Christian charity and love has clear limits.
A megachurch canceled a memorial service for a Navy veteran 24 hours before it was to start because the deceased was gay.
Officials at the nondenominational High Point Church knew that Cecil Howard Sinclair was gay when they offered to host his service, said his sister, Kathleen Wright. But after his obituary listed his life partner as one of his survivors, she said, it was called off.
Yeah, a 5,000 member megachurch spurned a dead man because they didn't care for who he chose to love. The pastor's excuse is terrific:
"We did decline to host the service — not based on hatred, not based on discrimination, but based on principle," Simons told The Associated Press. "Had we known it on the day they first spoke about it — yes, we would have declined then. It's not that we didn't love the family."
Part of that is wrong: it's based on hatred of gays and on discrimination against gay people. Part is right: that is clearly the basic operating principle of this church.
People of Arlington, Texas, Rejoice! This church has exposed its hateful foundations, and you can now boycott it in good conscience … on principle.
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When I first read of this event, I was (am still) stunned by the callousness.
I'd like to know what the "principle" is the pastor speaks of might be ... personally, I think he has some difficulty with the concept.
Proving that they don't ask themselves "What would Jesus do?", but rather "What would the homophobic Saul of Tarsus ('Saint' Paul) do?"
What makes you think they'll boycott it?
They also accused the sister of providing "disgusting" pictures with men hugging and kissing while she said she didn't. Just putting her in such a situation is tactless.
Am I the only one who reads this as it's okay to have a dead gay guy in their church, but not a live one...?
How can it possibly be out of "principal"? People aren't going to see this church's idiotic stance and say to themselves, "Hmmmm ... I might not get a funeral if I'm gay. That chick next door is lookin' a little hot to me after all." I think it's largely because they didn't want to be a forum for people to say nice things about "a gay." Nobody stands up in front of a crowded funeral to say, "Behold this airbrushed heathen that lay behind me!" People would talk about how good a person he was, how much they loved him, etc., etc. Yeah, can't have that. If they admitted homosexuals were, ya know, humans, that might make them look like, ya know, enormous douchebags.
I do remeber there used to be some crimes and conditions that could leave the church to refusing to bury you on concecrated ground. But I though is was just murder. Anyone know anything about this?
Even if homosexualtiy was sinning in the church's bigotted eyes, since when were sinners not allowed in a church? Sinners were about the only poeple JC hung out with.
Did anyone see the link to the Holy Land Experience? Wow, that sounds like it attracts people who are even loonier than the ones that the Creation Museum was built to cater to! This looks not only insane but bat shit frickin' crazy insane. That it costs $40 to get in there kicks up the insane levels another notch. Only in America. Thanks TBN.
Lisa Bell, 42, husband David Bell, 50, and their 2-year-old son came from Ripley, Tenn., after seeing Holy Land on Trinity. She said they didn't consider attending the other parks.
"Oh no. Jesus was just holding him," Lisa Bell said, nodding to her sunburned son. "He knows who Jesus is."
Oh, it's not just in church.
I heard about this because Cecil was a friend of a friend. dallasnews.com has, I think, a better article on it.
The quote that stood out for me:
"Some of our people will be there at the memorial service," Mr. Simons said. "We tried to do the very best of our ability to express the love of Christ."
Really. The best way to express the love of Christ is to tell a dead man's family that he was a sinner, compare him to a murderer or thief, and edit out inconvenient portions of his life because they contain 'very strong homosexual images of kissing and hugging'.
These people disgust me.
The best part of this is that it took them five or six excuses to come out with their principled stand. They are at least learning that their bigotry doesn't play well in lots of places.
So when they say "hate the sin, love the sinner", they really mean "hate the sin, hate the sinner". Okay, glad we got that cleared up.
Jesus loves you*.
*Unless you're gay, brown, poor, or foreign.
