Oooo! A Baptist Church in Dallas is totally garnering gay ire after dedicating a sermon to why gay is not “o.k.” What, we wonder, is okay?
[via Dallas Voice]
Not O.K.?
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walt zipprian
What could anybody expect from an asshole baptist church in asshole dallas?
Baptists are assholes and dallas is the seat of asshole.
SuperCat
This is not surprising. I really hate religion, it pervades society too much.
Obama becoming President was no surprise, he’s Christian after all.
Now what would be really unlikely is an openly atheist person becoming president.
David Hauslaib, Queerty
How nice of them to include their phone number on the sign.
Chris
Someone needs to throw three rocks at that sign so that it says, “Why Gay is OK”
REBELComx
Matthew 19: 3-6 is Jesus saying that DIVORCE is wrong. Jesus was being tested by the pharisees and does not say that god created man and woman for each other, but quesions the pharisees’ knowledge. If these people insist on criticizing others for taking their words out of context, perhaps they shouldn’t do it themselves. Read the next few verses! Jesus even talks about eunuchs.
And no matter you read it, it DOESN’T matter. Bibilical verses are not the bases of laws in a democracy.
seanq
Just called and spoke with someone at the church about the sign. Give them a ring and voice your dissatisfaction.
fredo777
What’d they say?
Don’t leave us hangin’, mang.
Yes. Mang.
jack jett
David
Thanks for pointing out the number. Dallas becomes more and more homophobic by the second.
When shit like this comes out, not one of our straight publications, support us. Listed below are the emails for the staff at this church we will be protesting at this weekend.
Dr. Robert Jeffress Senior Pastor
Rev. Walter Guillaume Executive Pastor
Doran Bugg Minister of Music [email protected]
Ryland Whitehorn Minister of Education education
@firstdallas.org
John Grable Minister of Communications communications
@firstdallas.org
Sherryn Cates Business & Facilities Administrator businessoffice
@firstdallas.org
Alan Lynch Pastoral Ministry Pastoralmin
@firstdallas.org
seanq
she just said ok after each statement I made and told me that my comments would be reported. no commitment to changing the sign… yet@fredo777:
Trenton
I wish I had a crappy, little marquee so I could post petty, derisive statements about religious people. That’d really show ’em what fer.
fredo777
lol @ Trenton
Thanks for the update, too, SeanQ.
Jennifer
What’s ok is being white, male, heterosexual and a big, fat bigot. All others sit at the back of the bus.
jamal jackson
What a great land America is. We elected an African American for president to declare racial equality to the world. Also, we voted to ban homosexual marriage to declare that homosexual marriages have nothing to do with equality but insanity. America is great.
jamal jackson
@walt zipprian: Hey walt, what’s this with you and assholes? Oh wait, I get it…
fredo777
Speaking of assholes…
ChristopherM
Interesting that the following sermon is on the transformed heart. One wonders what they plan to transform it into? Perhaps something that could show a little bit of understanding, kindness, and justice for their fellow people? Yeah, I thought not.
Greg
Please someone in texas do something about this!!! This can no longer be tolerated. smash the sign. rally. protest. stand up!
Tim
Romans Chapter 2
1You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. 2Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. 3So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? 4Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance?
fredo777
Greg, encouraging destruction of their property isn’t exactly going to put we gays in any better social standing + would just serve to make us look like destructive hooligans.
We’re better than that.
GranDiva
I mean, geez, I would have guessed that everyone would have known how wonderful FBCD was after they refused to let the American Choral Directors Association’s southwestern division use their sanctuary for an honor concert during a convention because three of the four honor ensembles were the Turtle Creek Chorale, the Women’s Chorus of Dallas and the two choirs combined as a mixed (and very gay) massed choir over a decade ago, but oh, well…
Thankfully, the much more reasonable First United Methodist Church, literally right around the corner in downtown Dallas, was far more accepting, and allowed the concert, introduced by an openly gay member of the Dallas city council, to proceed in their sanctuary in what has to be the biggest Protestant nose-thumbing in Texas history.
Charles J. Mueller
This is a copy and paste of an email I just sent to [email protected]. Calling them at the number listed on their marque or emailing them at the address I just provided, will get much better results than merely airing our gripes on Queerty.
