Posted on 06/09/2011 3:02:36 AM PDT by Cronos
A new coalition announced that it was starting a petition today on the GetEQUAL website (www.getequal.org), calling on the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) to apologize for the harm its teachings are causing the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.
Pointing to current teachings and ministries of the SBC, the coalition is attempting to shed light on harmful teachings and actions that individual congregations, pastors, and SBC leadership have embraced, targeting the LGBT community — particularly LGBT youth. These words and actions include everything from counseling parents to kick gay youth out of their homes to the horrifying practices of its “ex-gay” program. In fact, the Southern Baptist Convention is one of the nation’s leading promoters of the so-called “ex-gay” industry, currently being profiled by CNN as part of a three-part series called “The Sissy Boy Experiment.”
The Southern Baptist Convention will be meeting next week in Phoenix for their annual convention, and petition signatures will be delivered there.
“We call on the Southern Baptist Convention to stop misusing the Bible to promote religion-based bigotry and start recognizing the enormous pain and suffering caused by its mistreatment of LGBT people, particularly vulnerable youth,” said Dr. Jack McKinney, a former Southern Baptist minister and spokesperson for Faith in America. “History has not been kind to the Southern Baptist Convention’s record on minorities, and it is making the same awful mistake today by perpetuating abuse against gay people.”
“The anti-gay teachings of the Southern Baptist church nearly led me to suicide,” said Dr. Jerry Stephenson, a former Southern Baptist minister and board member for Truth Wins Out. “I entered an ‘ex-gay’ ministry that falsely claimed I could change my sexual orientation and this led to a deep depression. Only after I accepted my true self was I able to reconcile my faith and sexual orientation. The Southern Baptist Convention needs to apologize because its policies are hurting real people.”
This petition drive is being organized by the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists, Believe OutLoud, Faith in America, GetEQUAL, Soulforce and Truth Wins Out.
“Given the arc of justice and the trajectory of history, there is no doubt the SBC will offer a full-fledged apology to the LGBT community in the future,” reads a letter that petition signers will send to SBC’s leadership. “We ask the Southern Baptist Convention to prayerfully consider whether the motive behind the mistreatment and harm toward LGBT individuals, especially youth, is born of political gain and agendas rather the spirit of Christ.”
“The time for this discrimination — especially the insidious bigotry that has been wrapped in the cloak of faith — to end. It’s time for religious entities like the Southern Baptist Convention to apologize for the immense harm they’ve done to our community, and to stop providing cover for politicians to disguise their political bigotry as courageous,” said Robin McGehee, executive director of GetEQUAL. “Stop it now, apologize now, and let us all move forward together.”
Further details about the petition delivery next week in Phoenix will be available in the next few days.
GetEQUAL is a national, direct action lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization. Emphasizing direct action and people power, the mission of GetEQUAL is to empower the LGBT community and its allies to take action to demand full legal and social equality, and to hold accountable those who stand in the way. For more information on GetEQUAL, please visit: http://www.getequal.org. You can follow GetEQUAL on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/getequal, on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/GetEQUAL, or on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/getequal.
Faith In America was formed as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational organization in 2005 to effectively counter-message the bigotry, prejudice and hostility toward the LGBT community being sold to the public for several decades under the guise of religious belief and religious teaching.
Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that fights anti-gay religious extremism. TWO monitors anti-LGBT organizations, documents their lies and exposes their leaders as charlatans. TWO specializes in turning information into action by organizing, advocating and fighting for LGBT equality. TWO’s goal is to create a world where LGBT individuals can live openly, honestly and true to themselves.
Both were there for politics, both left SB after the elections were over, Carter in a dramatic, formal way, throwing written attacks on his way out, Clinton just quit pretending and went somewhere else.
You’re right. Some things to consider: the freedom of religion the Constitution recognizes means, among other things, that we are recognized as being able to believe what we wish. In so many words, this sort of “activism” infringes on the first amendment rights of the religious groups who are being maligned. In this case, it’s the SBC. Next, it may be someone else.