Get another scoop here:
http://thestubborncurmudgeon.blogspot.com
One trusts that they take the same attitude toward those in the military who commit adultery, who covet their neighbor's wife - or take the name of the Lord in vain.
Officials at the nondenominational High Point Church knew that Cecil Howard Sinclair was gay when they offered to host his service, said his sister, Kathleen Wright. But after his obituary listed his life partner as one of his survivors, she said, it was called off.
What's the word for this?
'Hypocrisy' doesn't seem strong enough.
It also turns out that this church has been lying to the family about why they rejected the funeral. From Pam's House Blend:
Would it be safe to assume that this church also rejects funerals for those who have been divorced and remarried?
"We did decline to host the service -- not based on hatred, not based on discrimination, but based on principle," Simons told The Associated Press.
Appears to me as though their principles are based on hatred and discrimination.
you know, taliking as a homosexual who has received some form of "christian" education (ie adherence to a faith based system), this kind of news makes me wonder, who do I feel closer with ? Some form of scientific humanism or christianity ? Well, if christianity is pushing us away, by thinking that we have got some kind of desease that is simply, with time, going to go away, its becoming quite clear to me that I feel much closer to scientific humanism.
So, I say to all scientific humanists & atheists, keep up the good work, we need you guys.
We've got your back, negentropy. One day, all these religious nuts will be judged by His Noodly Appendage in the sky, and they'll have to answer to all his Holy Strippers why they would do such a thing as this.
The church later justified this by stating that the $5.00 Jumbo packs of Junior Mints and half-gallon sodas were fast becoming their primary source of income due to rising costs of Bible reels which were, in turn, due to increasing Biblical piracy. They plan to combat this by playing PSAs composed by the Jesus & Joseph Set Carpentry Guild before every sermon.
Having said that, I sometimes wonder, what is the problem with atheism ? My conclusion is that for most people, like it or not, atheism means, "no belief", or "no values". Clearly, this is very pejorative, but if it is just because of the word, why not call ourselves scientific humanists. That is certainly something I can adhere to, without having to suffer all the pejoratives of being called an atheist.
And that is certainly a far large "minority" than purely atheism. And one for which there should definitely be a far large political representation.
I mean, look at it, there is not one member of congress that would accept to be called an atheist (according to Dawkins), but what about if the name was changed. That it really meant believing in something, some values for what human kind really has as a common denominator.
Not values in which suspicion necessarily drives violence, as it is becoming more and more the case with the religious faith based systems around the globe.
So evidently homosexuality is the truly unforgivable sin (blaspheming the Holy Spirit pales in comparison). I'm sure all these people come every week to debase themselves and remind each other what filthy, useless sinners they are, but that they are forgiven and saved by Jesus, despite the fact that they are sinful and cannot be righteous. It's all about forgiveness.
Unless you're gay. Then there is no forgiveness. I'm sure Jesus said that somewhere in the bible . . .
On the other hand, maybe they truly do have a principle, and all the people who lied to the family (breaking Commandment #9) will be denied funerals at the church as well.
well the question is, why do they still accept to give christian funerals to people who have committed adultery for example ? Or people that have cheated or lied ?
Because, as anyone who's put on major events, symposia, and conferences will attest, at the first sign of any logistic bobble at all, the proper, measured, and reasonable response is to cancel the entire event.
Because they're hypocrites. My experience with Christians (after I quit becoming one) has only strengthened my non-belief. There are many things in common with universal religions, but one in particular is the ability to justify anything.
""We did decline to host the service -- not based on hatred, not based on discrimination, but based on principle," "
Well, yes, the principle of **discrimination**, just as southern churches discriminated against "race traitors" on the "principle" that race-mixing was a sin.
Considering that Onanism is a sin I'm surprised that they allow **any** funerals at the church. Likewise, the Old Testament (where the exhortations against gay sex can be found) also says that sick and handicapped people profane the sacred temple of God, so I would hope they don't have funerals for any sick or handicapped people. Also, no man with injured genitals shall be admitted to the congregation of the Lord (Deuteronomy 23:1 He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD.)
