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Homosexuality is not a crime.

It is in Gods view.

Besides, the memorial is for the living—his or her family.

Including the gay lover. The church, ANY church, should not be forced to condone that. They should not be forced to memoralise a lifestyle that's a sin. The church is for sinners to repent, not glorify their sin.

Having a service that includes a gay lover would denote acceptance of that life. It's against everything the Bible says. And no church should be forced by emotional blackmail into sacrificing their beliefs whether those beliefs are PC or not.

“Homosexuality is not a crime.”

We should have anti-sodomy laws again. If it’s not against the law, it should be. The laws should be restored to the way they were prior to WWII.

“. . . the memorial is for the living—his or her family.”

Who made that rule?

Why would members of a church, knowing that their relative had a sodomite partner, put this pressure on their pastors to begin with.

I take it the sodomite was not a member of the church. Why not ask for the memorial service to be held in the facilities of some organization to which the “man” himself belonged?

The pastor who would speak at such a memorial service, if it were to take place, SHOULD preach the Gospel, which includes the command to repent, and also make it clear that the dead “man” demonstrated no belief in what God said — if fact lived a lifestyle that denies belief in God’s Word, and therefore (we are not happy to report) the man is certainly not enjoying the presence of the Savior. He was a lost man, and is suffering torments. The pastor could use it as a method to admonish the congregation that God is real (Hebrews 1:1-8) and that sin is real (Romans chs 3, 5), death as the result of sin (Romans 6:23) is real, and Hell and judgment are as real as Heaven (Revelation chs. 19-22).

I do not not know the church, or the pastors. But the pastors are the ones to decide which gatherings they will or will not preside over, and for what reasons. They stand before God with their decisions. There is no decision here for anyone else to make.

The church was upholding it’s principles about morality, not legality, and it still helped the family to have a service elsewhere. We don’t even know that the deceased would have wanted a church service. It’s hardly a good reflection on the family that they accepted the church’s help and money and then complained about it.