Church cancels memorial for gay vet

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Welcome to my hometown, people.

Wonderful. The supposedly Reverend and definitely Ornery Fred Phelps doesn't even need to picket gay services when stuff like this occurs. For shame. I may be mildly homophobic, but I do support equal rights for heterosexuals and homosexuals, and this is just a slap in the face for the poor sod's family and friends. They claim it is on principle. BS. They're so full of ordure, you give 'em an enema, and they'll fit in a matchbox. Without taking out any matches first.

I always had been so confused about this:

I beleive it always something to do with me. I thought it had to do with me being sheltered all my life and so I don't learn anything, really.

But I do know that people who are gay are said to be tolerated here in america and that we give penalties for hate crimes. We are even thinking about extending them as to include people of religious beleifs expressing what is considered immoral.

But the media always seems to have negative stereotypes of people that are gay - except for the television series "Will and grace" which I never watched. This includes lyrics in music: although Eminem had a guest whom happened to be Elton John at one time.

Then I've heard from a few young "adult" people around me talk of behaviors that they considered gay such as being feminine etc.. Then it changed since so and so made a new friend who was gay but didn't seem "weird or anything". I always had a sense that people were confused and prejudgest anyway and it just feeds my perception.

I also can see that people are trying to find the "gay" gene. I read of these "discoveries" in a megazine I beleive was called "scientific america" and I thought that the these "discoveries" were a bit off track. It was something like "a piece of brain in woman responsible for sexual urges are a certain shape and size" then "a man that is gay has similar brain structures"...

These stereotypes are out of line of what makes a man a man: testosterone. Testosterone is responsible for masculinizing the brain and the body. People are not taught that human sexuality is variable and that it has nothing to do with being demasculinized or anything. This is why I have this general feeling that people that are "Gay" or anything among those lines are not so tolerated in society.

Also, gays are "different" and God forbid that anybody has the temerity to be different from the "norm", whatever that is.

Yesterday, I was at the gay Pride Festival in Reykjavik. It was overwhelming to
see first-hand how open and tolerant the society is here. Sixty-thousand people showed up in support
(which is about 1 in every 5 people living in Iceland). Mothers were there with young children
in strollers. Other children were sitting on the shoulders of adults to get a better view of the
floats. Most of the shops had gay flags (and the parade went along the main shopping district,
and not through a gay ghetto).

Avian, I think it is terrible that in some places in the US it is still not possible to have a
church burial if you are gay. Fortunately, there are some religious traditions that are more
tolerant of homosexuality than your hometown church.

I am not really shocked, I scarcely see the issue. Church's think that homosexuality is wrong so therefore they do not endorse it with a totally church related ceremony. It may seem somewhat offensive to the family but the church did offer to help them out with another non-church related ceremony so it is difficult to state that the church was merely spiteful.

"Simons said the decision had nothing to do with the obituary. He said the church offered to pay for another site for the service, made the video and provided food for more than 100 relatives and friends.

"Even though we could not condone that lifestyle, we went above and beyond for the family through many acts of love and kindness," Simons said."

They could be lying about the extent of their kindness but they are walking an unusual path through all of this, as a church of hate would likely feel a lot more justified in just being hateful. Avian might know more than I do, but this is just based upon what I perceive.

Really, I find it more shocking that people are shocked that a church would do something like this. Condemnation of a homosexual lifestyle is found in their bible in both new testament and old from what I can remember, of course they won't endorse it. It may be argued that they aren't doing all that they should about gluttony, greed, and other matters but failing by their own standards doesn't mean that they shouldn't try to uphold them. Let's just put it this way: the church is an organization made to uphold the bible, the bible says that homosexuality is wrong, should the church disavow its original purpose because it stands against progressive thought?

The church/Christianity is probably the largest reason why homosexuality isn't considered somewhat normal though, their condemnation existed before society's condemnation. The issue here is that multiple ideas of good exist, and the church has one different than many other people. I am really sort of surprised that people are shocked that others would dare to suggest a different principle of good than the one that they prefer, as well, technically, there is scarcely anything special to the principles we uphold as our virtues.

Rather disrespectful of the ex-soldier, but it's what they believe in.

Last edited by Anubis on 12 Aug 2007, 11:45 am, edited 1 time in total.

The only way I can see this being an issue is the feact that the church is tax exempt and therefore must adhere to federal anti-discrimination laws. They can't entirely be called a private orginization because of this.

If the church chooses to do this, fine... just start paying taxes. Most mega-churches like these ar just tax shelters for the rich anyways.

I know you can be gay and also be a vet but is there such a single entity as a 'gay vet' and do they only treat same sex animals?

Straight but not narrow here, and I'll tell you: I have never been able to stand living in a place where I'm surrounded by people who have mob-mentalities even when they're all by themselves.

Unfortunately I'm trapped like a rat in this vicinity, and am in a situation where I can't choose where to go live; I never felt more embarrassed for this place and people than when I read this story (which had made national news) and found out that this was going on only a couple of miles from me.

I hate things like that. I am assuming that everyone there is from some variety of Catholisism...
I left the church because I was fed up with all the anti-this anti-that views...

The thing that put me off church was when kids misbehaved noisily and the parents did nothing. If it happened now, I would write them a little note and say "please keep your child quiet or take them outside - I wish to hear the service". If they got cranky, too bad.

It's so sad, America was founded on the principle of freedom. The notion that people could peacefully live their lives as they pleased, as long as they didn't hurt other people, or break the law. It's a shame that in a country with so much freedom we spend so much time enforcing conformity, wether it's sexual preference, or simply unusual behavior.