The next complaint: A 45-year-old man will complain they won’t marry him and his 13-year-old niece.
The “work of the ministry” would be to go through scripture with them, ask them if they’d like to repent and receive forgiveness, and continue to love and support them, assuming they chose to follow God.
They want the “church” to force the Minister to do the service against his will?
“Rules”? We don’t need no stinkin’ rules!
EMBRACE BUTT PLUGS . . . OR ELSE!
They are not believers, they planted themselves in this church only to do this.
Listen up, people: you don’t have rights in a church. You have grace.
He is not allowed to marry them under the guidelines of the Book of Discipline of the UMC.
And so it begins with the churches!!! The lawsuits against the bakers, the florists, the caterers, the venues were just the warm-up to this! I used to try to practice tolerance but no longer.
I couldn’t find an email address, although they might have disabled it. But they do have a Facebook page, so if you have a message of support for Christianity, you can try over there.
WHO KNEW!?! They said this would never happen.
However, when gay thugs cross over into using government force to compel active participation in their perversion, I have no choice but to get involved. These people are evil and deserve whatever private or public consequences may arise from their bullying. I hope they will at the very least be shunned by all decent people, including boycotting their businesses (if any) or the business of their employers. This shocking infringement on our God-given right to freedom of religion should cost them everything they have. They have crossed a big red line, and no legal recourse would be excessive.
ALINSKY RULE 8: “Keep the pressure on. Never let up.” Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance. As the opposition masters one approach, hit them from the flank with something new. (Attack, attack, attack from all sides, never giving the reeling organization a chance to rest, regroup, recover and re-strategize.)
But some are wondering whether the complaint is actually an orchestrated effort by both Chappell and Barner, along with Carpenter, to seek to change the denomination’s stance on same-sex “marriage.” Carpenter told the United Methodist News Service that he declined to officiate the ceremony because he feared the consequences, but stated that “If there was a way for me to be a co-signer with the complaint, [I would].”
This is a scam. The minister is in on it. They are actually protesting our denominational rules and the 3 of them have set this up inside their own church pretending that our rule against homosexual marriage is contradicted by our rules about being supportive of people in general.
I got this in the mail a few days ago:
Concocting a Conflict
By Walter Fenton
In a barely veiled attempt to create conflict where there is none, a gay couple in North Carolina has filed a complaint against their United Methodist pastor for refusing to preside at their same-sex wedding. But there is a catch to this case — the pastor is clearly in on the ruse.
The Rev. Kelly Carpenter and Green Street UM Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, are the very same pastor and congregation that made headlines in March 2013 when they decided not to hold any weddings, hetero- or homosexual, in their church until the denomination lifts its ban on same-sex marriage.
According to Carpenter, the complaint filed by Kenneth Barner and Scott Chappell is “right on the money,” and if it were possible, he said he would serve as a co-signer of the charges brought against him.
Clearly this is another publicity stunt on the part of the church and its pastor to highlight a non-existent conflict in the UM Church’s Book of Discipline. According to the complaint, Carpenter is guilty of a “failure to perform the work of ministry” because he will not preside at the gay couple’s service, and therefore, he is also engaging in gender discrimination, another chargeable offense according to the Discipline.
The illogicality of this ruse is patently obvious. No clergy person who refuses to preside at a same-sex service is guilty of “gender discrimination.” Pastors who refuse to preside at such services do so because they are explicitly forbidden to officiate at same-sex services or weddings. Gender discrimination does not enter into it.
Under Carpenter’s and the couple’s twisted logic, a pastor could be accused of “gender discrimination” for refusing to preside at a wedding service for a man who wanted to marry another woman while still remaining married to a first or second wife. But perhaps this is what some progressives are ultimately angling for - the blessing of any unions people desire.
This publicity stunt further demonstrates that most progressives prefer to play legal games with the BOD rather than demonstrate the courage of their convictions. If the pastor and Green Street’s leadership council are truly exercised by the denomination’s prohibition against same-sex weddings, why not have Carpenter courageously preside at the couple’s service right in the church’s sanctuary, and then all suffer the consequences of the act?
UM liberals talk a good game about ecclesiastical disobedience, but they are seldom willing to pay the price for it. They enjoy the publicity their stunts bring, but then do everything they can to avoid the consequences. One does wonder how some progressives would survive in their own denomination where they could preside at as many same-sex weddings as they liked. But of course it’s no fun being a rebel when no one cares.
Walter Fenton is a United Methodist clergyperson and an analyst for Good News.
Government making people do things such as this is establishing a government religion and violates our rights.
About time we take this country back!
Another set up.
I had an uncle who was a devout southern baptist preacher; when my wife and I decided to get married we asked him to perform the service...h refused based on his beliefs. Yes, both my wives were female.
Anyway his biblical belief was against marrying anyone that had been married before, and both my 2nd wife had been previously we’d.
It seemed a little strange to me, after all, he was my dad’s brother. But I didn’t file charges or even complain...those were his beliefs and I respected them.
I suspect all this about gays is just another form of redneck lottery, looking for someone to sue, or at least get publicity for their “cause”.
They seem to be looking harder for someone to refuse them instead of providing a service.
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to join these two depraved perverts is a state of unholy but state recognized union......”
EMBRACE POLE SMOKERS . . . OR ELSE!