(cc photo: mar is sea Y)
USA Today‘s front-page headline (5/31/13):
Churches Sever Scout Sponsorship
The online headline, over Bob Smietana’s piece on the reaction of church groups that sponsor Boy Scout troops to the Scouts’ announced plan to accept gay Scouts was longer but no less sweeping:
Religious Regretfully Sever Scout Sponsorships
That’s bad news for the Scouts, since as the article points out, “about 70 percent of Scout troops are chartered by a faith-based group.” Must be tough, losing seven out of 10 sponsors all at once.
Except the article doesn’t report what the headlines claim at all. The article quotes one church leader, of Roswell Street Baptist Church in Marietta, Georgia, who says he’s going to stop sponsoring a Scout troop. Then it says:
Roswell Street is one of the first churches to cut ties with the Scouts over the new policy. Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, a 23,000-member megachurch, has also announced plans to shut down its troop. Other critics of the new policy, which doesn’t take effect until January 2014, are taking a wait-and-see approach.
So: “Two Churches Sever Scout Sponsorship” would be a more accurate headline.
The piece actually quotes more people who are happy with the change, or are willing to go along with it. A Catholic bishop says the Scouts’ new policy, which accepts the participation of gay Boy Scouts (but not Scout leaders), “is not inconsistent with church teaching, which upholds the dignity of each and every human being, regardless of sexual orientation.”
A minister from the United Church of Christ says that breaking with the Scouts over the new policy “sends a terrible message to youth of any sexual orientation.”
The executive director of Members of the Churches of Christ for Scouting disagrees with the policy change, but says churches should “not take their ball and go home.”
Given that most people in the United States are religious in one way or another, it’s unsurprising that religious reactions to the Boy Scouts’ change in policy are as broad as the reactions of the country as a whole: Some are outraged, some are enthusiastic, some are ambivalent. (I’ll bet you could find religious leaders who wish the change had gone further and ended discrimination against adult leaders who are gay as well.)
But too often in corporate media, “churches” means the most conservative churches and “religious” means the most reactionary forms of religion. Thus the subhead of the print version of the story is a quote, “‘We are not willing to compromise God’s word'”–attributed to no one, as though it’s…the word of God.
The fact is that many people dispute the idea that the Bible says homosexuality is a sin–or urges believers to shun sinners. Those people don’t get a subhead on the front-page of USA Today.
FOOTNOTE: That link on “dispute” goes to a fascinating document by Mel White, a former ghostwriter for Jerry Falwell who became an advocate for a more inclusive Christianity after coming out of the closet. He points out that many passages in the Bible don’t say what homophobic Christians want them to say. For example, what was the sin that got Sodom destroyed? Sodomy, right? Not according to Ezekiel (16:48-49): “This is the sin of Sodom; she and her suburbs had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not help or encourage the poor and needy. They were arrogant and this was abominable in God’s eyes.”
Given that description of Sodom
Those in power in these here United States might cast a wary eye to the heavens.
And to say that a policy “is not inconsistent with church teaching, which upholds the dignity of each and every human being, regardless of sexual orientation”, while that policy denies the dignity of gay adults
Might be seen as inconsistent itself, don’t you think?
[Thanks, FAIR. Am submitting something I ran into on the web.]
USA – from Puritans to Impure-itans
Is there a connection between beautiful New England and entire American cities turned into smoking rubble? There is.
Take same-sex marriage. I would have guessed that a “sin” city (San Francisco? Las Vegas?) would have been the first to legalize it.
Oddly it’s been the place where America started that’s wanted to be the first place to help bring about the end of America and its values! It’s been a Nor’easter of Perversion (helping to fulfill the end time “days of Lot” predicted in Luke 17) that began in (you guessed it) Boston in 2004.
New England has gone from the Mayflower Compact to the Gay Power Impact, from Providence to decadence, from Bible thumpers to God dumpers, from university to diversity to perversity, and from the land of the Great Awakening to God’s Future Shakening that will make the Boston bombings look like Walden Pond ripples by comparison!
The same Nor’easter has been spreading south and as far west as Washington State where, after swelling up with pride, Mt. Rainier may wish to celebrate shame-sex marriage by having a blast that Seaddlepated folks can share in lava-land!
The same Luke 17 prediction is tied to the Book of Revelation which speaks of the cities that God will flatten because of same-sexism – including American cities – a scenario I’ll have to accept since I can’t create my own universe and decree rules for it.
I’ve just been analyzing the world’s terminal “religion” that has its “god,” its accessories, its “rites,” and even a flag. It’s an obsession that the infected converts are willing to live for, fight for – and even die for!
Want more facts? Google “God to Same-Sexers: Hurry Up,” “Government-Approved Illegals,” and “The Background Obama Can’t Cover Up.”
“”So: “Two Churches Sever Scout Sponsorship” would be a more accurate headline.”” – The article
Then Again “two sticks can make a fire if you can rub them together”. Let us hope any ‘fire we start’ is the Heat of Acceptance, not the Flame of Hatred.
Hate is not a Family Value; nor is it “Value added”.
This whole discussion is weird.First scouts(most)are very young boys who legally have not entered the points of legally being able to engage in sexual relations- let alone be legally able to designate their preference(and really that is all it is up to that point)I understand the scout leader debate….but the actual scouts?
The evil myth of hetero sexual supremacy?Im a little at a loss at that statement.Evil?How is it evil to state that from the smallest ameba , right on up to human kind- that at some level same sex preference for sexual relations may not work as well that which results in continuation of the species?Talk about trashing science for a special interest groups social proclivities.Better said ……procreation is EVIL.Silly.I could live with The myth of hetero sexual supremacy in (qualifier here)raising children lets say.But to just say it is evil to live as the great majority of people live is evil>??????Stupid
@michael e: Amoebas reproduce asexually, Dr. Science.
So John does that mean the asexual little critter is more evil that heterosexual beings?With only same sex things being non evil?
@michael e: No, it mostly means that you don’t really know what you’re talking about; if you think that amoebas engage in any kind of sexual relations, then you’re the last person who should be lamenting the trashing of science.
Add to that, the fact that there is species of animals who do practice forms of what we humans thing of as “Homosexual”, and Micheal is the second to the last person on earth qualified to discuss anything related to the subject. The Last person on earth with any right to discuss the matter is the Head Moron Troll of Westboro baptist church who uses the Homosexual debate to make money for his church, thus being a Homo-pimp.
And I will bet that Micheal E is also totally unaware that in some species of animal, in order to have “union” as we would call it, it take a Menage’ a Trois, with one of the party’s being “asexual”. But then, after reading many of his post, that is not a surprise to anyone.
Mel (“selectively quoting”) White purposely covered up the next verse (Ezek. 16:50) which reveals that “the men of Sodom” (see Gen. 19:4f) committed the “abomination” Ezekiel talks about by trying to break into Lot’s house to have sex with the “men” (Gen. 19:5) who were visiting Sodom! The “inhospitality” was attempted sexual assault and it was committed by men who forcibly tried to have sex with other men! Mel, your little “White” lie isn’t so little!