Sorry Mr Savage but it's you and those like you that force churches like this to make such decisions.

An Christian church can no more tacitly approve of openly sinful and, more to the point, highly self destructive behavior like homosexuality than they could host a swingers convention.

Your insistence on a society whose legal parameters are set by a self selecting tiny minority is what caused this church to make this choice.

This is pretty much all I can muster from the

"I don't hate gays but..." or "Religious discrimination!"

articles nowadays.

I believe the Southern Baptists broke away from the national Baptist convention as a pro slavery church before or during the civil war. Not sure they ever renounced that position.

The author assumes that there was some kind of reasoning behind this decision. It's a Baptist church - they run on faith, not reason. If Jesus tells them to hate the gays, then that's what they're going to do.

@1 My link @2 also works as a response to your comment! Imagine that!

Man, that is beautiful. Thank you for linking us!

What an eloquent article. Beautifully written.

Shame on that church. Their position is the logical and moral equivalent of: "We shall not hand out bread to the hungry because sinners might eat it." Really? Way to miss the important stuff.

Thank you for posting that. It condenses something that has been nagging at me for a long time.

That is fantastic. I'm actually kind of heartened that more congregations haven't done the same after the BSA made the decision to allow openly gay scouts.

I also have to let you know that something else has been happening with regard to scouts. Many progressive congregations that had refused to sponsor a Boy Scout Troop in the past because of their policies excluding openly gay scouts are reconsidering that now. My own bishop put the word out to the Boy Scout Councils in southeast Texas and south Louisiana that if any troop loses their home as result of the decisions, an ELCA congregation will happily sponsor them.

@1 - You're not sorry. And no one is forcing churches to kick out Boy Scouts. This is a choice - a choice based on homophobia. They have the right to make that choice, and we all have the right to think less of them for it.

To be religious requires some level of suspension of reality. Some call it faith, some call it fantasy. This leads to Southern Baptists being cool with the BSA handing out merit badges to those who deny Christ (Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, etc.) while demanding the banning of Christian kids who are gay. So being gay is worse than denying their Savior? See, religion does make you stupid. How stupid just depends on how religious.

@1 - You didn't actually read it, did you? The linked article is about the loss to the community because the church has inconsistently applied their own rules. The church had no problem with the BSA accepting Buddhist or Muslim scouts (and, he points out, rewarding them for service to their respective religious communities), but for some reason, the prospect of a gay scout somewhere is enough for this church to cut all ties with the organization.

@1 All people are sinful? Churches are full of sinners? Gasp! Churches approve of sin! If only Jesus had you around at the beginning to set things straight.

(And being gay isn't a sin but then you already know that...)

Sin. Oh what a fucking useless word. Isn't being loved by Christ great Seattleblues? Doesn't it just fill you with love and compassion and humility? Don't you just feel so happy to experience such grace when you're so less than worthy? Don't you just want to extend that grace to everyone...even if you don't understand them?

Where is the Spirit in your words?

Anyways, a Christian church could DEFINITELY host a swingers convention. Check your facts bro.

It's really hard for me to empathize with the crocodile tears of so-called "Christians" complaining that the world doesn't approve of them when they make short-sighted decisions based on bias. Read your Bible. The world will not love you. Your job is to keep on doing the "right" thing without applying judgment. If you really followed your faith, you'd accept it and move on.

Seattle Blues, your selfish, bigoted ideas promote cruelty. Shame on you.

Eh, the way I see it, we should really just throw out the baby, the bathwater, the tub, and maybe burn the house down for good measure. The better question is why people are so concerned with the equality policies of a hyper-normative, authoritarian, militarist organization in the first place. Fuck the Boy Scouts. I care about this about as much as I care about whether the Klan allows gay people or gets to meet in church basements.

Baptist churches have a long history of bringing misery with their self righteous hypocrisy. The kids are way better off without it.

I think sb's post is quite telling. He/she simply repeats the stance which the author of the article completely dismantles. There's no original thinking going on from the homophobic crowd, they've nothing to offer that we haven't heard x1K before. They have no response & they will never have one. The world is changing, and they're like peter pan, refusing to grow up, refusing to adapt. Perhaps they *can't* grow up, their minds are so locked they can't adapt to a shifting, changing world. No wonder they hate evolution, they're an evolutionary dead end.

I've got girls, so what happens with the "hyper-normative, authoritarian, militarist organization" (thx @16) certainly doesn't affect me. However, when I heard about the Girl Scouts organization getting in trouble by some Christians because *one* troop went to a class at Planned Parenthood, it made me think, "yeah, that's a probably a good organization". So now my older two are girl scouts. Turns out it's a great organization for empowering girls.

(It's also a money-grubbing, time-consuming rich-kid-with-a-stay-at-home-mom organization but still: empowered girls ain't so bad...)

