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Right-Wing Pastor Tells Christians To Boycott Same-Sex Weddings. These Christians Disagree.
Right-Wing Pastor Tells Christians To Boycott Same-Sex Weddings. These Christians Disagree.
Prominent Southern Baptist leader Rev. Al Mohler is calling on evangelical Christians to boycott same-sex weddings — even among their loved ones — saying attending them only serves to celebrate the “sinfulness of homosexuality.”
But for many of Mohler’s fellow Christians, his defiant stand against marriage equality is already falling flat.
Mohler, who serves as president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, recommends skipping out on same-sex nuptials in his forthcoming book We Cannot Be Silent, scheduled to hit bookshelves on October 27. According to the Religion News Service, he argues that attending such services is tantamount to an endorsement of same-sex marriage, which the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) officially opposes.
“At some point, attendance will involve congratulating the couple for their union,” he writes. “If you can’t congratulate the couple, how can you attend?”
Mohler parrots several common conservative tropes used against LGBT people in the book, which is subtitled “Speaking truth to a culture redefining sex, marriage & the very meaning of right and wrong.” He contends that same-gender relationships are sinful even if science proves people are born with different sexualities, because “even the natural world” is “tainted by human sin.” He also calls for transgender people to consult with their pastors about having surgery to revert back to the gender they claimed before transitioning.
Mohler said he wouldn’t even attend a same-sex wedding that involved one of his children or grandchildren, and encouraged others to follow his example.
“I don’t want to underestimate the difficulty of these questions, but I don’t think a faithful Christian can recognize or celebrate … what we don’t think is a marriage,” Mohler told RNS.
Mohler, a famous conservative hardliner who also decries the Catholic Church as preaching a “false gospel,” is hardly new to anti-LGBT advocacy. Although he recently condemned ex-gay therapy, the 55-year-old pastor and seminary president has spent years decrying marriage equality, opening a major 2014 conference on homosexuality in Nashville by insisting that Southern Baptists should never recognize or tolerate same-sex relationships.
He also accused megapastor Joel Osteen of “ministerial malpractice” in 2011 for saying he would attend a same-sex wedding even if he disagreed with LGBT relationships.
“You cannot celebrate what you say you know to be sin,” Mohler wrote at the time. “You cannot honestly say that same-sex marriage defies the law of God, and then join in the celebration of that ceremony.”
Yet even as the Baptist preacher turns up the volume on his anti-LGBT rhetoric, his message appears to be increasingly less effective. His latest clarion call to avoid same-sex espousals is already receiving pushback from pro-LGBT Christians, a rapidly-growing subset of American Christianity that includes several major denominations. Groups such as the Presbyterian Church (USA), Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and United Church of Christ (UCC) now ordain people who are openly LGBT and allow ministers to perform same-sex weddings, and a 2015 Public Religion Research Institute survey found that the better part of most major American religious groups now embrace marriage equality.
These progressive faithful include Bishop Gene Robinson, the first openly gay man ordained as an Episcopal bishop. Although he took issue with Mohler’s theology of marriage, he theorized that Mohler’s stance against wedding attendance may be more about strategy and psychology than spirituality — namely, keeping people from experiencing a joyous LGBT wedding.
“In my experience as a pastor, parents who refuse to attend their gay child’s wedding do virtually irreparable harm to that relationship, and often come to regret it later,” Robinson, who is also a fellow at the Center for American Progress, told ThinkProgress in an email. “Those who do attend are often struck by the intentionality of the ceremony’s words and actions, in contrast to the taken-for-granted nature of some heterosexual weddings.”
“Perhaps Rev. Mohler is worried that if parents attend such a wedding, all they will see is a sacred and holy commitment being made between two people and an invitation to God to be present in the couple’s relationship — as Christian as any marriage could be,” he said.
Alex McNeil, head of pro-LGBT advocacy group More Light Presbyterians, also noted the transformational impact same-sex weddings can have on attendees. McNeil’s denomination, the Presbyterian Church (USA), boasts around 2 million members nationwide.
“Jesus called us to love one another, not boycott our friends and family,” McNeil said. “Perhaps Rev. Mohler is concerned that if he attends a same-sex wedding, the real miracles won’t be Jesus turning water into wine, but hatred into compassion.”
Rev. Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, a UCC minister and head of marriage equality advocacy group Campaign for Southern Equality, said Mohler’s comments fail to account for the caused by skipping out on the wedding of a loved one. Beach-Ferrara, who works out of a church, argued that Mohler and other Christians who oppose marriage equality should spend more time considering Jesus Christ’s teachings on reconciliation than pushing for exclusion.
