Katrina as divine punishment
Wednesday, October 5th, 2005Franklin Graham is in the news again. The Christian evangelist, who famously described the entire religion of Islam as “wicked and violent”, had this to say about Hurricane Katrina:
There’s been Satanic worship in New Orleans. There’s been sexual perversion. God is going to use that storm to bring a revival. God has a plan. God has a purpose.
Reasonable people could hear that and interpret it to mean that Graham thinks Hurricane Katrina is God’s way of punishing New Orleans. Even if you think God hates sodomy, this idea doesn’t stand up to close scrutiny, since the French Quarter, symbolic if not actual center of “sinful” activity in the city, was largely spared by the hurricane. Graham denies the indefensible divine punishment idea in an interview with CNN. Maybe he just thinks that the hurricane simply provides an opportunity for gays to be made unwelcome, or homeless, in a reconstructed New Orleans.
