, 2020. (Courtesy Har Hevron regional council spokesperson)

Settler leaders held a special prayer session Monday outside the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the West Bank city of Hebron, at which they thanked US President Donald Trump for his support of the settlement movement and wished him success in Tuesday’s elections. 

Psalms and other prayers meant to aid the incumbent president to victory were recited at the Monday event, during which Har Hevron Regional Council chairman Yochai Damri and Marc Zell, the head of Republicans Overseas Israel, blew shofars to show their support for Trump.

At the event, Damri explained why the US president meant so much to the settler movement.

 “We came here today to say to President Trump thank you,” he said. 

“Thank you for your special relationship to the land of Israel, for the recognition of the Golan Heights and of the settlement enterprise. Thank you for your war against Iran and the BDS movement. Thank you for strengthening the settlement of the land of the Bible. We pray and hope that you will continue to another four years of strengthening the settlement enterprise.” 

Israeli Trump Supporter heads to Jerusalem

Marc Zell, the head of Republicans Overseas Israel at the Cave of the patriarchs, November 2, 2020. (Courtesy: Har hebron regional council spokesperson)

Kiryat Arba Local Council chairman Eliyahu Libman said, “Trump proved his friendship toward the people of Israel by moving the American embassy to Jerusalem, and recognizing our sovereignty in the Golan Heights and the right of Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria.”

Those moves on behalf of the settler enterprise were lauded as “tremendous and daring” by Binyamin Regional Council chairman Yisrael Gantz.

Also adding their voices to the reelect Trump prayer meeting were Gush Etzion Regional Council chairman Shlomo Ne’eman and the mayor of Hebron, Rabbi Hillel Horowitz.

The Tomb of the Patriarchs, where the prayer session took place, is sanctified by Jews and Muslims as the burial place of the biblical patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and matriarchs Sarah, Rebecca and Leah.

Hebron is home to approximately 1,000 settlers, who live in a series of enclaves surrounded by some 215,000 Palestinians. Large numbers of Israeli security forces protect Jewish residents in the city, which is frequently the scene of violence.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1323218530427408385

 

While Jews in the United States — except for the Orthodox — are expected to vote overwhelmingly for Democrat Joe Biden, Trump is a popular figure in Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has described him as the “greatest friend” Israel has ever had in the White House.

Many in Israel view Trump as a staunch supporter of the Jewish state, especially in the wake of the Washington-brokered Abraham Accords, which led to normalization deals between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Sudan.

A poll published by Channel 12 news Friday showed 54% percent of Israelis favor Trump, compared to 21% who favor Biden and 25% who were undecided or did not know. No methodology or margin of error was provided by Channel 12 for the survey.

Settlers in particular have been outspoken supporters of Trump for his policies that appear to support Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank. In addition, he has earned accolades for his administration’s decisions to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

US ambassador to Israel David Friedman (L) with Efrat Mayor Oded Revivi in Efrat on February 20, 2020. (Gershon Elinson/Flash90)

Still, many settler leaders, Damri included, rejected Trump’s Israeli-Palestinian peace plan over the fact that it included the possibility of the creation of a Palestinian state on parts of the West Bank not annexed by Israel. The reaction was reportedly met by anger in the White House.

Oded Revivi, the influential head of the Efrat settlement who was one of the settler leaders who embraced the Trump plan, said Sunday that he would not participate in the rally out of respect for the US political process.

“President Trump has proven over four years that he is a big friend of Israel and during his term ties between Israel and the US have grown stronger. However, just as we warn off foreign influences from internal debates and elections… so it is not correct for the leadership to express a stance on the US elections,”

he tweeted.

Muslim Voters Support Bernie Sanders in Michigan – Mass Media Can’t Work Out How to Explain This

A strange thing happened this week in the United States.  Against all the odds, polls were predicting that Hilary Clinton would win Michigan in the US’s rust belt by over 20%, Sanders gained a narrow victory by 1.5%. 

How to explain this?  Well one explanation is that Michigan’s Black voters split down the middle.  The other explanation is that working-class whites don’t buy Clinton’s support from Wall Street.

But the major surprise is that large numbers of Arab voters did what the US media has always told its readers was impossible.  The media narrative is that Arabs are anti-Semitic, hate Jews etc.  That after all is what motivates the Palestinians.  It’s nothing to do with land confiscation, killing of civilians, expulsion of refugees etc.  It’s all to do with that ingrained hatred of Jews.  Anti-Semitism explains all.

But you see Muslims aren’t quite as stupid as the American media would have their readers believe.  Their main concern is anti-Muslim racism (or Islamaphobia as it’s called).  Bernie Sanders, unlike Hilary Clinton, addressed this issue and opposed it.  Clinton has remained silent.  Sanders record on Israel is not good but it’s better than the other candidates and he has at least criticised the brutality of Israel’s military, unlike all other candidates.