“As a minister, I have officiated weddings that parents do not attend because they disapprove of the marriage, and I can tell you first hand about the heartache this causes a couple,” Beach-Ferrara said. “But those who are absent also miss out — on the joy of celebrating love and family, on all that can happen when we open our hearts to the Holy Spirit, which is surely present when two people take sacred vows to commit their lives to one another. And these great costs are exactly why God urges us toward reconciliation instead of alienation, connection instead of estrangement.”
Granted, Mohler’s comments are primarily directed at fellow evangelical Christians, not liberal mainline denominations who long ago distanced themselves from the Religious Right. But even among theological conservatives, the movement for LGBT equality is on the rise: Evangelical leaders such as ethicist David Gushee and activist Matthew Vines have both come out in favor of LGBT rights and marriage equality, and several SBC churches are starting to embrace LGBT members.
The SBC has generally responded to LGBT-affirming congregations by kicking them out of the church, and the denomination’s new stance against “ex-gay” ministries is largely perceived as a half-measure at best. But with so many American Christians embracing same-sex unions — and attending same-sex weddings — it’s an open question as to how long Mohler and others can ignore calls from fellow Christians to treat LGBT couples the same as everyone else.
“So many American families include LGBT people and are finding a way to stay together, to grow in their love,” Beach-Ferrara said. “I pray that, in time, Rev. Mohler can open his heart to all that happens when we show up for those we love instead of condemning them.”
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The post Right-Wing Pastor Tells Christians To Boycott Same-Sex Weddings. These Christians Disagree. appeared first on ThinkProgress.
Jack Jenkins
thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2015/10/17/3713009/al-mohler-dont-go-to-weddings-because-jesus-or-something/
Pat Robertson Applauds Man Who Barred Grandson's Boyfriend From Thanksgiving Dinner
Pat Robertson Applauds Man Who Barred Grandson's Boyfriend From Thanksgiving Dinner
Pat Robertson is gearing up for the holidays by expressing more anti-gay rhetoric.
The conservative televangelist praised a “700 Club” viewer this week for telling his gay grandson that he couldn’t bring his “friend” to Thanksgiving dinner, Right Wing Watch is reporting. The viewer said he told his grandson that “the presence of his sex partners would not be welcome” during the holiday meal, which Robertson said was “taking the right stand.”
Likening the request to someone inviting a stripper to a Thanksgiving meal, Robertson said it was “outrageous” for the grandson to ask the family to go against its moral values and allow him to bring his boyfriend to their home.
“There’s a real good chance that he might come out of that so-called lifestyle,” Robertson said. “He’s trying to get you to affirmatively accept what he’s doing, and you don’t want to do it. He’s trying to force you to do something.”
The remarks, of course, aren’t particularly surprising given Robertson’s well-established views on the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. Last month, he implied that recent turmoil in the global stock market was somehow tied to growing acceptance of same-sex marriage.
“If there is was ever a time that we need the grace of God, it is now,” he said. “Unless something is done to change the courts and to change the way this country is going, it is just a question of time before the fabric ruptures and we’ll all suffer because of it.”
Earlier this year, he also told a woman to forgive her husband of 11 years after he apparently cheated on her with a male friend he’d met at their church when they were drunk, saying, “he didn’t know what he was dealing with.”
Eh, happy holidays to you, too, Pat!
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Open Question: When the LGBT community plays street fighter, do they always choose Poison?
Open Question: When the LGBT community plays street fighter, do they always choose Poison?
Man At Wits’ End Over Wife Who Leaves Him Every Weekend To Party Hard At Gay Clubs
Man At Wits’ End Over Wife Who Leaves Him Every Weekend To Party Hard At Gay Clubs
We get it — gays have more fun.
But one Manchester, UK woman is trying to tap into the everlasting gay revelry while excluding her husband, and frankly, he’s getting the short end of the stick.
The understandably frustrated husband posted online seeking advice with his predicament:
She won’t ever go out with anyone other than these gay male friends, turns down invitiations from friends etc., apart from family friends, doesn’t even want to spend time with me, doing “couple-y” things, but I do.
She’s always going to gay bars with the male friends, and very rarely anywhere else and refuses to let me come with her, claims I wouldnt like it, I wouldnt get on with them but that argument seems weird to me. Surely if theyre good people their sexualitys not an issue?. It’s very odd this behaviour and I just can’t understand why she does this.
