Apparently, God's Wrath Was Directed At Those Southern Tornado Victims

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

First we had the the professional corporate climate-change deniers snorting at the idea that global warming might have played a role in this week's devastating tornadoes in the South.

Now we have religious-right climate-change deniers claiming that they know what did cause those tornadoes: in fact, the storms were a product of God's wrath and an expression of his judgment.

This time it's Dr. Calvin Beisner, voicing his views on the radio show of the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer, via RightWingWatch:

BEISNER: What this tells me, Bryan, is that we need to recognize that natural disasters like this are like distant early-warning signals. There is judgment to come. We are all sinners. None of us, none of us is righteous enough to say, 'Oh, I wouldn't deserve it if that happened to me.'

I'm sure folks in Alabama and Georgia will be pleased to hear that God singled them out for judgment -- especially ahead of such godless places as Hollywood -- just to prove that it can happen to good people too.

And why are we getting God's wrath? you ask. Well, Pat Robertson has the answer -- it's because we've become a modern-day "Sodom and Gomorrah":

Robertson: And I believe that the anointing of the Lord has been here to fulfill the desire of those early settlers, to take the gospel from America throughout the world, and that’s what we’ve been here to do. But let me tell you, ladies and gentlemen, it doesn’t take a great scholar to tell you the United States has lost its moorings.

When you think that courts have denied children the right to pray in schools, that there’s a vendetta against religious belief, that now homosexuality has been made a constitutional right, that abortion has been made a constitutional right, the courts and judges have trampled on the early origins of our nation, they have distorted the meaning of the First Amendment. It’s all been done, and we’ve let it happen.

But I was reading today about a place called Sodom and Gomorrah, and a man named Abraham stood before God, and he says, “God, there’re righteous people in that city, would you kill them along with the wicked, must not the judge of all the earth do right?” And God finally promised, “If I can find ten righteous in that city, I will spare it,” just ten. Well the time came he could only find six, so they destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.

But there’re many righteous here in America, and we need to band together and pray that God Almighty will spare this great land and reestablish in our hearts the vision of the pioneers.

Well, considering that the storms struck hardest in states represented by some of the most hardcore global-warming denialists, maybe they're onto something with this whole "God's retribution" bit. Though not for the reasons they presume.