Box Turtle Bulletin

Baptist Churches in Dallas, Austin Expelled Over LGBT-Affirming Stance

Yesterday I told you about the threat made by the Baptist General Convention of Texas to expell two LGBT-affirming Baptist churches from the general convention. One of those churches, Dallas’s Wilshire Baptist Church, was still voting and tabulating the results of its congregational vote on a resolution that “would permit all members to participate in congregational life on the same basis as any other church member regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. This affirms the ability of the church’s committees and lay and staff governance structures to consider all members for leadership, ordination, baby dedication and marriage based upon individual merit and the discernment of those duly elected to governance positions.” Wilshire was due to release the results of that vote yesterday. Now, WFAA-TV in Dallas reports:

Wilshire Baptist Church, Dallas

Wilshire Baptist Church has voted to grant gays and lesbians full membership to the church, which would allow them to be considered for leadership positions, and grant same sex marriages.

The resolution passed by a 61 percent majority in a final vote which was released on Monday afternoon.

“We want to normalize life as quickly as possible for LGBT folk. And this is not a one-issue church. It’s a church and we’re simply saying the Gospel is open to all and closed to none,” said Senior Pastor George Mason said of the congregational vote.

Of the 948 ballots cast, 577 voted in favor, 367 were against it, and four people abstained.

…”Our church knows that there are consequences of our decision,” Mason said. “We think there will be many positive consequences for being able to say to the LGBT community that they are welcome here fully, in Christ.”

The Dallas Morning News reports that those consequences were quick in coming.

“Central to Baptist doctrine is the autonomy of the local church. By putting this issue to a vote, Wilshire Baptist Church demonstrates just such autonomy,” the convention said in a written statement. “While we have deep respect and appreciation for this church, Texas Baptists have a longstanding and often reaffirmed biblical position on human sexuality and marriage. We are saddened by the outcome of Wilshire’s vote, and their withdrawal from harmonious cooperation with the churches of the Convention.”

…Wilshire’s decision means the convention will no longer accept funds from the Dallas church, and it will not seat messengers at the convention’s annual meeting, currently taking place in Waco. The church is also not allowed to express affiliation with the convention, and members cannot serve on the board, committees or in other roles.

Another church, First Baptist Church in Austin, was also expelled from the state convention:

First Baptist Church, Austin

“We have performed gay weddings, we have done dedications of gay leadership, we have celebrated childrenon gay couples and we will proudly continue to do all of those things, said Rev. Dr. Griff Martin, senior pastor of First Baptist Church Austin.

…“When they came and said your stance on this, you won’t fit anymore in our convention, I wasn’t surprised I was sad. It’s just one more example in my opinion of the church doing the wrong thing,” said Martin.

Baptist General Convention of Texas Warns Churches in Dallas and Austin Over LGBT Inclusion

Wilshire Baptist Church, Dallas

Members of Wilshire Baptist Church of Dallas voted yesterday on a resolution which, according to a statement posted on its web site, “would permit all members to participate in congregational life on the same basis as any other church member regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. This affirms the ability of the church’s committees and lay and staff governance structures to consider all members for leadership, ordination, baby dedication and marriage based upon individual merit and the discernment of those duly elected to governance positions.”

Wilshire hasn’t yet announced the results of yesterday’s vote, but on November 8, the Baptist General Convention of Texas sent a letter to Wilshire and to the First Baptist Church in Austin notifying them that their affirming stances threaten their expulsion from the state convention:

The letter to Wilshire frames the congregation’s relationship to the BGCT in terms of “potential withdrawal.”

“Should your church choose to publicly affirm same-sex sexual behavior, the BGCT will no longer be able to accept funds from the church, seat its messengers to the annual meeting, allow the church to express affiliation with the BGCT or allow its members to serve on the BGCT boards, committees or other roles,” the letter states.

Wilshire pastor George Mason calls the letter “provocative” and “premature,” and added that the vote by his congregation hadn’t yet been completed when the letter was sent. The results are expected to be released to church members via email sometime today. Wilshire Board member Casey Boland says the decision that Wilshire is undertaking has been a difficult one for the congregation:

“This is not an easy decision. I mean, this is cutting to the core of very strong beliefs that people have on both sides,” said Casey Boland. She has been a member of the Wilshire Baptist Church for 10 years.

“The reasons that have been used for why people should vote ‘no’ are the same reasons that were used for – why divorced people should not be allowed to be in the church, why blacks and whites should not be allowed to be married, why women should not be pastors. It just, in my view, rings hallow.” said Boland.

