Gay Baptist minister sues for right to wed

ABP News ^ | 2/17/2014 | