Texas Church reneges on gay vet's funeral

As far as i know Church's still have freedom of religion and i guess you can include burial ceremonies in that.

Like I said Church is an MLM only the biggest of all time. A person of any race, creed, color, sexual orientation or religious belief should not limit themselves to having a relationship with God in a building once or twice a week. Especially if that person is of a widely unexcepted group of people. You can have a relationship with God everyday where ever you choose. That includes a funeral for a Vet. there are willing preachers or priest who would conduct a service for this man. It all comes down to going against the grain, it will be a long time before that subject will be open for change in America. As will smoking grass.
Germany has gay politicians, teachers, social workers... the list goes on. They are also in the military. Here there is no need to stay in the closet, no one really cares who you choose to have sex with. If you are good at your job what does it matter? Some have alot to add to that. I have stated my opinion in prior post. T

TV, you'd better preach! Well-said!
That is precisely why I don't attend a church( on a regular basis)...all the hypocrisy associated with "holier-than-thou" types, and it mostly being "a show".
I attended a church, here, for about 4 yrs...I was a member of the church choir, and the minister of music, who was also the pastor's son, an extremely talented and generous human being, was a friend of mine. He was also "gay".
The father was a great orator, with a beautiful baritone singing voice, and oftimes had "real church", as he could, on occasion, be charismatic.
However, he was sometimes "lazy", and resorted to "fire and brimstone" sermons denouncing gays, as the root of all that's wrong in the world...
Well, I put up with that as long as I could, and one day, after his sermon, I simply walked out of the choirstall, and took off my choir robe , and left, never to return. The choir was in an uproar, concerning my departure, and petitioned the pastor to soften his stance...but he held firm, and one by one, the majority departed, taking up in various other church choirs in the city.

I know that in America, oftimes a "big deal" is made about sexual orientation.
I have heard that in Europe, it is "not a big deal"....which, confirms my view that in many ways, Europe is much more advanced, and progressive in thinking, than America.

And I agree with you that a "personal relationship" with God, is more important than a "public relationship" with God, because, surely, there will be those who will find fault with that relationship, as they know better than you, how it should be done.

A topic came up , in a mens' discussion group, I used to belong to...the question was asked, "If you required heart surgery, and the best heart surgeon in town happened to be a "drag queen", would it matter to you?"
The logical answer would be, "Of course not....you would want "the best' performing surgery on you, and the fact that "the best" was a drag queen, shouldn't matter in the least...". But you'd be surprised at the number of people who would elect to have someone else perform surgery on them, because of someone's sexual preference or proclivities. Go figure.
I haven't written off Europe as a place to spend my final years...seeing how things here have gone so "south". Thanks.

If the dude had just kept his sexuality to himself, this wouldn't have happened.

Sorry, you can't force a church to offer services to someone who's life contradicts the beliefs of the organization offering services.

It would be like Regan conducting a funeral service for Stallin

Not that I agree with the Church's stance, but their allowed to have it. Freedom of Religion means freedom for people to say/do things you don't agree with too

My point was not to illustrate the church's freedom to do as they pleased or saw fit.....my point was to illustrate the hypocrisy of withholding a funeral based on one's sexuality...everyone dies, and is not everyone entitled to burial and a ceremony? This church sought to withhold the service because of its' judgement about the way the man conducted his life...."Judgement is mine, saith the Lord"...so, who were these church leaders to do that? Like I said, "hypocrites".

everyone dies, and is not everyone entitled to burial and a ceremony?

This church sought to withhold the service because of its' judgement about the way the man conducted his life..

Judgement is mine, saith the Lord"...so, who were these church leaders to do that?

Like I said, "hypocrites".

Better to be thought a fool, than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt

High Point Church, "The Church Unusual." has standards? Sounds like
they're the standards of the Bigot Crass.

Church reneges on gay vet's funeral

SUMMARY: An Arlington, Texas, megachurch (High Point Church) withdraws
its offer to host a funeral for a church employee's brother when it
becomes clear that the deceased was openly gay...more on link

Church reneges on gay vet's funeral - Yahoo! News

I hope that someday soon, this will be regarded as a low point for
High Point.

All Church links seem to link to its fearless leader, Gary Simmons.
Interestingly, he's the brother in law of Joel Osteen, an even bigger
megachurch pastor who's been criticized by extremists for trying to go
all sotto voce on gays....though Osteen did proclaim on Larry King
that gays are not God's Best.

Welcome to HighPoint

Not God's Best

Good As You: September 22, 2006


Who in their right mind is giving the Bigot Crass this kind of money?
Don't you have to sell your soul to the devil or something for this
sort of thing?...lol

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Pastors Gary and April Simons maintained hands-on direction during
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motto: This is not church as usual. This is Church Unusual.

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Some of the replies to the posting on a Yahoo group site:

"The argument sorta reminds me of those who say " Love sinner but hate the sin".

If a Church purports to be the House of God, that tells me that their should be strict fidelity to the covenant of the Religion that it espouses. When said Church misrepresents the will of God using a self serving narrow interpretation which validates their own prejudices, that to me is reason enough to call them on their hypocrisy. If a church uses God as its main draw and Jesus as its permanent headliner then one should expect Christian churches, meagchurches especially, to be more than a FALSE PROFIT (pun intended). Otherwise, these institutions like High Point Church are giving religion a bad name, and will rightfully be regarded as nothing more than a different kind of House of ILL REPUTE -- at the very least not worthy of tax exempt status. Just my two cents."


"Yet another example in a very LONG list of examples of HATRED MOST FOUL!

And to think, there are actually those who think I come down too harsly on religion, especially [down stomach!] "Christians!"

Why if I had it within my power, I would gladly burn EVERY church down, tourch ALL religious writing, sack the Vatican, and generally subject EVERY [religious] person to a taste of their own vile medicine. But alas, I don't have such power"


"Religion may be silly. But whether religion is silly is not the issue that drives the comments in the group. Rather, folk jump on what some megachurch in Texas thinks about gays. However, what a megachurch in Texas thinks about homosexuality is not necessary "religion." How you do know that High Point Church is the so-called "home of God's all-loving presence." Don't skirt around the fact that you don't know that for a fact. Again, we have to make an effort to separate religion from sects, especially American sects. Relgion never saw run-of-the-mill American protestantism and should not be condemn because of that narrow viewpoint. That is all I am saying. Religion may be silly; it may be disgusting. However, it is a rediculous to begin your argument by pointing to the going-ons at High Point Church in Dallas. Who the **** cares about Hight Point Church in Dallas!!!!!????? Peace"


"The thought of sacking the Vatican (and the image of the Pope trying to run in those funny slippers) makes me a little giddy too. I totally understand someone who wants to subject a historically vile and clearly money-hungry institution to the same treatment it’s dished out to non-believers over the centuries.
Believers get so offended at perceived disrespects to their faith. I don’t understand that. Believe what you want, but don’t get all twisted if I think it’s silly.
The real issue here is a church (home of God’s all-loving presence) being foul. Don’t skirt around that fact; and the Quakers ... they ain’t got **** to do with it."



I thought I would post this to point out the hypocrisy of some particular "so-called" Christian churches, and how all their talk of following Christ's teachings is simply "bull" (for lack of a better word).

aaronssongs,

We'd all be better off not knowing much about each other's sexuality. For example, why was it necessary for you to tell us here that you are gay? No offense, but what did you expect to gain? Why be 'openly gay', when no one needs to know in the first place? I don't get it. Do you want validation? Is that it?

I JUST LOVE IT! SANE AND RATIONAL "WHITE PEOPLE"....THEY DO EXIST. THANK GOD

The same reason you felt it necessary that we know you play with guns.
And who would I be getting validation from (if ever I would need it)...you?
The people here? It's a cinch, that if I needed it from this site, I'd be stuck out.
No...I detected some homophobia...so I put it out there, and what did I find? Homophobia. Blackophobia. Intellectuophobia. Liberalophobia. Artistophobia. Democraticophobia. Islamophobia. Europophobia. Clintonophobia. Hillaryophobia. Obamanophobia, and every other kind of phobia one could think of....but never said y'all didn't have some issues....just didn't think it would be so many. LOL.

This is America, what did you expect to find, Utopia, LOL.

Being an idealist ..yes...I did...what I didn't expect to find was someone as needy as you...I feel sorry for you, really...You have a lot of pain that is unresolved. Does it stem from your childhood?

Sorry for me, i live the life of Riley. My childhood was average, no molestations by my priest or anything. Grew up with older uncles who played with us rather rough but not what i would call abusive. When did you start being opressed by whitey?