Austin’s First Baptist Church responded to a similar letter from the state Convention putting FBC “on notice” for adopting a policy last year welcoming LGBT people into the congregation:

First Baptist Church, Austin

“As a church, we did our diligent theological work, being guided by the spirit, meditating on sacred scripture and hearing the stories and struggles of our own members,” the Austin church’s letter states. “As a result of that thoughtful process, we are proudly and openly welcoming and affirming of all God’s beloved children.”

The letter suggested the BGCT’s actions had been unfairly influenced by other churches that disagreed with the Austin policy and threatened to stop giving money to the convention until the church was “excluded from fellowship.”

Once we begin to listen to the voices who wield their power and financial strength in this way,” the letter continued, “we have begun a slippery slope to fundamentalism and irrelevancy.”

Dallas’s Royal Lane Baptist Church was the last to be kicked out of the Convention six years ago for appointing gay deacons.

Baptist Post on differences between Romney and Obama on equality

The Baptist Post has identified what it considers to be substantial differences between the two candidates when it comes to equality. While I’m sure their audience has a different response to the article, I thank them for providing such a clear distinction.

When future historians write about the 21st-century debate over gay marriage, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama will be featured prominently.

Romney was governor of Massachusetts when the state’s highest court issued its first-in-the-nation decision legalizing gay marriage, and he not only fought to have the ruling overturned but also supported an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would define marriage as between a man and a woman.

Obama voted against that federal marriage amendment as a U.S. senator, and once he was president he became the first sitting U.S. president to oppose the Defense of Marriage Act and also to endorse gay marriage.

While I very much doubt that Mitt Romney will garner more than a footnote in future historians’ discussion about equality, the article does list a number of differences and is worth reading as a reminder of how the two candidates view your citizenship, your rights, and your humanity.

Dallas Baptist Pastor Blasts Congregation and Fellow Pastors for Opposing Marriage Equality

Here’s another reason why President Barack Obama’s evolution on same-sex marriage matters. Rev. Frederick D. Haynes III of the Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas came to Obama’s defense — and, in his way, to the defense of gay people as well:

…But whatever you like to ostracize other people it’s because there’s a fear that you have yourself, and the fear that you have finds itself rooted in an ignorance of other people. Or in a projection of your issues. Either there’s ignorance or there is a projection of your issues…It really blows my mind how outraged you are. You are so outraged over what the President said. …

…Have you ever read the Gospel and heard Jesus say anything about homosexuality?…Black folk can’t even deal with homosexuality because we got issues with sexuality. And because we got issues with sexuality we can’t have a healthy discussion about homosexuality. Why, why do you get so upset?”

Now this is the sermon I’ve been waiting to hear

Wake Forest University is a Baptist school. It was built by North Carolina baptist preachers to serve a baptist populace and is affiliated with the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. Though primarily secular today, it’s baptist heritage is no small part of its culture.

Which is why this article published by the Associated Baptist Press by Bill Leonard, the James and Marilyn Dunn Professor of Church History and Baptist Studies at the School of Divinity, Wake Forest University, makes this the baptist response that was desperately needed. That, and the fact that Leonard pulls no punches.

But tonight I am ashamed, because I heard a Baptist pastor say things so abhorrent to the gospel of Jesus that I could not keep conscience with my Baptist forebears and remain silent. In what appears to be a May 13 sermon, Charles Worley declared: “Build a great, big, large fence — 150 or 100 mile long — put all the lesbians in there,” Then he continues: “Do the same thing for the queers and the homosexuals and have that fence electrified so they can’t get out. Feed them, and you know what, in a few years, they’ll die out. Do you know why? They can’t reproduce!”

I’ve listened to those statements multiple times, each time hoping that I’m not hearing what I think I’m hearing. But I am.

That a person who serves a congregation calling itself Baptist would utilize such brutal words is not simply an affront to the men and women he wishes death upon, but to all who “name the name of Christ.” So dastardly are those words and the sentiment behind them that those of us who value the Baptist tradition must demand repentance of this fallen Christian brother.

Amen! Preach it!

SBC Leader denounces death camp pastor

From the website of Dr. Warren Throckmorton:

I asked Bob Stith, National Strategist for Gender Issues at the Southern Baptist Convention, for his reaction and he said Worley’s words were “a vile outburst” and said,

I think it is important to say in the strongest terms how disgusting and unchristian his comments are.

He added that the church is not in the Southern Baptist Convention.