So the Boy Scouts allowing gay kids may lose them some "Christian" support, but they might get the attention of some liberals who'd never thought of them for their own kids before now.

Scout meeting in a church? Fuck a bunch of that. The kids are probably stoked they don't have to meet there anymore.

@21 Doug, I know it seems messed up, but many churches allow their spaces to be used for community needs. My neighborhood doesn't have a community space, so a few of the churches fill that need. They don't interfere with the meetings or the lessons. They've got these great (tax-free) buildings that are only used for their primary purpose for a few hours a week.

My GS troop stopped meeting at the church we'd been using because the group who use the space just before our meetings is a tae kwon do class. The stench from twenty pubescent children was nauseating.

Otherwise, the facility was great. Restrooms, tables, chairs, grassy field, white board...

At least the troop can meet elsewhere. A troop down here decided to just disband rather than let gay kids in.

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/…

@22 I know I know I know I know, but as a former child that was forced to attend both Cub Scouts and church, I would'a been exponentially bummed if the two things had to happen simultaneously (even though the church part was exactly "happening"). Ironically, as I teenager I always thought it was kinda rad when there was punk shows in church basements (like St. Joseph's on Aloha), it seem nicely sacrilegious, despite most church halls having all the religious decor of a VWF hall.

My troop always just met at the den mother or troop leader or whoever was in charge's house. Guess I figured that was the norm.

@24My troop always just met at the den mother or troop leader or whoever was in charge's house.
-----------------
So how did that work, anyway? Any meetings my kids were in - even my Brownies meetings back in the sixties - were pretty active, with a lot of kids. You can't really play floor hockey at somebody's house. Did you just sit around and talk?

Did you just sit around and talk?

@25 - Actually, yeah, that's kinda how I remember it. Very crafts heavy. I either belonged to the lamest troop of all time (possible), or Webelos was like the worst year to be in the Scouts. I don't exactly remember mountain climbing or sky diving being on the badge checklist. I think I was simply there for my refusal to play another year of soccer, which I also hated.

Maybe it was for the best, since I totally love camping/hiking/general outdoors stuff now, the Scouts probably would'a messed that up for me somehow if we'd actually left the house.

@19 All your basic monotheistic religions believe there is only one God. If they really believe this, no one could ever be considering worshiping the wrong God, since there is only one. The most anyone from one monotheistic religion could accuse someone from another monotheistic religion of doing is worshiping (the only) God the wrong way.

As for polytheistic religions, prophets, martyrs, etc., a true monotheist (who believes there is only one God), should be able to cross-reference this in his (or her) own head that those are obviously aspects or representatives of the same ol' God that they worship.

Monotheism = a belief that there is only one God. So how the FUCK could it ever be the WRONG one?!? There'd have to be more than one, and that should not compute.

Oh, and fuck Paul Baxter and his merry stooges at LaGrange First Baptist. What an ass.

When God was all set to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, He agreed to spare the wicked for the sake of not destroying the righteous if even just ten righteous people could be found within Sodom's walls. The Almighty, the epitome of righteousness and fount of mercy, thought it right to show more kindness than deserved to TWO WHOLE CITIES filled with the scum of the earth, only for the sake of giving ten righteous persons their proper due. If doing right by ten pious men is worth pardoning thousands of impenitent sinners, why should hundreds of upstanding young citizens be punished for the sake of excluding a handful of those deemed sinful?
There's no theological basis for their spite. The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, one of the most vengeful divine acts recorded in the Pentateuch, speaks that they should be forgiving in this matter.

@1: Churches condone idolatry, explicitly breaking the Second Commandment (of the Ten) by displaying crucifixes and icons as objects of worship. They misapply the Fourth Commandment, celebrating the first day instead of the seventh. And some sects violate the first commandment in the entire Bible by committing their clergy to celibacy.
You Christians have no leg to stand on when it comes to Old Testament law. Don't presume.

@1: Also, it's not legbutts trying to set the laws about gay rights. It's every man, woman, child, and genderqueer special snowflake who believes that all citizens should be equal under the law that are getting the laws written. And, I'm glad to say, those of us on the side of equality massively outnumber you player haters*.

*"Don't hate the player, hate the game. Niggas, sharpen your aim."
Don't hate the player (legbutts), hate the game (human biology). The second sentence is left to your own interpretation. Go figure; if you out for mega cheddar, you got to go high risk.

1. The Scouts were right to lift their longstanding, unjust and un-Scoutlike ban on openly gay members.

2. But the churches don't have to support the Scouts if they don't want to, for any reason.

Supporting a Scout troop is a charitable act. It's not obligatory. This isn't like excluding blacks from voting in the primaries (the argument was made that because political parties are technically private, they can exclude whoever they want; this was overruled because they're such a big part of public political life in the U.S.). This church or even all churches withdrawing support from the Scouts does not destroy the Scouts. It'll probably be a hit, but it is possible for this troop to find support elsewhere, especially if they're as good at pounding the pavement as the Girl Scouts are.