That is why, contrary to the normal ruling class narrative of anti-Semitic Arabs, 60% of Arabs in Dearborn are estimated to have voted for the Jewish candidate.  Strange that!

Tony Greenstein

Sanders’s outreach to Arab Americans on Islamophobia helped deliver Michigan surprise

 Adam Horowitz and Philip Weiss on March 9, 2016

One of the great storylines from last night’s surprise victory for Bernie Sanders in Michigan is that he won the Arab-American vote– and the mainstream media are stunned that Arab Americans would vote for a Jew. Sanders won heavily-Arab-American Dearborn, by 7100 votes to Hillary Clinton’s 4700 votes. That’s a 59 to 39 percent Sanders stronghold inside Wayne County, which was a Clinton stronghold. Wrote law professor Khaled Beydoun:

The Detroit Free Press’s Niraj Warikoo reports that Sanders’s victory was fueled by young Arab and Muslim voters, and that he put out an Arabic ad at a time when Hillary Clinton wasn’t working that community.

On Monday afternoon, Sanders spoke to a packed theater that included many Arab-American Muslims, including several women wearing hijab, the Islamic headscarf, who sat behind him as he addressed the crowd. He was introduced by Detroit native U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., the first Muslim elected to Congress. Sanders met before the speech with the publisher of the Arab-American News, which endorsed him last week.

The narrative of Arab-American Muslims in Dearborn supporting a Jewish candidate was one that struck many on social media as a symbol of unity at a time of division on the campaign trail.

Here’s that ad:

It quotes Sanders, thrillingly:

And if we stand for anything we have got to stand together and end all forms of racism, and I will lead that effort as president of the United States.

The Arab American News endorsed Sanders last week and cited his vigorous denunciation of Islamophobia.

Sanders stands for racial justice and has unequivocally condemned Islamophobia.

Beydoun made a similar point on Twitter:

And notice the Arab newspaper’s brisk and refreshing acknowledgment of Sanders’s Jewishness and of America’s unfair policy on Israel’s human rights abuses. It’s impossible to imagine this language in a non-Arab publication.

On foreign policy, Sanders has shown the most even-handed approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Although his views on this issue do not rise to the aspirations of Arab Americans who would like to see Washington take a clear stance against Israel’s human rights abuses and occupation of Palestinian land, Sanders’ call for ending the blockade on Gaza is a step in the right direction. His condemnation of Israeli attacks that kill Palestinian civilians is unprecedented by any major presidential candidate.

Sanders is a Jewish American. This newspaper and the community at large do not have a bias against anyone’s ethnic or religious affiliation. Ideas are what matters.

Bear in mind, Sanders won the state by little more than 18,000 votes out of more than 1 million cast. Much of that margin was surely Arab-American.

Jeremy Scahill noted the obvious foreign policy angle:

Much of the commentary on the Sanders victory in the Arab-American community has noted the media’s surprise at it. IBTimes:

Political commentators and media outlets were quick to pounce on a “fascinating” statistic from Bernie Sanders’ victory in the Michigan primary on Tuesday night: Democrats in Dearborn, a city whose population is 40 percent Arab, voted overwhelmingly for Sanders over rival Hillary Clinton (59 percent to 39 percent). The subtext of pointing out this particular statistic is clear. How, the media wondered, could a predominantly Muslim group support a Jewish candidate?

An Arab American supporting Bernie Sanders

Many noticed NY radio host Brian Lehrer’s tweet from last night, because it assumed Arab Americans would not vote for a Jewish candidate (Lehrer is Jewish and almost never touches real criticism of Israel).

Ali Abunimah tweeted (and he’s been widely retweeted):

Ayesha Siddiqui said,

New York Times reporter Liam Stack, formerly in Cairo, said:

Teachable moment, for the mainstream media.

P.S. Donald Trump won Dearborn on the Republican side, 39 to 29 to 17 (Trump/John Kasich/Ted Cruz). But his vote total, 3153, is less than half of Sanders’s 7126 and less than Hillry Clinton’s 4730. 

It’s a good assumption Trump’s Islamophobia didn’t resonate with Arab Americans.

The Wages of Sin Become Riskier for anti-gay Pastors

Anti-gay pastor in Michigan resigns after–well, you can probably guess

Here's a nice little story about the hypocrites in the US anti-gay religious movement.  A prominent anti-gay pastor outs himself unwittingly.  We've had the same phenomenon in the higher echelons of the Church of England here but in the US, the anti-gay religious movement is louder and more overt, which makes them more susceptible when they are found out.

Tony Greenstein

Jen HaydenFollow

attribution: screenshot from St. John's and Grindr.com

Secret hypocritical double life? There's an app for that.

