Religious Right culture warriors David and Jason Benham published a video Monday in which they claimed “God is speaking” through hurricanes to send a message that America should repent for “breaching the boundaries of God” in regard to gender identity, gay marriage and homosexuality in general.
The Benham brothers posted a Facebook video on the anniversary of 9/11, warning that God had been using recent hurricanes to urge America to repent against its advancement of LGBTQ rights. The duo has previously labeled marriage equality “a mask for Satan,” and has gone so far as to claim that Satan is responsible for the existence of homosexuality.
The twins’ tie-in to the 9/11 terror attacks appears to mirror the playbook of their father, Flip Benham, the former head of the anti-abortion, anti-gay protest group Operation Save America, who has claimed he warned America that legal abortion would result in the 9/11 attacks and continues to use 9/11 as a warning that legal abortion will result in the further wrath of God.
“One of the things we heard a lot 16 years ago was rebuild, rebuild, rebuild,” David Benham said. “But the word we didn’t hear was repent, because as a nation if you would have told us back then in 2001 that in 2017 we would be completely redefining what gender means, what marriage means, what sexuality means, people wouldn’t even be standing for the anthem, and there’d be riots and protests in our streets and white supremacists with torches in their hands, and Antifa bullying and beating people into comas, I would have said there’s no way that would happen.”
“So today,” David Benham concluded, “There’s a message from God for us.”
Jason Benham took over to cite Psalms 104:4, which reads, “God, he makes the winds his messengers.”
“So God is speaking through the wind and now we have, just yesterday, Hurricane Irma touching land in Florida and God is speaking saying, ‘I’m making the wind my messengers,’” Jason said.
Elaborating, Jason began to talk about the Bible’s account of God’s designation of boundaries between land and water, and said the most dangerous part of a hurricane is when “the waters breach their boundaries.”
David agreed, adding that, “We see that morally and spiritually today. The boundaries that God has put out for us morally are for our flourishing and for his best in our lives.”
“And when we say that gender, there is no boundary,” he continued, “When we say that sexuality, there is no boundary. When we say that marriage can be whatever you want it to be, we are breaching the boundaries of God and we as a country on the anniversary of 9/11, sixteen years after that horrific terrorist act took place in our country, God is speaking: ‘Repent. Yes, you’ve rebuilt, but it’s time to repent.’”