And every time these yahoos make, for lack of a better term, headway, it will not only encourage their new efforts, it will also likely add to their momentum politically, against both free speech that doesn’t agree with them, and every religion that doesn’t accept them as they wish. This is especially true of the left, where perception reigns, in lieu of truth.
I am not now, nor will I ever be a member of the SBC. But I honestly believe that homosexual acts are sinful, and inherently disordered, and I agree that the SBC must not back down, nor should they apologize on this.
The activists in question, by their language used in the press release, clearly are trying to make this strictly political. So it’s safe to surmise that they understand that on religious grounds they cannot make any case. But this is not a political party or lobbying group in that sense. So the SBC needs to make their position clear, from a strictly religious point of view.
Cronos is absolutely right. This is big enough that the time for some unity, at least on this particular front, is needed. For the sake of all.
Exactamundo.
Don't give them any ideas.
Yeah, there IS a reason. Once gays were the victims - now they've come full circle and they've become the bullies. No matter what they get, it's NEVER enough. Bullies. Plain and simple.
I have known several homosexuals who became heterosexual with the aid of the Church. The belief that the temptation to sin cannot be overcome is a lie from the devil.
Daniel 11:37 Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all.
There you have it. A man lacking the desire of women, commonly known as a homosexual.
That's one interpretations. The man could be asexual, a pedophile, a zoophile, or some other perversion I can't think of. Yours is a likly possibility. But it's important to remember the prophecy instead of the interpretation, or we can easily mistake the signs when they occur.
You’re right. The Scripture says so: (I Peter 5:8) “ Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: Whom resist stedfast in the faith - “
I was thinking of all the false fears he raises to shackle us, like false flu epidemics and global warming. Those are the things to ignore. I like the one about the pastor who was awakened in the middle of the night, looked and saw Satan standing at the foot of his bed. “Oh - it’s just you” he said and turned over and went back to sleep.
That’s the kind of thing I was thinking of.
you are very correct.
Please notice the tactic here. For the liberal its always about free speech free speech free speech. However, when the conservative speaks the focus is not on free speech but rather how the conservatives speech makes the liberal feel. And if the conservatives free speech offends the liberal then the conservative should stop speaking. We are seeing various resolutions passed in institutions like the UN which are aimed to silence any criticism on Islam or Islamic nations. So if someone says Jesus is the way the truth and the life and that offends someone well that speech should not be allowed. This is what is coming to America if many of our churches do not wake up.
They hit the mainline protestant churchs where they can manipulate by voting, so down the ECUSA, PCUSA, ELCA now they say "oh, you Methodists are the only ones left, why not join the club?" and they will do the same with the Baptists and then will turn on their big bugbear the Catholics and Orthodox.
I have no doubt they see us all together as jointly "the enemy" -- if we don't see that and work together accordingly, we play into their hands...
This is no attack on Baptist Christians, this is an attack on Christians -- we stand together on this point.
They use the idea that homosexuality is genetic to undermine scriptural clarity. There is no “gay gene.”
What I don’t get is why not just join some other religion? Judeo-Christianity is clear “gay is wrong” — so why not just become I don’t “Osho folks” and be happy and gay every after?
They want to reconstruct Christianity in their own image. The other choices...Islam, Buddhism, Hindu...are pretty unappealing.
Exactly.
Few things have been more studied in the past several decades than genetics. Scientists have not mapped everything out, but they have figured out which conditions are genetic and which aren't.
Homosexuality IS NOT genetic. Certainly their are men that are more effeminate and women that are more masculine than others and this is comes from their DNA, but this DOES NOT make them homosexual.
And here's the biggest clue, IF the militant homosexuals believed that there really was a "gay gene," they would pressure all homosexuals to reproduce (preferably with homosexuals of the opposite sex) to insure that homosexuals did not become extinct. They don't do this because they know that it's not genetic, instead they RECRUIT.
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They’ll do more than just deliver “petitions” to the Convention. Expect these Sodomite demons to invade and infest meetings; make obnoxious, lewd gestures in church services; and generally act like liberals. They will be set loose as emissaries of Satan like never before.
And what happens? We Christians put our heads in the sand and will then ask the true beleiving folks in the UMC or the SBC to run away instead of sticking by their side and fighting
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