I want to commend Stith on his response. I wish it were heard more broadly.

The complicity of silence

It isn’t reasonable to hold one pastor responsible for what another one preaches. There is a great deal of diversity of thought and theology within Christendom and there is no presumption that what is said from the pulpit at First Baptist Church in any way mirrors the beliefs of All Saints Episcopal Church. We don’t hold one church accountable.

Usually.

But sometimes something so outlandish is said in the name of faith that it requires a denunciation. A rejection. A refutation.

And the words of North Carolina pastor Charles Worley of Providence Road Baptist Church calling for placing gays and lesbians behind electric fences is beyond the pale. This is not a casual suggestion, this is not a theological position, this is not a difference of perspective, this is not an idea with which we are unfamiliar and about which reasonable people could differ. This is advocacy for evil.

So now we will see whether The Church responds.

Certainly there will be those who are asked and who will, naturally, say that they do not support such a notion. But will they be willing to call such a sermon evil or ungodly? Will they be willing to publicly refute Worley and chastise him? Are they brave enough to declare that such a proposition is anti-Christ and that it reflects a heart that is not right with God? Will whatever Baptist organization with which he is affiliated pull his license?

These are not just reasonable responses, they are required responses. When a sermon calls for an act that is of such a level of evil, godly persons cannot stand by and claim that they have no responsibility.

To say nothing is to condone Worley’s position. So be silent is to be complicit.

Church, take notice. It is your response by which today’s youth will judge you. If you say nothing, those who are unchurched will assume that Worley speaks for you.

It is a reasonable assumption.

The Baptist position on marriage

For the non-religious, this commentary may be meaningless. But those schooled in the minutia of denominational affiliation know that one of the pride points of being a Baptist is (or until recently has been) congregational independence.

Which makes Jimmy Carter’s position on civil marriage far more Baptist than that of the increasingly autocratic Southern Baptist Convention:

I personally think it is very fine for gay people to be married in civil ceremonies.

I draw the line, maybe arbitrarily, in requiring by law that churches must marry people. I’m a Baptist, and I believe that each congregation is autonomous and can govern its own affairs. So if a local Baptist church wants to accept gay members on an equal basis, which my church does by the way, then that is fine. If a church decides not to, then government laws shouldn’t require them to.

Pullen Baptist bans marriages

The little old men and women of Pullen Memorial Baptist Church in Raleigh, NC, have taken a position on same-sex marriage. By unanimous vote, they prohibited their pastor from conducting weddings.

All weddings, gay or straight. Or, at least until the state changes its laws. (newsobserver)

The congregants said in a formal statement that current North Carolina law – and the language proposed for a vote next year on an amendment to the state Constitution – discriminates against same-sex couples “by denying them the rights and privileges enjoyed by heterosexual married couples.”

“As people of faith, affirming the Christian teaching that before God all people are equal, we will no longer participate in this discrimination,” the church’s statement says.

They will continue to observe holy unions – mixed or same-sex – at this traditionally progressive church. But if you want the government’s stamp of approval on your marriage, you’ll have to get it elsewhere. Because Pullen Memorial isn’t in the discrimination business.

Peter Gomes: a powerful voice for gay Christians passes

Yesterday, Peter Gomes died.

As minister of Memorial Church of Harvard University since 1970, Peter Gomes held a pulpit of prestige. An international preacher, Gomes was highly respected and his influence ranged from discussing theology with the Queen Mum to offering prayers and sermons at the inaugurals of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. Every Harvard alumnus for the past 40 years has started and ended their education with his advice.

But for me, Gomes will be remembered as the author of The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart, a book which allowed me to look at some of my presumptions and question my own interaction with faith. The premise of this work, which really isn’t all that surprising, is that few Christians have much working knowledge of the Bible, know how to read it, or feel confident to understand what it says. Instead they opt for a deification of the image of the Bible rather than attempting to apply the truths found in its contents.

And it was demystifying the Bible and shaking up Christianity’s comfortable assumptions that consumed the past few decades of his life. Although a life-long Republican of the Massachusetts variety (until a recent registration change to support Deval Patrick), he viewed Jesus as a social revolutionary whose gospel would not be much welcomed in today’s established Christianity and deplored the way in which Scriptural literalism could be text proofed to support just about any social injustice.

In 1991 Gomes came out as gay, (NY Times)

Then, in 1991, he appeared before an angry crowd of students, faculty members and administrators protesting homophobic articles in a conservative campus magazine whose distribution had led to a spate of harassment and slurs against gay men and lesbians on campus. Mr. Gomes, putting his reputation and career on the line, announced that he was “a Christian who happens as well to be gay.”

