#homophobichate

[ex-cogtfi]

TRIGGER WARNING: Very sensitive content.

It’s difficult to find the words to express how intensely disturbing the quotations in this final post are, but we believe we owe it to the public to expose the extent to which David Berg’s homophobic hate went.

Berg called for gays to be mass murdered.

Berg condemned societies and governments for failing to do so.

These were not isolated remarks.

These were multiple, reiterated rants spanning decades, recorded and transcribed by Karen Zerby, mass printed by the cult, and distributed to cult communes worldwide.

These are the words of the man whom the cult maintains a website in honor of. To this day, the cult has neither renounced Berg and Zerby’s homophobic hate, nor taken responsibility for the decades-long campaign of verbal violence they waged and the emotional harm and trauma they inflicted.

Behind the public image of The Family International today, there is this.

[togekissesofgrace]

Getting really fucking tired of gays being killed off in media.

[windblumeremade]

good night you F Slurs (you see i could have used to real word but i didnt because im very polite. i am homophobich goodnight

[dollchapel]

GUYS EM IS NOT homophobic, don’t text me hE iS hOmOpHoBiCh💀💀💀💋💋 cuz he is NOT

eminem, lena katina (t.A.T.u.) and marilyn manson

[ex-cogtfi]

After David Berg’s passing in 1994, Karen Zerby, the cult’s co-founder, assumed primary leadership of the cult. She continued many of Berg’s agendas (which she had played an active role in formulating and furthering throughout his leadership), including the aggressive spreading of homophobic hate. Like Berg, Zerby maliciously used the slur “sodomy,” claimed homosexuality disgusts and enrages God, and told members they should feel fury toward homosexuals.

Zerby urged members to avoid inclusive media, particularly movies in which gay characters were humanized or given positive qualities, for fear that such media would erode the hatred and prejudice that she and Berg had spent decades inoculating members young and old with.

[ex-cogtfi]

TW: sensitive content

As part of their tirade of homophobic hate, David Berg and Karen Zerby actively sought to instill fear in cult members for their children’s safety by framing gays as child molesters, kidnappers, sex traffickers, and violent criminals.

Within a group of people self-isolated from society, Berg and Zerby built upon the existing ignorance by deliberately spreading misinformation and paranoia. Zerby utilized this fear-mongering rhetoric to justify the cult’s isolation of children from society, education, and non-cult relatives, claiming that such isolation would protect children from being attacked by “homosexuals or drug dealers or gang members.”

It’s sickening to see how Berg and Zerby played on parental instincts to protect, conditioning members to view gays as not merely deviant but highly dangerous.

[ex-cogtfi]

TW: sensitive content

As founders of a religious cult, David Berg and Karen Zerby knew too well the terror they could elicit in members by associating homosexuality with demons and demonic possession. They used this tactic to the fullest extent, going so far as to “exorcise” people’s genitalia and publicize the name of the demon they alleged incites homosexuality.

The spiritual and religious abuse that Berg and Zerby inflicted on members was not only deeply damaging and traumatic due to the distress experienced in believing one has angered an all-powerful God; it also inoculated Berg and Zerby against being criticized or challenged for their words and actions, since speaking against them would be speaking against God. An example of this is the quotation where Berg, instead of owning his hateful views, claims that “the Spirit in me was repulsed & revulsed by that horrible thing,” thus invoking the fear and veneration members felt for the Spirit of God.

Again and again, over decades, Berg and Zerby weaponized religion and spirituality to facilitate their corrupt agendas, lend authority to their vitriol, and sanction their oppression and abuse.