Matt Barber is a member of the well-funded, politically powerful anti-gay lobby and one of the radical religious right’s most-out-spoken professional anti-LGBT activists. Like many, they cloak their personal hatred of gay people and homosexuality in a coat of faux religion and faux public policy “expertise,” when in reality they are often struggling with personal demons and see gay people as public — and personal — enemy number one.
Barber’s bio at the uber-conservative Town Hall reads:
Matt Barber is an attorney concentrating in constitutional law. He is Vice President of Liberty Counsel Action and serves as Associate Dean and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Law at Liberty University School of law. In addition to his law degree, Matt holds a Master of Arts in Public Policy from Regent University.
On Friday, Barber wrote a horrifically condescending opinion piece, “An open letter to homosexuals,” in which he tells gay people they are going to hell, their “lifestyle” is causing them an emotional and spiritual death — not to mention an early physical death — calls gay pride “sin pride,” calls homosexuality an “abomination,” and operates as if all gay people are drug addicts, alcoholics, and sex-fiends.
But aside from making ugly and false assumptions about gay people, Barber crosses many other lines.
I write this to my fellow travelers in life – average, ordinary people, male and female, young and old – who happen to call themselves “gay.†I write this out of obedience to God.
Matt, no one cares. Keep your God to yourself. I guarantee you, your God does not think what you are doing is right — or righteous — and there will be a price to pay, if not in this life, surely, after it.
My intentions are pure and my motives upright.
Really, Matt? You’re assuming that whomever reads this letter doesn’t know the real you, the one who makes his living attacking gay people.
In April, Barber advocated violence by people of faith against “the secularist left†whom he called “bullies,†saying they need to be punched in the face.
What is that, Matt? Religious liberty? Matt Barber’s special brand of “tolerance”?
In March, Barber Barber falsely claimed there is “no evidence†of anti-gay violence but the “specter†of violence against gay people has forced churches into the closet. A lie, and the FBI has mountains of data stating otherwise.
And GLAAD notes that Barber:
Has said that gay male relationships constitute “one man violently cramming his penis into another man’s lower intestine and calling it ‘love’â€
Routinely uses words like “purveyors of evil” or  “satanic“ (1:19 in video clip) to refer to his political opponents
Said Ellen DeGeneres “guides her many adoring housewife fans into rebellion against God’s divine and explicit natural order”
Says gays make up violence “as a Trojan Horse to force, to compel nations and individuals and groups and churches that embrace traditional values, relative to sexual behavior, to push them into the closet and say ‘no, no, you have to adopt a full affirmation of these perversions.’”
Says gay rights presents a “clear and present danger” and “internationally the greatest threat“
Really, Matt, you can’t say all those things then turn around and claim, “My intentions are pure and my motives upright.” You just cannot, and no one in America with a dash of common sense or human decency would say you can.
In his offensive and condescending — not to mention, untruthful — “open letter to homosexuals,” Barber writes:
What I write may offend you. It may even infuriate you. But I hope it makes you think. Know this: Your friends have lied to you. Christians do not hate you. We love you intensely. We love you because of who you are, not because of what you do or because of who you think you are.
Still, to love someone and to lie to them is to hate them – especially when that lie inevitably leads to a tragic and hopeless end.
If you have a loved one, blindfolded and running full speed toward cliff’s edge, do you not yell, stop! Would you not run after them, even tackling them if need be to prevent them from plummeting to certain death? What would we think of the person who said: “Keep running; all is well.â€
All is not well, and you know it. On this path, “it†decidedly does not “get better.†It only gets worse. You will fall and you will die – perhaps not physical death, straight away – but certainly, an emotional and spiritual death. Homosexual activists, “progressives,†Hollywood, the media, academia and popular culture are telling you to keep running.
I’m yelling, stop!
Your lifestyle – homosexuality – is always and forever, objectively and demonstrably wrong. It is never good, natural, right or praiseworthy. If you have “gay pride,†you have “sin pride.†Although homosexuality is not the only sexual sin, it is, indeed, sin. Scripture is unequivocal on this fact throughout both the Old and New Testaments.
No, Matt, you stop. No one cares what you think. You cannot save gay people because there’s nothing to save us from — except the likes of you and your fellow anti-gay religious right prosthelytizing haters.
And then there’s Barber’s attack on people with HIV/AIDS. Barber falsely claims:
Unnatural behaviors beget natural consequences. So-called “homophobia†is not responsible for the fact that, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one-in-five “gay†men and adolescents in major cities across America have been infected – through bad behavior – with HIV/AIDS.
But what the CDC actually said is that “Overall, one in five MSM [men who have sex with men] participating in the study was infected (19 percent.)”
Big difference, and while the prevalence of HIV should not be underestimated or minimized, it’s important to actually deliver facts, not fear and lies, Matt.
Barber then claims that “Sin is responsible” for HIV/AIDS rates of infection, ignoring what the CDC says on the next page:
Social discrimination and cultural issues: For some MSM, social and economic factors, including homophobia, stigma, and lack of access to health care may increase risk behaviors or be a barrier to receiving HIV prevention services.
I’ll take facts over your religious opinion any day of the week, Matt.
Barber continues:
Scripture admonishes: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord†(Romans 6:23). This does not simply mean physical death, but something far worse: spiritual death.
Yes, hell.
Barber would do well to walk through his Bible a little more introspectively.
Image of Matt Barber via Americans For Truth About Homosexuality, a certified anti-gay hate group, of which Barber is a board member.