Great new JHS shoegaze guitar effects pedal. Dial it in using five different controls over the Kill Gaze.
Ah… Just kidding. Though JHS did sell a Shoegazer mod, they didn’t actually make the JHS Kill Gaze pedal. It’s pure parody. I’ll clarify early on that I’m not insinuating JHS wants to kill gays. Nor does its founder (we think). But as fellow members of my election issues group know, I like to follow the money.
I was going to provide several links to details of how and why many sensible people are opposed to JHS Pedals because they say JHS Pedals founder Joshua Heath Scott long-attended services at and helped fund an evangelical Christian hate group (IHOPKC) allegedly one of the many responsible for spreading anti-homosexual hate in the USA, Uganda, and elsewhere in Africa. Hate that, like Yoda says, leads to the murders of countless innocent people.
But you can Google about JHS and homosexuality on your own time. Or not.
There’s no denying Joshua Heath Scott’s (former?) church is staunchly anti-gay; the pastor unequivocally blames LGBTQ for opening portals to the demonic realm, amongst other not-very-love-thy-neighbory bits.
Is it OK to patronize companies if their principal officers are associated with hate?
Companies associated with would-be sheep like Josh H Scott will not get my money, lest they cease giving theirs to the wolves of the “Christian” army, an army somewhat effectively outlawing homosexuality and other LGBTQ stuff in Africa and elsewhere. These are not Jesusy actions. Not even close. Even an accusation of queerness can lead to murder, whether it’s state-sanctioned or “Christian” mob justice.
I won’t put a JHS pedal on my pedal boards. If you gave me a JHS pedal, I’d scrap it for parts and make something new. (Oh yeah, some people also say that JHS steals other pedal company’s ideas. If you care – I don’t – I’ll let you look into that on your own.)
So, what grinds my gears? Plenty. But close to the top of the list is veiled, hateful monsters masquerading as Christians (or as adherents of any religion). I know many great, loving Christians. How do I know they’re Christians? Not just because they say they are. Because they also act way more like Jesus than the next fella. They care about the poor. They see past borders. They love regardless of skin tone. They would never give their money if they thought for even a second that it would lead to hurting innocent people in the name of God, or otherwise. If they found they were supporting a hateful group by mistake, they’d renounce it. Coincidentally, that describes plenty of non-Christians too. You know: non-assholes.
JHS pedals should endeavor to convince would-be customers that proceeds from JHS pedal purchases won’t go toward hate groups. Unfortunately, founder Josh Scott gets some of those proceeds and he has a history of associating with hateful groups, so, good luck with that.
A friend on fb sent a note to Josh asking him why he hasn’t publicly renounced IHOPKC’s very public anti-gay propaganda. I’ll let you know what he says through the grapevine, and modify this post accordingly. …Hopefully, considerably. I truly hope he’s the good guy he says he is. But without renouncing his connections to those who preach gay=demon, I don’t believe it.
…No response from Josh, yet.
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Dan Dreifort consults on UX and SEO. When he’s not doing that, he jazzes it up in synthband.com, scares kids and normies in gurtrudestein.com, and stretches boundaries (of decency) in icurd.com. Though he earned a degree in pre-theology, he is an irreligious, recovering, fundamentalist Unitarian Universalist. His mother is Jewish, so that makes Dan Jewish, to some. #religion
Dan Dreifort 
I’m new to all this JHS stuff and it makes me sad to read. I will say that (according to something I read on wikipedia), “Josh has stated numerous times that JHS Pedals was never owned, funded, or supported by IHOPKC. Josh left IHOPKC due to undisclosed reasons.” I have no idea what’s real, though. I have a bunch of JHS pedals and I’m disappointed that any of this could be true. Still searching for info. I like the products, but I don’t like to support bad stuff along with them.
Let’s say Sally owns a pie shop. (Sally’s Pies) Sally goes to KKK rallies, recruits for the KKK, and gives the KKK money. The KKK does not own part of Sally’s Pies. And even when some KKK members buy her pies, we can’t say the KKK “funds” her pie shop. Fine. However, if Sally gives money to the KKK, doesn’t buying her pies, in part, fund the KKK? Yes.
Sally leaves the KKK for undisclosed reasons, but never renounces the KKK. Sally never expresses how sorry she was to have been a part of the organization. Me? I STILL don’t buy Sally’s pies. I don’t care if they’re the best pies around. If Sally used her delicious pie pulpit to broadcast good mojo, in part specifically about how she somehow didn’t know about the evils of the KKK, but found out and was disgusted, and… yeah, this analogy is getting old 😉
Josh should apologize for supporting that heinous group. Until then, he’s complicit. His silence + his history is de-facto endorsement of their behavior. Who does Josh give his money and time and thoughts to now? Some other hate group? I don’t know. But the fact that he won’t denounce IHOPKC means he won’t get any of *my* money, and I’ll use my little pulpit to let people know there are more moral places to spend yer pedal dough.
Thanks for reading, John. And thanks for looking into this sort of thing. I admire your reluctance to condemn somebody you don’t know, but Josh could make this go away with a few words. Why won’t he put them out there?