Southern Baptist Church, and Democrats Options

[Jaq]

A Southern Baptist church in East Waynesville, North Carolina has expelled all of its Democrats

Well, actually 9 of them have been expelled and another additional 40 left as protest.

From another message board:

She (posters mother) said WLOS tv just broke in to report that the East Waynesville Baptist church has officially excommunicated all its democratic members.

She said that before the election, the preacher told the congregation from the pulpit that if they didn't vote for * they had to come to the altar to confess their sins and repent. they could'nt be members. (My Mom doesn't attend that church--she's United Methodist, but I know of lots who do attend).

From Mom's email: "One of the local women who got excommunicated said on TV that it was like a cult. Another man who got excommunicated said that the rest of the congregation stood up and applauded as the Democrats were told to leave."

This seems to signal to me another step towards not just the gradual blurring of the boundary between church and state, but a full blown theocracy.

Ten Commandments in public places, debating homosexual marriage in the context of religion (when it's a secular government policy and wouldn't have any impact on churches as they wouldn't be required to perform homosexual marriage ceremonies), prayer in schools... the list goes on..


What think you? The States heading towards a theocracy, or am I just blowing things out of proportion? Would a theocracy be such a bad thing? Why? Why not? Please submit your essays by 5:00 p.m. 500 words or less.

[believe]

On gay marriage, well, there's a couple of points I wanted to bring up.

For one, gay couples and persons getting more rights and protection has coincided with a lot of things that have been quite destructive to families. Higher divorce rates, unsafe and frequent sex, child abuse, absence of parents and the list goes on. Seperating homosexuality from that list and isolating as a factor or not, would be pretty damned hard. We don't have a sample group back from conservative times with the comparatively greater rights and protection they have now and making one isn't possible. I don't really see how it can be proven, unless you argue its proven by association according to the Bible. Thats not scientific exactly, which leads us back to what you place faith in (or not).

Another point is that the Biblical view of health and harm is not the same as the ones of the average person or generally those of these studies. I'd argue that there's some radicial differences in the definition of harm here. The greatest harm would be things that seperate you from God, hurt others or cause you to sin and so on. Eternity and your soul is added into the mix. Health would involve things that brought you closer to God, as well as fulfilled you and the rest.

Accepting or being satisfied with something isn't the same thing. A lot of people are satisfied or pleased with doing some bad things. Such as stealing, lying, hurting people and so on. Some people repeat dysfunctional relationships or choices and the rest. If you place some sexual preferences in the category of sin or inappropriate, whether the children and people around them find it acceptable doesn't make it healthy by religious standards. It certainly speaks well of how individuals treat and raise children, but thats not healthy in the sense that some Christians will mean it.

I fail to see how two blokes living together and wearing wedding rings affects a traditional family living 3 states away. Whether or not you allow gay marriage has no bearing on whether gay folk are going to be living together or not. All it changes is the legal nature of their union while they're living together.

People will and do bring up the divorces caused by finding out one partner is gay. While its a very sad situation, I don't think its entirely applicable considering the fear of coming out and stuff. My best guess from what I've read is that the harm would be considered people seeing it as an option and perhaps acting on it from the examples around them. What we see as an option definitely affects what we do or what we feel we can do and would there affect parents, children, ect.

I think that heterosexual couples are striking a blow to family without any help from homosexuals at all.

Yes. Yes they are. And its horribly sad for everyone involved. heh.

[CommieBastard]

For one, gay couples and persons getting more rights and protection has coincided with a lot of things that have been quite destructive to families. Higher divorce rates, unsafe and frequent sex, child abuse, absence of parents and the list goes on.

Other things that have increased as gay rights have increased:

- Global warming
- The Internet
- Re-runs of That 70s Show
- Ikea furniture
- Mobile phones

Correlation ain't causation, and all the wishing in the world won't make it so. If causation can't be established, it probably doesn't exist and pointing out the correlation is misleading.