Further, religious types like to say that it is ok to be gay as long as you are celibate. The church also says that all sins are forgivable (except blaspheming that snooty Holly Ghost). When the church kicked this man out of their didn't know if the was celibate or if he had repented. They kicked him out without knowing that because the claims that they hate the sin not the sinner are just so much hot air.
Maybe they were just afraid of contamination. All that essence of gayness slowly escaping the body and soaking into the furnishings is a pretty scary concept.
neg entropy, perhaps you need to consider your concept of what is an atheist a little more. What if it only means no belief in gods or belief in no gods, nothing more. All those other things that we might tack on really need another label.
Scientific or Secular humanism, for example, are life philosophies. You might typically find a great deal of overlap between atheist/agnostic people and holders of these philosophies, but they aren't equivalent in meaning.
The problem with all these labels is the large number of different interpretations that are in use.
"Maybe they were just afraid of contamination. All that essence of gayness slowly escaping the body and soaking into the furnishings is a pretty scary concept."
Hmm...I smell a new perfume concept, "Essence of Gayness." Perhaps it will repel Evangelicals the way garlic repels vampires?
I don't like the fact that people are asking if adulterers are going to be buried and so forth... Big differences, there. Adultery is hurting another human - so is stealing, and all the other comparisons. "Onanism" was the one I liked best - sleeping with someone with no intention of conceiving a child seems to be a pretty apt comparison.
A person's life partner is an integral part of their life. You can't leave it out of a eulogy. And the church making up so many excuses just seems wrong to me... I for one wouldn't want to host a service in a church that was unwelcoming, but they could at least have been honest about their lack of welcome - admitted they were thoroughly nasty, hypocritical pieces of work that no decent person would want to associate with.
This church has exposed it's hateful foundations...
Hey, PZ, what does "IT IS hateful foundations..." mean, anyway...?
#2: Yep, that says it all.
Christianity was started by a fellow who taught compassion and forgiveness, and who hung around with whores and traitors (Jews who collected taxes for Rome). Unfortunately it was all downhill from there, as it was then spread across the Mediterranean basin by a homophobic, misogynistic pig of a man, who has perverted the message and given generation after generation of bigoted filth something to feed on.
"Christianity was started by a fellow who taught compassion and forgiveness, and who hung around with whores and traitors (Jews who collected taxes for Rome)."
Funny how it is always mentioned that the traitors were Jews, and somehow the Jewishness of the "fellow" is not mentioned.
Old habits die hard.
And these megachurches have a lot of old, bad habits.
Not that it makes any difference, but I already don't go to that church. How does boycotting, on principle, make any difference?
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"This church has exposed it's hateful foundations...
Hey, PZ, what does "IT IS hateful foundations..." mean, anyway...?"
...damn grammar Nazis--oh, crap! Damn you Goodwin and your law!!!
'More Hypocrisy'?
Megachurch. Megahypocrisy.
Inhumane assholishness?
Oh, so it's not hatred or discrimination just because it's your principal? That's like the KKK saying they don't harass African-Americans out of hatred or discrimination, but out of principal. Stupid bigoted piece of shit.
I think it's because they were afraid they might catch AIDS from being in close proximity to a deceased gay man. Of course, that might only happen if one were to, well, you know...
"I am sure "it's" is used in the posessive. This is not a contraction. A sad and silly way to get past PZ's argument. What do you mean anyway..."
I believe that Kimpatsu is playing the grammarian literalist.
The possessive for of "its" does not use an apostrophe. Kimpatsu's comment is the equivalent of a smarmy teacher saying "I don't know. Can You?" when asked "Can I go to the bathroom." (For which the proper query is "May I go to the bathroom.")
Ah, but the possessive is "its" - which is yet another oddity of English, and a common error which is easy to commit.
Remember those billboards Catholic churches put up a few years back? I have a new advertising campaign in mind.