Dear Dr. Robert Jeffress,
This is in response to your Church marque announcement of your upcoming sermon to be delivered on Sunday, November 9, 2008 entitled “Why Gay is Not O.K.?”
The subject matter of your upcoming sermon made me wonder why you could not find a more timely, important and suitable subject on which to dwell as a man of the cloth who should be preaching about God’s love and acceptance of all of his creatures, not just a certain few who meet with his favor.
In case you are suffering from a lack of topics on which to pontificate from your lofty, self-righteous pulpit, may I suggest a few for your consideration?
How about a sermon on why bigotry is not O.K.?
How about a sermon on why hatred is not O/K.?
How about a sermon on why discrimination is not O.K.?
How about a sermon on why the judging of other mortals is not O.K.?
How about a sermon on why denying the civil rights of some 30 million fellow, gay Americans is not O.K.?
How about a sermon on why deliberately taking comments out of context, distorting the facts and outright lying are not O.K.?
How about a sermon on why 126,000 homeless children, the progeny of heterosexual parents in America, is not O.K.?
How about a sermon on why allowing some 38,000 children worldwide to starve to death daily is not O.K.?
How about a sermon on why Churches involving themselves in politics while at the same time, enjoying a tax-free status as a religious institution is not O.K.?
How about a sermon on why the failure of some 50% of all heterosexual marriages in America is not O.K.?
Are you beginning to get my drift yet, Dr. Jeffress?
Or, are you just so fascinated with where a man places his penis that you just can’t seem to focus on anything else?
Perhaps homo-obsessed folks like you are simply suffering from latent homosexuality!
How else would one explain your morbid preoccupation with gay-sex?
Dan
@Greg:
Pleading with people to destroy a sign because you don’t like what someone is saying on it isn’t how you convince people to let you marry when the reason they’re scared to let you marry is that they’re afraid you’re going to try to persecute them for their beliefs. You’re just validating their fears and that’s incredibly counterproductive to your cause.
paul-e-wog
@jack jett: Jack will there be a physical protest at the church site, and if so what time?
I’m interested in joining this protest as I’m so sick to death of these backwards bigots.
Tex Tradd
@Chris:
Throwing rocks at signs is for barbarians and yobs.
We all need to remember that free speech is the core principle of liberal civilization.
Challenge those you disagree with to a debate if you expect to win the support of those of us who defend the liberal tradition.
Good ideas win out through free speech. Did you ever see MLK throw rocks?
CHURCHILL-Y
At least they’re being upfront about it unlike other denominations like the AME church who does it’s anti-Gay instructing inside it’s walls and on the voting booth.
Charles J. Mueller
When the Religious Right executioner is putting the noose around my neck, I must remember to thank him/her/it, for having the decency to be up front about their intent to dispatch me to hell just for having the audacity to affront them with my queerness. lol
Raven
@Tex Tradd: No, but he had been stoned a few times. 😀
ChristopherM
@CHURCHILL-Y:
Oh for fuck’s sake, can you please take every example of bigotry and try and turn it around on black people? Oh wait, you do.
aladdin
IF YOU READ THE SCRIPTURE OF MATTHEW 19: 3-6
3Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”
4″Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,'[a] 5and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'[b]? 6So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”
SHOULDN’T THE SERMON BE CALLED ‘WHY DIVORCE IS NOT O.K?’
Doesn’t really have much to do with being gay.
Steve
Individual preachers have been preaching hate for hundreds of years. The tradition started when the Catholic church discovered, in about 1100 AD, that they could profit by condemning people and then selling forgiveness. Condemning various people allows the preacher to increase his own power, and to use that power to gain wealth.
It won’t stop, either. When one individual church member realizes that the preacher is actually motivated by power and wealth, that one person or family usually stops supporting that church. If the preacher can recruit new members faster than old members leave, he can continue to profit. This use of condemnation for profit is the whole basis of the so-called “fundamentalist” and “evangelical” churches.
There is a new movement of churches, called “progressive”, that stands in opposition to the fundamentalists and evangelicals. Progressive churches teach love and acceptance, not hate and condemnation. (See, http://www.tcpc.org) The progressive churches include, among many others, the UFMCC (http://www.mccchurch.org).