When the cheers faded, there were expressions of surprise from the Establishment, and a few calls for his resignation, which were ignored. The announcement changed little in Mr. Gomes’s private life; he had never married and said he was celibate by choice. But it was a turning point for him professionally.

“I now have an unambiguous vocation — a mission — to address the religious causes and roots of homophobia,” he told The Washington Post months later. “I will devote the rest of my life to addressing the ‘religious case’ against gays.”

Gomes was not hesitant to tie the ‘religious objection to homosexuality’ as preached in American Christianity to the actual mistreatment of homosexual persons as experienced in America. (The Good Book)

Although most contemporary Christians who have moral reservations about homosexuality, and who find affirmation for those reservations in the Bible, do not resort to physical violence and intimidation, they nevertheless contribute to the maintenance of a cultural environment in which less scrupulous opponents of homosexuality are given the sanction of the Bible to feed their prejudice and, in certain cases, cultural “permission” to act with violence upon those prejudices.

As an American Baptist preacher from a very young age, Gomes took the Bible seriously. He took his religion seriously. And it was through his faith, not in spite of it, that he spoke out for tolerance, for understanding, for inclusion, for treating your neighbor like yourself even when you really truly don’t want to, and for adhering to a meaningful thoughtful Christianity rather than a superstitious set of rites, rules and prejudices.

The religious community and the gay community have both lost a guiding light and a powerful advocate.

Southern Baptist concession: churches can also belong to groups which include gay-supportive churches

We finally have an answer at to the extent to which Southern Baptists can coexist with gay folk. And yes, it does include several degrees of separation.

Southern Baptist Convention churches cannot “affirm, approve, endorse, promote, support or bless homosexual behavior”.

A Southern Baptist church cannot have a single gay member.

A Southern Baptist church cannot refuse to take a position on homosexuality. They must actively exclude gay people from the life of the church or they will be kicked out.

A Southern Baptist organization cannot include a single church that fails to actively oppose homosexuality and exclude gay-supportive members. Failure to expel that church will get them evicted from an SBC school campus even if every other member church is ragingly homophobic.

But there is finally, finally, a limit to their anti-gay positioning. You can be a Southern Baptist church that belongs to an organization that is not ragingly homophobic, provided that you are sufficiently anti-gay. (Christian Post)

The Alliance of Baptists affirms gay marriage and permits members of any sexuality.

But the Executive Committee members decided against banning all churches that are members of the Alliance from also being members of the SBC, according to the Associated Baptist Press. Instead, it decided that each church’s qualification should be considered on a case-by-case basis.

Of course, that wildly liberal position might not make it past a vote of the convention. It sounds an awful lot like compromise with sin, you see.

There’s still no word as to whether Southern Baptists are allowed to speak to their gay postman, accept change back from their gay grocery clerk, or avoid kicking the dog of their gay neighbors. But I am pretty sure that their gay kids are not to be welcomed at Thanksgiving.

Dispute in Baptistland

Earlier this month we reported that the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary had booted the Tarrant Baptist Association from their space on campus due to the Association fellowshipping with Broadway Baptist Church, a congregation that does not reject gay worshipers. Now it seems that the Seminary didn’t exactly have that right; the Association holds deed to the property on which they reside. (Baptist Standard)

In 1982, the seminary provided Tarrant Baptist Association land and the funds to build its office building, granting a 99-year lease on the property, Meredith explained. At that time, the seminary and association entered into an affiliation agreement stipulating the property would not be used for commercial activity, and the association and seminary would commit to remaining in theological harmony, he said.

In 1997, the property agreement was renegotiated, and Tarrant Baptist Association received the deed to the property, he said. “The affiliation agreement remained intact,” Meredith added.

Further, it seems that the affiliation agreement has provisions for resolving dispute and the Seminary does not have unilateral determination. A three person panel is supposed to be assembled to mediate a resolution.

But, apparently believing that “but, but, but Teh Ghey!!” trumps all, the Seminary is insisting that the Association give them back the property and go away with their heads hung low in shame. The Association is taking a different position.

Tarrant Baptist Association’s executive board subsequently met a few days later and unanimously approved a motion asking the seminary either to purchase the property from the association at fair market value or submit the matter to a three-person arbitration panel.

It will be interesting to see how this is resolved.

