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]

You can't say that these things have been increasing because of increased rights for gay people, which seems to be what you're insinuating. Eispecially promiscuity; straight people don't decide to have "unsafe and frequent sex" because gay people are allowed to. Also child abusers are not the same thing as gay people; infact they are totally different. And funnily enough most divorces are not because one partner is gay, plus we won't even know if the rate of divorce for that reason has increased because back when being gay was illegal people weren't going to state that as a reason.

No.. I'm saying that if we go with the rather conservative viewpoint and say that homosexuality is an effect of embracing sin, part of whats causing these bad things that are happening and so on.. we can't prove any it as a cause with any sort of science. There's no way to isolate gay people living more freely and percentages either growing or just being more visible from other extremely harmful factors. Child abuse, divorce, far too early sex, violence and so on. You can't take one factor, ignore all the other evidence and say 'oh, this causes it'. Which I think you agree with, judging by your post.

If I'm quoting out of context tell me but we are talking secular, it won't hurt Christians or Muslims of whatever if other people, i.e. people who are not them, have same sex marriages in a civil ceremony. It will not hurt them because it will not affect them and it will not insult god because it's secular, secular ok? Gay people will live together anyway and a marriage just gives decent inheritence and property rights. People who are not Christians (or Musilims or whatever) should not be affected by other peoples religeous views.

You are, yes. Many of the conservatives or other religious people are not. If you consider your religion a part of you, you aren't like to just 'forget' it because some people consider it a purely secular issue. Marriage has a tradition that was entwined with religion, such as the marriage vows, seeing a pastor and getting married in a church. If you want people that are religious to forget all that and consider it purely secular.. I don't think its going to happen. *shrug* I'm not going to start suddenly taking it as just that because some people do. Respecting their decision doesn't mean agreeing.

I consider equal rights a seperate-ish and more secular issue than marriage because of the connotation and whatnot and support that. People are abusive enough to each with equal rights and I'm not sure how helping that pettiness and sadistic side would bring people to God. And preventing cruelty and the rest should be a goal anyway, regardless of whether you approve of someone's decisions. But thats just my take.

[Museum Girl]

You can't say that these things have been increasing because of increased rights for gay people, which seems to be what you're insinuating. Eispecially promiscuity; straight people don't decide to have "unsafe and frequent sex" because gay people are allowed to. Also child abusers are not the same thing as gay people; infact they are totally different. And funnily enough most divorces are not because one partner is gay, plus we won't even know if the rate of divorce for that reason has increased because back when being gay was illegal people weren't going to state that as a reason.

No.. I'm saying that if we go with the rather conservative viewpoint and say that homosexuality is an effect of embracing sin, part of whats causing these bad things that are happening and so on.. we can't prove any it as a cause with any sort of science. There's no way to isolate gay people living more freely and percentages either growing or just being more visible from other extremely harmful factors. Child abuse, divorce, far too early sex, violence and so on. You can't take one factor, ignore all the other evidence and say 'oh, this causes it'. Which I think you agree with, judging by your post.

If I'm quoting out of context tell me but we are talking secular, it won't hurt Christians or Muslims of whatever if other people, i.e. people who are not them, have same sex marriages in a civil ceremony. It will not hurt them because it will not affect them and it will not insult god because it's secular, secular ok? Gay people will live together anyway and a marriage just gives decent inheritence and property rights. People who are not Christians (or Musilims or whatever) should not be affected by other peoples religeous views.

You are, yes. Many of the conservatives or other religious people are not. If you consider your religion a part of you, you aren't like to just 'forget' it because some people consider it a purely secular issue. Marriage has a tradition that was entwined with religion, such as the marriage vows, seeing a pastor and getting married in a church. If you want people that are religious to forget all that and consider it purely secular.. I don't think its going to happen. *shrug* I'm not going to start suddenly taking it as just that because some people do. Respecting their decision doesn't mean agreeing.

I consider equal rights a seperate-ish and more secular issue than marriage because of the connotation and whatnot and support that. People are abusive enough to each with equal rights and I'm not sure how helping that pettiness and sadistic side would bring people to God. And preventing cruelty and the rest should be a goal anyway, regardless of whether you approve of someone's decisions. But thats just my take.

Sorry I misunderstood what you meant. By marriage I don't mean marriage in a church or the religeous ceremony, I mean the civil rights, registry office and paperwork, which as far as I know is what people are campaigning for politically. I do think it would be wrong to force religeous leaders to marry people who are gay if the religeous leaders believe such an act sinfull. My point was that the marriage of individuals, (regardless of sexuality), when not in the form of a religeous ceremony will not affect believers; thus by preventing them from marrying their rights to happinness and financial security are being infringed (is that the right word?). Many religeous people are opposed to it because they feel more young people will be "persuaded" to be gay if they can marry. No one is persuaded to be gay, your sexuality is something you are born with. By allowing religeous people to prevent another group of people from an action that doesn't actually harm anyone is to give them unfair dominance; if one religeon was given dominance over another there would be outcry (I don't mean a state religeon like C of E by the way, I mean a theocracy).