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Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Baptists change approach on gays

By YVETTE CRAIG
Staff Writer


The Southern Baptist Convention appears to have taken a step back from its hard-line stance on homosexuality.

The SBC overwhelmingly adopted resolutions yesterday making parents responsible for where they send their children to school and also lifting the longtime boycott against the Walt Disney Co.
Members were quick to add that they still think homosexuality is a sin but they know they shouldn't demonize gay people; that they should, instead, offer "the love, the grace, the forgiveness and the healing of God."

Gay activists — on hand to stand firm against any call to action to yank children from public schools deemed accepting of homosexual lifestyles — were pleased by the "softer" resolution, adding that the time was ripe for open dialogue with the SBC.

"Faith should never be used as a weapon," said Barbara Menard, director of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based gay rights advocacy group. "In what we've seen today … there is no place in today's houses of worship for hate and divisiveness."

On the final day of the SBC's annual meeting, nine resolutions were passed by nearly 12,000 messengers. Resolutions approved by the convention, however, are nonbinding, and all member churches are autonomous in their ministries.

Southern Baptists' criticism of public schools arose before their meeting last year, but the Committee on Resolutions chose not to bring up a proposed statement for a vote. The SBC yesterday passed a new resolution titled "Educating Children," a noticeable change from the proposed "Homosexuality in Public Schools" resolution that had been submitted. That resolution called for urging parents to pull their children out of public schools altogether because such schools were deemed to be in a state of moral decay and supportive of gay lifestyles.

The resolution that was passed yesterday recommends that parents take a more active role in their children's secular education and calls on churches to help monitor textbooks and school programs for "offensive material."

"Homosexual activists and their allies are devoting substantial resources and using political power to promote the acceptance among schoolchildren of homosexuality as a morally legitimate lifestyle," the resolution said in part.

Ray Elder, senior pastor of Euhaw Baptist Church in Ridgeland, S.C., wholeheartedly supports the SBC's stance on gay issues.

"I don't mean to sound ugly or hateful, but I feel like homosexuality is being shoved in our throats," said Elder, father of three boys and four grandchildren. "But the message is, 'God loves homosexuals and desires to deliver them from this perversion.' "

Richard Land, president of the SBC's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, claims that homosexuality, like violence, adultery and promiscuity, is a symptom and consequence of larger societal failures.

"It's a dirty little secret among homosexual men that they were first introduced to the lifestyle because of molestation," Land said in an interview. "You can go and look at all kinds of studies that's been done. What we do believe is that homosexuality is not innate."

Houston lawyer Bruce Shortt, who co-sponsored the measure, said many public schools promote gay acceptance through officially sanctioned gay clubs, diversity training, anti-bullying courses, safe sex and safe schools programs.

Children need to have their impressionable eyes, ears and minds protected, Shortt added.

"I was actually very pleasantly surprised to see what came out of committee … I didn't know if we were going to have a floor fight over this," said Shortt, who attended public schools.

He attributed the resolution's passage to Southern Baptists' being "more informed" after doing some "soul-searching" since the matter was brought before the convention last year.

Shortt, who heads a ministry called Exodus Mandate, said his group would be starting a home-schooling program called Family-to-Family to expand the ranks of home-schoolers. It would match experienced home-schoolers with new ones.

"Most of us who home-school run into three or four families every year who are intensely interested in what we are doing," Shortt said. "They're like kids with their noses and hands pressed up against the glass looking in a candy store. But for some reason a lot of the people are a little afraid to step across the line."

As for canceling the SBC's eight-year boycott of Disney, church leaders said they had made their point.

The boycott began in 1997 in protest of Disney's giving benefits to same-sex partners of employees.

"The boycott has communicated effectively our displeasure concerning products and policies that violate moral righteousness and traditional family values, and for a boycott to be effective, it must be specifically targeted and of limited duration," Gene Mims, chairman of the Committee on Resolutions, said in a press conference.

In declaring an end to the action, the SBC asked Disney to "serve the families of America by providing only those products that affirm traditional family values," and called on Southern Baptists to "practice continued discernment regarding all entertainment products from all sources."

Over the past 30 years, the SBC has passed 13 resolutions against gays and lesbians.

"Faith, hope and love will only win the day when we're honest with ourselves about the violence that exists in our world and in our hearts," the Human Rights Campaign Foundation's Menard said. "Hate hurts and has no place in the hearts and minds of people of faith."

From: http://www.thetennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050623/NEWS06/506230422
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