Southern Baptists kick out group that tolerates Broadway Baptist

Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas, takes a bit of a don’t ask, don’t tell approach to its gay members. The church avoids taking theological positions on homosexuality – saying that they neither condemn nor condone it – and gay members are fairly open.

But the Southern Baptist Convention has no room for anyone who does not actively condemn gay people and seek to make their lives miserable. To be a Southern Baptist Church in good standing, it is not adequate to delegate such matters to individual conscience. Rather, opposition to homosexuality must take on the importance given to matters of faith such as the divinity of Christ, the virgin birth, and redemption from sin.

So in 2009 Broadway Baptist Church was booted from the General Baptist Convention of Texas, the a statewide affiliation of the Southern Baptist Convention. Baptist organization.

But it seems that the SBC is a lot like a sixth-grade girl who is seeking to control who is popular and who is not. Not only have they banished Broadway Baptist from the ‘cool kids’ clique, but they will kick out anyone who dares be their friend.

And the Tarrant Baptist Association, the Tarrant County group of Southern Baptists, dared to be friendly with Broadway Baptist. In fact, they allowed them to be part of the 395 churches that worked together in the county to provide support, outreach, and growth. How dare they?

So the Tarrant Baptist Association, in turn, was kicked off the campus of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. I’m not kidding. The official county association of Southern Baptist Churches was booted from their office in the Southern Baptist seminary because they didn’t ostracize one church who wasn’t adequately anti-gay. (Christian Post)

Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary has asked an association of churches to leave its Fort Worth, Texas, campus because the seminary says the group has a member church or churches that tolerate homosexuality.

A 1997 affiliation agreement between Tarrant Baptist Association and the seminary for use of an office building on the campus requires that the two organizations remain in “theological harmony.”

The seminary, which is associated with the Southern Baptist Convention, contends that the association has violated the agreement for retaining fellowship with a church or churches that don’t adhere to the denomination’s position that homosexuality is a sin.

From time to time some prominent Southern Baptist leader will rhetorically ponder, “Why do the homosexuals think we hate them? We don’t hate them, we love them and want them to live according to God’s Plan for their lives.”

Stop pondering.

Here is why we think you hate us. Because if one congregation is willing to let gay people even sit in the congregation, you kick them out of fellowship. Because if one collective of churches dares let such a congregation participate in ministry, you kick them out of fellowship.

We think you hate us because if you demonstrate rejection to a group whose only crime is to allow a member church whose only crime is allowing gay individuals to worship, then we KNOW that your animus, your contempt, your derision, and your rejection of gay individuals is of a level that if it is not truly hate then it is impossible to distinguish from it.

SC Baptists confirmed their opposition to your immoral behavior and deviant lifestyle

Just in case you were wondering, the Southern Baptists in South Carolina want to make it perfectly clear that they ain’t like those homo-lovin’ Lutherans. In their state convention they voted on a resolution to remind us – in case we forgot or were confused – that they don’t like Teh Ghey so much. (Greenville online)

The resolution on “homosexuality and religious liberty” noted the constitutional guarantee of freedom of religious expression, “including speech pertaining to social and religious values.” It said Christians “must also use our freedoms to defend traditional marriage, protect the sanctity of human life, and combat the propagation of immoral behavior and deviant lifestyles.”

And they aren’t in confusion about what message they are sending.

“Southern Baptists and other evangelical Christians have been portrayed by the media as intolerant or dangerous because of our commitment to Christ and our belief in biblical precepts,” it said.

Yep. I’d say that pretty much covers it. Intolerant and actively endangering the lives of children who grow up hearing them spew their bile.

More, more, more amicus

Three more amicus briefs were filed today in addition to those of Ed Whelan and Liberty Counsel.

The American Center for Law and Justice (Jay Sekulow) wrote:

II. MORALITY IS A LEGITIMATE BASIS FOR LEGISLATION.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558(2003), did not abolish the legitimacy of morality as a state interest. Indeed, to have done so would have been both revolutionary and destructive, as morality has long been recognized as a basis for law, and countless laws today rest upon morality. The district court therefore erred in dismissing moral considerations out of hand.

Something called The Hausvater Project, which appears to be related to the parochial schools of the conservative Lutheran Church Missouri Synod filed to support “the right of parents to determine their children’s education”. This one flummoxed me; I have no idea what they are talking about.