Freedom of speech and expression is important. That means people have to be free to be illogical jerks and reasonably free to do what they want with their own resources. Maybe this church will come to its senses and maybe it won't, but it's more important for the country that, like the Boy Scouts, it be allowed to do so of its own free will.

@22 @66 Allyn and DougSF, it's not just you. GSUSA recently had a reorganization and rewrote all the patch requirements (changing them to "badges" and "journeys") and jettisoned the community service requirements, to all outward appearances so that everyone will get bored and quit. The girls hate it, the mothers hate it, the leaders hate it. My mom is still active in GS and rants about it at length. But the good news is that this change is new, the opposition is vocal, and this might turn out to be a New Coke situation. Hold out for Girl Scouting Classic!

But the impression that I get is that in both Boy and Girl Scouts, it depends on the leaders. If there are Scout leaders in that town who know how to sew, they teach the kids to sew. If there are leaders who know hiking and camping, they teach hiking and camping. If they are interested in the arts, they go on art trips. If they don't know $#@%, then they just sit around and have the girls braid lanyard. Some of my female friends were bored out of their gourds at GS meetings. I learned about identity theft at Scouts. My sister had my mom for a leader and they had an amazing time, learning cooking and camping and crafts and doing a ton of community service for their Gold Awards. Darn but that thing looks great on a college application.

@28 A man who knows his Bible?
WHat is this?

@32: Venomlash is a righteous Member of the Tribe. And yet so young . . .

Jason Rains really puts his finger on it. Why churches are drawing this particular line in the sand is weird beyond comprehension.

@30/31: Not clear what your point is. I don't think anyone has said that the church CAN'T exclude the Scouts, just that they're jerks--even using their own measuring stick--for doing so. Do you disagree?

But I agree with you on Girl Scouts. My girls are "old school" and we scrapped the "journey" crap in favor of skills and community service on about Day 2.

@35 My point is that while this church is undermining its own mission by refraining from supporting the Scouts on account of what should be a minor matter, this isn't as serious of an issue as, say, a school or a town banning all its students from participating in the Scouts or even the Scouts' former anti-gay policy itself. This church isn't even really excluding the Scouts from anything. It is just refraining from helping them, and if people haven't said otherwise, good.

Holy crud, are you in Seattle? The journeys are despised from coast to coast!

It's really sad to see a church kick out the scouts because they might - potentially - have gay members. Perhaps this church should go the next step and post qualifications at every door for admission to its services (and any auxiliary programs). "No gays" will definitely be on the list. And perhaps they should return to banning bastards (and their mothers of ill-repute), though I suppose the unidentified hypocrites who sired them may still continue to attend.

Well, at any rate, this church has just forfeited its Hospitality Badge though they're still able to remain in the private club category.

@38
AFAIK, sponsoring merely requires that the host group provide space at no cost on its premises. My own church (an MCC) is used by a gymnastics class, Toastmasters and adult twirlers - just off the top of my head - so that these groups can meet without having to charge participants for renting the space. It's good PR for the church (to be welcoming, IMO an intrinsic quality every church should demonstrate) and benefits the wider community.

@ 38 I suspect it's primarily a matter of providing a meeting place. There might be a little money involved, too, but it wouldn't amount to much - unless the BSA is very different from other Scouting organizations, the troops are largely self supporting with fees and the various fund-raisers they do during the year. The free meeting place is the valuable part, and most communities have other places besides bigot church halls. Community leagues, fraternal organizations, certain taxpayer-funded spaces, halls of non-bigoted churches.... A troop could even go the "den mother's house" route, though that certainly seems to have limitations. Any space that is reasonable rugged, yet kid friendly (not the back room at the strip joint, say) works.

The churches can do as they please, and we are all free to judge them on it.

They want to stop supporting scouting because scouting is doing something right and being more inclusive?

Good.

Let them teach these young and impressionable kids the truth about religion. That it is about exclusion, judgment and divisiveness.

The sooner these kids learn the truth the sooner they will come to the conclusion that religion is not good for them and give up on it.

I can't wait until all these sky fairy psych cases grow old and die off so we don't have to deal with their bullshit any more. I just hope I'm still around to enjoy it.

Your insistence on a society whose legal parameters are set by a self selecting tiny minority is what caused this church to make this choice.

I'd agree if a minority were setting legal parameters in the direction of restriction. Legal parameters that err on the side of allowance are necessary for the preservation of a civilization that allows true freedom of religion (i.e., moral self-determination).