"Church, the last place in America where it's socially acceptable to be a hateful, small-minded, bigoted, SOB."
OEJ
I'm not sure why you're all acting surprised. Anyone would think these American mega-churches were normally known for their enlightened attitudes to homosexuality and to sexuality in general.
That certainly wasn't my impression.
To say the least.
And fancy PZ misusing the word "it's", which is always a contraction for "it is". Oops. (Actually, I often make that mistake when I'm in a hurry, even though I know very well what the rule is. I expect that the rule will gradually change, because it's a bit counterintuitive for most people. Oh, and I confess that I very nearly posted this comment in a form where I had "too" at one point instead of "to".)
"It and it's"
Strunk and White, page one.
I'm never reading this blog again.
Seriously though, does this church forbid all cotton-polyester blends in ITS services?
Non-holy crap! I just thought of something! Why aren't the grammarians screaming at all the folks who use "blog" instead of the correct "'blog"?
Oh, wait, IT'S because it doesn't matter much.
Pendantic, condescending, and sarcastic. I've got it all, people.
"Seriously though, does this church forbid all cotton-polyester blends in ITS services?"
Well, Autumn, aren't you being silly! the Bible would never prohibit cotton-poly--most of the flock would have to be turned away at the door. No, no, the bible is some sort of silly made up book written by mortals. It is the perfect word of god and tells us the most important lessons God has to offer, like this one:
"Deuteronomy 22:10 Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass together."
I can't think of how often I've come close to breaking that one! Whew!
Although cotton-polly is fine, the bible, in its divine wisdom, does prohibit the the wearing of linen and wool at the same time--which, of course, is a completely reasonable and obvious moral stance and is as it should be. Unfortunately, the atheistic moral relativists don't have the the solid and unerring moral foundation of the Bible to guide them and are known to mix wool and linen with Satanic abandon. Clearly, without the Bible there is no moral compass...
Hmm. So the many churches of US of equal status means that they can foist "the problem" on the next guy? Well, I never. [Yes, I actually never heard of that before. Seems state churches has some uses after all.]
I always thought were should be some god conceptions with bigger meatballs than that pasty-faced many-tongued one. ("Old guy, young guy, and a lot of diverse spirits". Sounds like it could be some gay party, btw.)
Okay, mixed strippers aren't my own taste. So, um, can I spice with pole dancers among the ladies and have a side order of clothes on the guys for my personal Last Order?
But we should also recognize that summarily rejecting religious concepts isn't all what atheism encompass for all people, anymore than organized religion is entirely described as an embrace of a particular brand of superstition. And if it was all of it, skepticism would be a more general concept for rejecting all superstition.
I use to argue that atheism is a world view among others, because if it isn't part of say Secular humanism it could serve as defining one if you wish.
Actually, the proper response to "I don't know. Can you?" is to rephrase the query as "Fine; I'll use it correctly: CAN you survive being crammed smirk-first into an automatic pencil sharpener?" ;/
Azkyroth, have you heard the one about the country boy who goes to Harvard? A bit lost, he stops a student and asks, "Excuse me, where's the library at?" Snottily, the student admonishes, "Here at Harvard, we don't end a sentence with a preposition." So the country boy says, "Gee, I'm sorry. Where's the library at, asshole?"
Moral of the story - I noticed the "it's" but it's not very polite to point it out. But then again, it was done as friendly ribbing, I think, so let's not get our panties too bunched over it.
Khan wrote, "What's the word for this?
'Hypocrisy' doesn't seem strong enough."
Hyper-hypocrisy?
One of my favorite bumper stickers is "Jesus is coming...and he's pissed."
Gary Simons and his megachurchers undoubtedly believe the first part, and are doing their darnedest to make sure the second part comes true.
More at my blog.