Parents have a fundamental right to determine their children’s education, protected under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process clause. California citizens voting in favor of Prop. 8 (“Prop. 8 Supporters”) had, and on their behalf the defendant-intervenors-appellants (“Prop. 8 Proponents”) in this case continue to have, good reason to regard Prop. 8 as a safeguard of that fundamental constitutional right. Since the safeguarding of a constitutional right properly serves the state’s interest, the district court erred in concluding that Prop. 8 serves no legitimate or compelling state interest. Moreover, parents’ fundamental right to determine their children’s education should take priority over the competing claims of plaintiffs-appellees Kristin Perry et al./same-sex couples (“Prop. 8 Opponents”) who plea for Equal Protection and Due Process rights to same-sex marriage.

It seems that they are arguing that because the Proposition 8 campaign played on the fears of parents (“I learned in class that a prince could marry another prince, and I can marry a princess!”) that therefore it is based in the constitutional right of parents to make sure that public schools condemn the things which they condemn. Or something like that.

Which is an odd argument coming from an organization of parochial schools.

The second part of their argument was that allowing gay people to marry would have a “chilling impact” on the religious freedoms of those who want to stop them. If governments actually treat gay people as full citizens and if schools refer to them as such, then it greatly reduces the impact of those who preach from pulpits that they are not.

Far from furthering a state interest, such religious organizations would be in opposition to a state interest, at least insofar as one accepts the district court’s own identifications of the state’s interest and the religious groups’ motivations. This is not small potatoes.

And if Judge Walker’s decision is left intact it would lead to “nothing short of the abolition of parochial schools and homeschooling.” And then they really go bat-poop crazy. It’s all a plan on the part of the homosexuals to destroy family and society; first they redefine marriage and then they’ll take away our children.

A tremendous burden falls now to this court as to whether those asserting the freedom to chose a spouse of the same sex can secure that socially constructed status apart from denying, with increasing tenacity, the fundamental right of a man and a woman to direct the education of the children whom nature calls their own. The social engineers of incremental strategies favoring same-sex marriage have themselves answered the question in the negative. Whatever disappointment a reversal of the district court’s decision may bring to the particular homosexual couples who originated the complaint, at least they will be liberated from serving as pawns in a larger scheme that ultimately would constrain not only their neighbors’ liberties, but also their own.

And finally we have the amicus brief of

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
The California Catholic Conference
The National Association of Evangelicals
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons)
The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention
The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
The Calvary Chapel Fellowship of Ministries of California
The Christian and Missionary Alliance
Coral Ridge Ministries Media, Inc.
The Council of Korean Churches in Southern California
Southern California Korean Ministers Association
Holy Movement for America

Believe me, other than all being in the broad category of “Christian” and being devoted to the condemnation of gay people and bringing harm to their lives, these folks have nothing in common. It takes a powerful amount of joint purpose, in this case their religious-based animus towards gay people, to get them in the same room.

And I do find it interesting just who is not present in this joint statement. This, more than most any other document, draws the line between combatants over the religious direction of the nation.

We write separately to answer the district court’s distortion and condemnation of our beliefs as irrational and illegitimate and to defend the constitutional right of citizens and associations of faith to participate fully in the democratic process. Contrary to the aspersions cast by the decision below, our beliefs about marriage are not based on hatred or bigotry. Our support for traditional marriage has vastly more to do with a rich tapestry of affirmative teachings about marriage and family than with doctrines directed at the issue of homosexuality. To be sure, our religious beliefs hold that all sexual acts outside traditional marriage are contrary to God’s will. But our faiths also entreat us to love and embrace those who reject our beliefs, not to hate or mistreat them. Bigotry is contrary to our most basic religious convictions.

A bit ironic when you consider that the purpose of this brief is not to love and embrace those who reject their beliefs, but rather to force by law those beliefs which they cannot persuade through preaching.

Faith communities and religious organizations have a long and vibrant history of upholding marriage as the union of a man and a woman for reasons that have little or nothing to do with homosexuality. Indeed, their support for traditional marriage precedes by centuries the very notion of homosexuality as a recognized sexual orientation (see ER106), not to mention the recent movement for same-sex marriage. Many of this nation’s prominent faith traditions have rich religious narratives that describe and extol the personal, familial, and social virtues of traditional marriage while mentioning homosexuality barely, if at all.

Except, of course, that every single denomination listed decries homosexuality as sinful, rebellious, or evil. Without exception.

The gist of their argument is that it is unfair of Judge Walker to take a side in the religious culture war, that they have the right to try and vote their religious beliefs into law, and besides they loooooove the homosexual, they just want to grant special privilege to those who follow their beliefs.