I often wonder what it would take for some “progressive” church to do a huge outreach, by television broadcasting, similar to the several evangelical churches that broadcast every week.
Mark
This is so typical of the Christian Church, that Baptist church in particular in Dallas, and religious Texans in general. They must lie to make their point. I know, I used to live there. I escaped a long time ago. One of the reasons was on that sign.
Using an admonition about divorce to exclude gays from civil rights is pure desperation by a religion that is totally hollow inside.
And proof that this church has no interest in a republic is their insistence on mixing their particular brand of church with the State.
It’s time now. It’s time to shun Christians openly and with fervor. They are using their religion to deny civil rights to Americans. Let me say it again: using RELIGION to DENY AMERICANS CIVIL RIGHTS.
When a church does this it’s time to single them out for ridicule and to expose their lies. The church relies on people NOT reading the Bible. They rely on IGNORANCE. They especially rely on liberals, who support civil rights, to not have a clue about what’s in the Bible.
Well, for those liberals who haven’t read the Bible or studied it at any length, there’s Google. The Church is mindlessly unaware that ANYONE with a browser can simply look up anything they want, expose their lies, and flip them the bird.
The Mormons deserve the protests in UT, the Catholic Church deserves ridicule for their support of the Mormons and that Baptist church deserves a good old fashioned ASS WHIPPING in public for this lie, too.
Dan
Mark-
You made a rather revealing statement that I think exposes the fallacy of so much of the rhetoric that is being bandied about on both sides of this debate. Just because the internet says something doesn’t make it true. Hopefully cooler and more objective heads will prevail in the end. I would hate to think that our country’s legislation is being driven by subjective and emotional ignoramuses.
Larry In Dallas
I live in Dallas and let me tell you: The alleged “minister” of this local hate group called the Baptist Church is absolutely using his attack on gays to conceal his own self-loathing homo-urges. He is creepy beyond measure and I would bet my life that he is in a “straight” marriage of convenience. When when WHEN is this country going to start forcing churches that practice politics and discrimination from the pulpit to pay taxes?
Blockade Boy
I’m an atheist. When I came out here in Wichita, KS, I was surprised to learn that most of the LGBT folks I met were devout Christians. Meeting people who belong to progressive churches helped me to soften my stance on religion somewhat. While I still view it as unnecessarily divisive, I now think that some sects can be socially benevolent. Those are the ones that focus on truly helping people instead of condemning them or screwing up their minds. And I think that a lot of folks have a need for things that religion provides — community, spirituality, etc. (My boyfriend, an ex-fundamentalist, fills the void with 12-step group meetings; he prays to “the universe” instead of to a god.) Religion isn’t going anywhere. However, I think the average, vaguely-religious American would feel more comfortable supporting gay rights if they knew how many church-going (or whatever) LGBT people there were. As it is, I think they’ve swallowed the evangelical bullshit about how “gay = anti-God”.
Matthew
@walt zipprian: hey i live in dallas to….please don’t join me with him!!! I am not an asshole and Dallas is a great place to live….
Matthew
@paul-e-wog:
Protest on Sunday
Second FBC Protest
Sunday, November 16 at 10 AM
Protest Anti-Gay Sermon at
First Baptist Church
1707 San Jacinto, Dallas, Texas 75201
On Sunday, November 9
, over 100 GLBT
Dallasites, their friends, families, and supporters
protested outside of the First Baptist Church in
downtown Dallas, in response the their anti-gay
“Why Gay is Not OK†sermon.
The majority of church goers pretended we did
not exist, and would rather not see us as people
at all. We had a good turn out of supporters,
and the DMN and most local TV news stations
were there as well. The only thing we were
missing was YOU!
Next week the church plans on continuing their
anti-gay propaganda with another sermon
about how to confront a homosexual. Please, join
your GLBT brothers and sisters and stand with
them against the lies and misinformation being
spread about you.
Dan
Matthew-
I think church-goers are trying to avoid confrontation with a protest not because they don’t want to see you as people, but because they want to avoid confrontation with a protest. I don’t find it very enlightened to condemn their perceived lies and misinformation when you’re spreading misinformation of your own. If you can’t win an argument unless you’re dishonest, maybe you need to find another argument.