They don't call it "Sin City" for nothing. Though forget gambling, drinking, overeating at behemoth buffet lines or any of the other images you might associate with Las Vegas. Because when it comes to the Vegas-based Canyon Ridge Christian Church, there's another sin in mind: proudly supporting the people in Uganda who want to enact a law that will kill or imprison LGBT people.
Canyon Ridge has a tight relationship with Pastor Martin Ssempa, the Rev. Fred Phelps of Uganda. Except while Phelps has largely been marginalized and ostracized, Ssempa enjoys quite the bit of influence in Uganda. You can see him live and in person in various documentaries, including Missionaries of Hate and Exporting Hate, where Ssempa travels around various parts of Uganda rallying people to call for the killing of and imprisonment of LGBT people.
But forget quoting the Gospel. Ssempa's sermons focus exclusively on his understanding of gay sex, which is not only distorted, but quite limited. "I want to say homosexuals eat each other's poop. Homosexuals stick their hands into their rectum. Homosexuals stick all sorts of deviant sexual things into their rectum," Ssempa tells his flock of followers. Then he whoops the crowd up by telling them to keep gay people out of Uganda by any means necessary.
These tactics have earned Ssempa worldwide condemnation from even some of his formerly close allies. Rick Warren's condemned the dude. WAIT Training has condemned Ssempa, too. The Philadelphia Bible University, which had previously awarded Ssempa an honorary degree, also blasted his work championing the killing and jailing of gay people.
But Canyon Ridge? Nope, they haven't condemned Ssempa's ministry to kill and imprison gay folks. Instead, they proudly list him as a partner on their Web site, and note that Ssempa "has a prophetic ministry through the media." Yeah, if by prophetic you mean calling for a gay genocide in the country.
But Canyon Ridge's praise for Ssempa doesn't end there. They hold both Ssempa and his wife up as moral compasses that everyone should follow.
"As a father of three sons and two daughters, [Ssempa] firmly recognizes that Africa's problem is primarily leadership, and together with his wife, desires to raise a new generation of world-class leaders," Canyon Ridge says on their Web site. Indeed, a generation of world-class leaders who call on people to be killed because of their sexual orientation, and jail straight people who support gay rights. Now that's some vision of leadership.
It's time to demand better from Canyon Ridge Christian Church. Their own mission statement says they believe that church can be "where all people can come as they are and experience God's grace, love, forgiveness, healing, and hope." Yet their own works, by supporting the politicians and faith leaders behind Uganda's "Kill the Gays" bill, say exactly the opposite. They can't be a house of worship that says they experience grace, love and forgiveness, and then partner with people who want to commit genocide.
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