I’m not against her having a good time or jealous of her being with other men, it’s how she ends up afterwards that I’m concerned about.
She always ends up with either a bruised leg, a sore stomach, a grazed knee, or struggles to stand up, let alone walk and has to be helped by one of her friends, or comes in so drunk her speech is slurred… always after these nights out.
She does this every Friday and Saturday night and only rarely spends a night in with me.
Why is she like this.
Please help me deal with the situation, I just can’t cope with this.
The couple has been married for 18 months, and her insistence to spend her weekend nights away from her husband isn’t a good sign by any standard.
But why is it always at gay bars? And what would be the harm in him coming along one night, unless he’s just that awful to be around?
It’s possible she’s using the partying as a guilt-free means to escape a marriage that isn’t what she’d hoped for. She gets to hang around attractive men, ogle gogos and get wasted in an environment that feels safer than a straight nightclub.
One gay male reader wrote in with this advice to a similar end:
First, she likely thinks that her girlfriends would judge her for going out all the time without you, so she bypasses this by going out with her gay friends.
Second, by going to a gay bar, she has the excuse that since it’s a gay bar, in her mind she’s not going to cheat on you. So she thinks you have no reason to be jealous because, hey, they’re gay, it’s harmless fun!
Last, she’s one of these women who thinks going to a gay bar is just an absolute riot! Gay bars are like a circus to her, and in her mind, because being gay is already sooooo out there, she thinks she can get away with more wild and inappropriate behavior. She’s having a riot! She thinks that gay men are just so much more fun and attractive than straight guys, and because she is acting so outrageously, she is just bathing in their attention.
And she’s drinking so much because she’s likely trying to keep up with her gay friends, ignoring the fact that generally men have a higher alcohol tolerance, and that the gay community as a whole tends to drink more anyway.
This isn’t about her gay friends though, if they weren’t in the picture, she’d be finding some other outlet.
I think your marriage is in trouble, and the two of you should get into marriage counseling.
Hit it on the head. Also, we hope to never run into her out and about.
Dan Tracer
Ana Mari Cauce Named UW President, is First Woman, First Openly Gay Person, First Latina to Hold Position
Ana Mari Cauce Named UW President, is First Woman, First Openly Gay Person, First Latina to Hold Position
The University of Washington this week named Ana Mari Cauce as its president. Cause is the first woman, first openly gay person, and first Latina to hold the position.
Said Cauce:
“I am grateful to the Board and to the search committee for the confidence they are placing in me to lead this amazing University. We have assembled here one of the great faculties of any university on Earth, and we attract the most ambitious and remarkable students. They come here to study and learn. They transform their lives and, we hope, the lives of others. I am immensely proud of who we are as a University — one that is dedicated to access and excellence. These values are the hallmark of what it means to be a great public university, and I am thrilled at the prospect of how much more we can do for our students, for the state of Washington, and for people around the world whose lives we touch in some way.”
UW reports:
The search for the UW president began last spring with the appointment by the Board of the Presidential Search Advisory Committee, chaired by Chancellor Emeritus Kenyon Chan and comprising 28 individuals representing all segments of the University community and its supporters: five students, six faculty members, six administrators/staff, six community leaders, and four Regents. The Regents engaged Witt/Kieffer Search Consultants to assist in the search.
The post Ana Mari Cauce Named UW President, is First Woman, First Openly Gay Person, First Latina to Hold Position appeared first on Towleroad.
Andy Towle
Open Question: Did Burger King discontinue their lgbt rainbow whopper?
Open Question: Did Burger King discontinue their lgbt rainbow whopper?
12 Very Real Modern Urban Gay Problems Told In Memes
12 Very Real Modern Urban Gay Problems Told In Memes
Contrary to popular belief, urban gay life isn’t always all that it’s cracked up to be, even in our post-marriage equality world. And the problems run much deeper than those nasty Republican presidential candidates.
Outwardly our lives may appear to be absolutely fabulous, far superior to our poor sex-starved hetero counterparts, but within our burgeoning community, there are a number of grievances that plague our everyday existence.
Scroll down for 12 memes depicting the plight of the modern gay man living in a gay enclave…
Graham Gremore
Cusanau – Mardi Gras Caerdydd / Cardiff, 2012
Rhisiart Hincks posted a photo:
Pokoù
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Pògan
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Musuak
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Kisses
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Wedi ei ailolygu / Adwelet a-nevez / Re-edited: 9/2015