Reverend Matthew Makela was recently listed on the St. John's Lutheran Church website as a devoted husband and father of five children. But, he was forced to resign this week after Queerty.com published pics of his Grinder profile: 

EXCLUSIVE: Grindr Screenshots Reveal Anti-gay Pastor Is A Top Who Likes To Cuddle

Until 2 p.m. on Monday, the ‘Our Church Staff’ section of St. John’s Lutheran Church and School’s website described Reverend Matthew Makela as an associate pastor who enjoys, “family, music, home improvement, gardening and landscaping, and sports.”

Screenshots obtained by Queerty from a source who asked that his name be withheld shed light on some of the Reverend’s other favorite past times — namely nude make out sessions and sex with other men.

And the folks at Queerty.com note, the good pastor has publicly backed an anti-gay agenda on many occasions:

It is unrighteous to give into sinful temptations. We are all tempted and it is not a sin to be tempted, but it is a sin to give into to temptation. A sexual attraction to the same sex is a sinful temptation to be resisted and overcome by God’s grace and power, just as a temptation to steal or lie or overeat must be resisted and overcome by replacement with working hard, telling the truth and moderation in appetite. We all face varying degrees of temptation in sometimes varying areas of life and we all are tempted to sin according to 1 Corinthians 10:13.

Jesus reaffirmed one man one woman marriage in Matthew 19:4-6 where he quotes from Genesis 1:27 and 2:24. In Old and New Testaments homosexual practice is clearly condemned (Leviticus 18:22; Romans 1:21-32; 1 Corinthians 6:9-11; 1 Timothy 1:9-10). There is no sinful practice God cannot forgive and overcome by his grace through faith in Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Guess the temptation was just too much for Pastor Makela. Thanks to Queerty's exposure, the church has taken down their Facebook page to avoid comments from sinners.

Read more about the good Reverend's activities at Queerty.com.

Until 2 p.m. on Monday, the ‘Our Church Staff’ section of St. John’s Lutheran Church and School’s website described Reverend Matthew Makela as an associate pastor who enjoys, “family, music, home improvement, gardening and landscaping, and sports.”

Screenshots obtained by Queerty from a source who asked that his name be withheld shed light on some of the Reverend’s other favorite past times — namely nude make out sessions and sex with other men.

Related: Grindr User Rev. Matthew Makela Once Drove This Gay Teen To Near Suicide

Of course, how someone behaves between the sheets is really nobody’s business but his own, except when he’s actively doing damage to others. We’ve seen it time and time again. The lawmaker who spends his days fighting against gay rights and his nights cruising for bottoms, or the ex-gay activist who isn’t quite as ex-gay as he’d like everyone to believe.

Which brings us back to Makela. The married father of five from Midland, Michigan doesn’t just preach Jesus’ love and help with bake sales. He also uses his position of authority and respect in his community to broadcast his self-loathing view on same-sex attraction.

A simple Google search reveals his sentiment.

In November 2014, a fellow Midland man of God, Pastor Dan Dickerson, wrote an op-ed titled A Stand For The Truth which reads in part:

“A sexual attraction to the same sex is a sinful temptation to be resisted and overcome by God’s grace and power, just as a temptation to steal or lie or overeat must be resisted and overcome by replacement with working hard, telling the truth and moderation in appetite.”

Makala can be found in the comments section (UPDATE: his comments were deleted after this story was published) thanking Dickerson and echoing his view:

“Thank you, Pastor Dickerson, for believing the Word of God and loving people enough to reveal God’s will for their lives and also His plan of salvation for all believe in Jesus…I love people who have same sex attraction, and so does God. The proof is in the sacrifice He made for all of us who sin…We don’t tell a person born with tendencies to abuse alcohol to keep on giving in to his innate desires because he can’t help it. We try to help him in his struggle.”

Two months before promulgating the ridiculous (not to mention dangerous) notion that homosexuality is akin to alcoholism, Makela offered this cultural prescription via Facebook:

In an email exchange with Queerty, Makela confirmed the authenticity of the screen captures but declined to comment.

He also told Queerty that he had “resigned” from his position at the church after the story surfaced, and that his wife and senior pastor had been made aware of his extracurricular activities.

Yet while Makela urged his community to seek deeper meaning in their marriage commitments, here’s a taste of what was going on behind the locked screen of his smart phone:

But his community also deserves to know. If Makela made even one LGBT kid at St. John’s “Christ-based” elementary school, their parents, friends, family or anyone who ever stepped foot in the church feel like being true to yourself is shameful (and it seems all too likely that he did), then we’re glad to share his hypocrisy with the world.

Makela on Transgender

Midland, Michigan made headlines in March when a local Planet Fitness came to the defense of a transgender woman utilizing the gym’s female facilities. Here’s how Makela framed the conversation to his followers:

How’s that for Christlike?