The US religious right's use and abuse of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's legacy

You have probably never heard of Dietrich Bonhoeffer so a quick biography is in order (Dietrich Bonhoeffer on Wikipedia is as good a place as any to start if you want a more detailed biography).

Bonhoeffer was a Christian pastor in Germany before and during the Second World War. He found the Nazis and their acts to be so offensive that he participated in the German Resistance. He was imprisoned by the Nazis in April of 1943 where he remained until he was tried and executed/murdered on 9 April 1945 for his association with participants of the 20 July 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler (the same one that the relatively recent movie Valkyrie staring Tom Cruise popularized).

Bonhoeffer studied and taught at the Union Theological Seminary in New York in the early 1930s. He found the progressive institution's stance less than satisfying, once stating "There is no theology here". His views on the US fundamentalist Christian theology of the era were not exactly flattering either as he accused the Southern Baptists of preaching “the crassest orthodoxy…an unrelenting harshness in holding on to one’s possessions, possessions either of this or of the other world.”

The US religious right has recently been invoking the name of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Their claim is essentially that Bonhoeffer's decision to risk death by participating in the German resistance is an exemplar which justifies the use of deadly force to resist the "imposition" of gay marriage on the US Christian community.

Bonhoeffer died resisting the Nazi regime which was not only responsible for launching the deadliest war in human history but also embarked on a program of industrialized murder to "deal with" their opponents and anyone else that they happened to not like (see Nazi concentration camp badges for more info).

That the US religious right could somehow create a parallel between their strong opposition to gay marriage and Bonhoeffer' decision to participate in the German Resistance during the Second World War truly boggles the mind. Then again, there is little that the US religious right does these days which doesn't boggle the mind . . .

Some sources and references are probably in order:

• Dietrich Bonhoeffer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_Bonhoeffer
• Nazi concentration camp badges  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_concentration_camp_badges
• Why This Pastor Who Tried To Assassinate Hitler Has Become A Hero To The Anti-LGBT Movement http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2015/04/14/3646532/conservatives-comparing-anti-lgbt-crusade-pastors-attempt-assassinate-hitler/