Just to share a personal experience, my brother called me last Sunday to share about what he described as a "disgusting and devistating" church service. He attends Shepherd of the Hills in Porter Ranch, Calif. with his fiance, and apparently, the pastor invited a guest to speak on an ongoing lawsuit in Orange County. The guest was an attorney working a property rights case defending a client who wants to keep a cross on his property. The neighbors have obviously complained. According to my brother, the attorney spoke on this issue for no more than five minutes before launching into a political speech in support of Proposition 22.
California Prop. 22 was placed on the ballot in 2000 as an anti-gay marriage ammendment. It was not passed, but has lingered in Courts since that time. This attorney and people of his mind-set have seen to it that the Christian right continually expresses its condemnation of same-sex marriage through the touting of this already-defeated proposition.
"He went off about how homosexuality is a sin and how gay marriage is an abomination undermining the fundamentals of the institution of marriage," my brother said. "I couldn't believe what I was hearing."
Thouroughly bemused, my brother and his fiance made a poignant exit down the center isle of the church and proceeded to call as many people as they could reach denouncing what took place in the service.
Personally, I was more amazed that people like my brother and his fiance were so undereducated on the issue. How is it that this issue has been circulating the political arena for eight-plus years, and strong supporters of equality are still unaware of the threat that exists in gay marriage bans? How is it that so many are left scratching their heads when they are confronted with the reality of rights and privileges denied gays because of their sexual orientation?
In related news, today, the Pennsylvania Senate Judiciary Committee passed a proposed amendment to the state constitutiohttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifn Tuesday that would ban both same-sex marriage and civil unions.
The measure was approved on a 10-4 vote. It still needs approval in the full Senate and in the House. It would then need to be approved again by both houses in the next session of the legislature before being put to voters.
Pennsylvania already has a law limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples. Supporters of the amendment say they fear it could be overturned by a judge. (Read more!)
Educate and legislate. For more information on this issue, check out Human Right Campaign at
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Okay, so I know it's not really the issue you're addressing in this post, but I find it amazing that this invited speaker went off on what sounds like your boilerplate fundamentalist tirade at Shepherd. Granted, I don't know the church well, and I know it's kind of mega-churchy, but I don't believe it's a fundamentalist institution. That an invited speaker would take the invitation as a chance to spew his own rhetoric unrelated to what he was asked to speak about strikes me as disrespectful to that particular church community. I'd be interested to know how he was dealt with by the church leadership after his remarks. Did they turn a blind eye, maybe remark to each other in a staff meeting the next week, "Boy, that was awkward, huh?" Perhaps they congratulated him either in person or in their heads for saying things out loud they wish they could but have to keep quiet. Or maybe they'll confront the issue firsthand with both the speaker and the congregation, condemning his speech as hateful, or at least only one view on the issue, which is not the official stance of their church. Their response would say a lot about the character of the church.
It bothers me when the pulpit is used to propagate ideas founded in hate, fear, and personal or political ideology instead of being used to interact intelligently with the word of God. It wouldn't bother me at all if this guy had spoken against homosexuality from his interpretation of scripture, assuming that's what he'd been invited to do. I can almost guarantee you I wouldn't agree with him, but at least he would be acting respectfully regarding the congregation.
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