This crap makes me really angry. Support the troops, as long as they're the *right kind* of troops. It is morally fine for me to kill people as long as the guy at the top of the chain of command decides that they're *bad* people. But who I kiss while I'm slaughtering these bad people is open to moral scrutiny? That's fantastic. My deepest apologies to all of you who are gay and have to deal with this kind of subhuman behavior.
Not hatred or bigotry... No, no, no!!
No intellectual honesty to confuse the sheep.
I'm going to go with "Christianity."
I wrote about this on my blog after seeing it here, pointing out how the pastor's actions obviously constitute discrimination (by definition), and substituting other groups in place of "gay man" to emphasize the point. Of course it didn't take long before someone posted a comment asking whether my opinion would change if the headline had been "Church refuses funeral for pedophile" or "murderer" or "rapist". Uh...yeah...my opinion would change.
So which is more scary and sad, that a church would discriminate against a gay man, or that some people think gay = murderer, pedophile, or rapist? What a strange world we live in.
In re Comment # 54. A lot of the support the troops fetishists remind me of the quote of Colonel Kurtz in Apocolypse Now (it's heard at the beginning of the movie when Martin Sheen is getting his orders and listening to a tape recording of Kurtz):
"We train men to drop fire on people, but we won't allow them to write 'Fuck' on their airplanes. . . Why? . . . Because it's obscene."
These people have a seriously skewed vision of morality.
Well, I can understand that the church in question didn't want its facilities infected with teh gay...
/sarcasm
So kissing and hugging other men is gay? Someone better tell the French and Italians.
Given that this life is the only one we have (yes, it really is), these folks should realize that trying to please the sky-fairy by discriminating against others is not going to endear you to anyone outside your cult. This leads to worldly repercussions, and heavenly ones be damned.
The sound principle of hypocrisy, of course.
It would have been OK to have the funeral of a gay man in church providing his family were going to be quiet and ashamed of his sexual orientation. Ideally, his blood family would have banned his life partner from the church, or if not, they'd have asked him to sit at the back and not tell anyone in church of his relationship with the deceased. That would have been appropriately Christian, in the eyes of this megachurch.
But, once it was clear the family were quite open and unashamed of their relative's sexual orientation, that his life partner would be up front as chief mourner, that there would be no hypocrisy and silence - that's intolerable.
Celibacy is almost irrelevant. It's silence and hypocrisy that is the demand of this kind of Christian church.
They are not a catholic church and the passages you are apparently attempting to use as an analogy most biblical scholars of merit would side against the catholic redition.
It's simply a weak unmerited analogy.
Uber,
The analogy to divorce is perfectly apt. Even this atheist knows that, according to the new testament, Jesus said divorce followed by remarriage constitutes adultery and adultery is a sin. He said absolutely nothing about gays and lesbians.
Mark 10:11 He answered, "Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her.
10:12 And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery."
Clearly if so-called christian denominations other than the Catholic church choose to ignore the clear meaning of their purported savior in testament 2.0, it's perfectly appropriate to question why they are selectively enforcing some silly thing about gays from testament 1.0.
Considering how Jesus supposedly felt about making a public display of prayer, I assume this megachurch won't give a funeral to anyone who actually attends it.
Hmm. So the many churches of US of equal status means that they can foist "the problem" on the next guy? Well, I never. [Yes, I actually never heard of that before. Seems state churches has some uses after all.]
I always thought were should be some god conceptions with bigger meatballs than that pasty-faced many-tongued one. ("Old guy, young guy, and a lot of diverse spirits". Sounds like it could be some gay party, btw.)
Okay, mixed strippers aren't my own taste. So, um, can I spice with pole dancers among the ladies and have a side order of clothes on the guys for my personal Last Order?
But we should also recognize that summarily rejecting religious concepts isn't all what atheism encompass for all people, anymore than organized religion is entirely described as an embrace of a particular brand of superstition. And if it was all of it, skepticism would be a more general concept for rejecting all superstition.
I use to argue that atheism is a world view among others, because if it isn't part of say Secular humanism it could serve as defining one if you wish.