Southern Baptists Convention fighting 'don't ask, don't tell' repeal

[Ed Barrow]

Source: Washington Post

The Southern Baptist Convention is battling the expected repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" on a number of fronts: Its agencies are contacting members of Congress and the Pentagon; retired chaplains are sending letters to President Obama; and a resolution adopted at the denomination's annual meeting in Orlando this week condemns allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military.

"If a policy makes it more difficult -- in fact, discourages -- one of the groups that provides one of the largest numbers of chaplains to the military from continuing to engage in chaplaincy ministry, that should raise significant concerns for them about the . . . spiritual well-being of our men and women in uniform," said Barrett Duke, vice president for public policy and research and director of the Research Institute of the denomination's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

...

Southern Baptists, who say their presence in the military chaplaincy totals 1,300 chaplains when Reserve and National Guard units are included, have told Congress and the Pentagon that chaplains could lose their freedom to preach and counsel against homosexuality if openly gay members are accepted by the military.

"For instance, a chaplain could be told there are certain passages of the Scripture that you shouldn't preach from," said the Rev. David Mullis, the Southern Baptists' military chaplaincy coordinator. "If there was a prohibition about certain kinds of literature that did not espouse homosexuality, I can see the Bible being banned in the military."

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/18/AR2010061804890.html?hpid=sec-religion

[msongs]

1. banning the bible in the military? "thou shalt not kill" is already banned lol nt

[Tempest]

2. The bible should be banned from the military

There should be no religious indoctrination allowed.

[alfredo]

3. Why do they have so much hate toward their fellow Americans?

[Heywood J]

4. But I'll bet the Baptists have no problem preaching

Ezekiel 23 or Judges 19.

Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses. So you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when in Egypt your bosom was caressed and your young breasts fondled.

"This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Bring a mob against them and give them over to terror and plunder. The mob will stone them and cut them down with their swords; they will kill their sons and daughters and burn down their houses.

Look, here is my virgin daughter, and his concubine. I will bring them out to you now, and you can use them and do to them whatever you wish. But to this man, don't do such a disgraceful thing." But the men would not listen to him. So the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go.

Never let someone tell you the Bible consists of words of love. It has no place in our military, our schools, or anything funded by the public.

[KurtNYC]

5. "lose their freedom to preach and counsel against homosexuality"

That is a twisted view of freedom. And premature since I don't think a policy will change their bigotry.

Since this policy change will do little to rally people to their side, they turn to hypotheticals: passages banned, Bible banned. The policy change proposes no such things.

[Divine Discontent]

6. as a Christian, I pray for their arrogant blindness and judment to cease. and I ask,

have any of those preachers at the convention in Otown picked up any male prostitutes?



Anti-Gay Baptist Priest Arrested for Soliciting Male Prostitute
January 5, 2006

http://www.gcn.ie/content/templates/newsupdate.aspx?articleid=419&zoneid=9

Rew. Lonnie Latham, a member of the Southern Baptist Convention's executive committee, has been arrested and charged with offering to engage in an act of lewdness. Latham was arrested by Oklahoma City police after asking an undercover officer posing as a male prostitute to join him in his hotel room for oral sex. He was booked into an Oklahoma County jail and released on $500 bail. The arrest took place in the parking lot of the Habana Inn, where locals have complained about male prostitutes flagging down cars. As the Rev. Lonnie Latham, 59, left jail Wednesday, he said "I was set up. I was in the area pastoring to police." Latham has supported a convention directive urging members to befriend gays and lesbians and try to convince them that they can become heterosexual "if they accept Jesus Christ as their savior and reject their 'sinful, destructive lifestyle.'"

-------------------------


Baptist Leader Accused of Hiring Prostitute

By: Bob Allen
Posted: Monday, July 23, 2007

Coy Privette is charged with six counts of paying accused prostitute Tiffany Denise Summers.
A longtime champion of family values once nominated as chairman of the Southern Baptist Convention's moral-concerns agency surprised citizens of North Carolina with his arrest last week on multiple charges of aiding and abetting prostitution.

"Hell has just frozen over," a state Democratic leader told a Raleigh newspaper editor after hearing news of the Thursday arrest of Coy Privette, 74, a retired Baptist pastor and four-term Republican legislator long associated with North Carolina's Christian Action League.



Privette was arrested the same day as suspected prostitute Tiffany Denise Summers, 32, who drew police attention after cashing suspicious checks from his checkbook. Investigators believe Privette paid Summers six times during the last two months for sex in hotel rooms he rented in Salisbury, N.C.



Privette is a past president of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, which last year voted to ban membership to churches that accept gay people as members. He stepped down as a current member of the state convention's board of directors and executive committee following his arrest.



He also resigned after six years as president of the Christian Action League, a group formed to "discourage the promotion and use of beverage alcohol and other drugs, pornography, sexual immorality and other sinful practices that not only undermine the spiritual lives of those who participate in them, but also undermine the strength of our state and national character."

[get the red out]

7. What would the world be like...

if these religious people actually put this kind of effort into helping the poor, feeding the hungry, clothing people, building homes for the homeless, helping sick people get health care? But no, that crap is socialist and will send you to hell. :sarcasm:

[EFerrari]

8. So these so called men of God don't want to lose their freedom to hate their fellows.

Sick.

[struggle4progress]

9. Does SBC object to remarried divorced folk serving? Does SBC object to military service by folk

who "look at women lustfully" and thereby "commit adultery in their hearts"?

Does SBC object to military service by folk who call other folk "fools" and are therefore "in danger of the fires of Hell"?

And what about all those people who haven't sold all their possessions to benefit the poor? Does the SBC think those people should serve in the military?

Come to think of it ... why isn't the military training people to "turn the other cheek"? And why isn't the SBC furious about that?

[Taverner]

13. Yes - didn't Miss Homophobe Anita Bryant herself get a Dee-Vorce?

[Joe Bacon]

10. They turned Jesus Loves you into Jesus Hates Gays.

So sick of these repressed closet queens forcing their asinine book of fractured fairy tales on the rest of us.

[Bigmack]

11. We need to remind people...

.. that chaplains are just Officers.

Officers... well, most of them... don't have the interests of enlisted men at heart.

If the Xians want to have chaplains, the highest rank they should attain is corporal.

[Joe Bacon]

12. Will any President remember what Madison did?

Madison REFUSED to commission chaplains during the War of 1812. Yes the Jesusbots got pissed off but the Father of the Constitution remembered the Bill of Rights that he drafted and he lived them till the end of his life. Is there NO President who will stand up to these ignorant superstitions jerks?

[The Magistrate]

14. Then Let Them Depart the National Service, Sir: Good Riddance To Bad Rubbish

[mwooldri]

15. These southern baptists don't understand basic human rights then.

From the Universal Declaration back in 1948:

Article 18: Those chaplains would still have the right to espouse their "anti-gay" beliefs even if "gays" are in the military.

Also the declaration doesn't say anything about "gay marriage" either - just mentions marriage... Article 16.

Oh, and there's article 1...

If I need to get biblical, I'll keep it easy: Luke 10:27 - if you don't believe that is true then you are definitely not a real Christian.