Brody Levesque

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The gloves are off and the masks have been removed in the United States as apparently it has become acceptable, even fashionable, to bully your fellow citizens — or better still, hang an effigy of your president, who happens to be black, with a noose, and in a part of the country where not too long ago, that in of itself was quietly approved.

Just last week, the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla., hung an effigy of President Barack Obama from a gallows on its front lawn, accompanied by an upside-down rainbow Pride flag.

Effigy of President Barack Obama outside of the Dove World Outreach Church in Gainsville, Fla.

The church’s pastor Terry Jones stated that the display was in response to the president’s recent endorsement of same-sex marriage, as well as his stance on abortion, adding the president’s “appeasing of radical Islam.”

The display is hung from a makeshift gallows with a noose of yellow rope, has a doll in its right hand because the president is “favorable toward abortion,” and a the pride flag to call attention to Obama’s support of marriage equality, according to Jones.

A spokesperson for the United States Secret Service Miami Field Office told a Florida newspaper that the agency is currently investigating Jones in response to the display.

The Dove outreach Church has stirred controversy previously with a book burning of the Islamic Holy Book, the Quran last year that sparked three days of violent rioting in Afghanistan which resulted in the deaths of at least 21 people, including seven United Nations Relief Agency workers.

At the time, Jones was quoted as saying that radical Islam is “the most dangerous threat to life and national security in America.”

Jones and his church seem to be following a recent trend of calling same-sex marriage “counterfeit marriage,” and calling for LGBTQ persons to be rounded up and held in camps surrounded by electrified fences, or teaching toddlers to sing homophobic songs — is perfectly acceptable.

Of course let us not forget that maybe according to another pastor, why not just have the government round the gays up and kill them off instead?

What is also readily apparent is that with a wink-wink and a nod, obviously these types of behaviors don’t even raise an eyebrow, after all, “homosexuals” are an abomination and the “choice of the death lifestyle” needs to be eradicated from American society.

The moral outrage will likely fill the comments of any news site, including this one, that runs this story.

But sadly, most likely will not translate into any call to hold persons like Jones accountable because after all, “It’s just them exercising their First Amendment Rights.”

Tags: Barack Obama, Dove World Outreach Center, Effigy, Florida, Gainsville FL, Rainbow Flag, Terry Jones

Filed under: Views & Voices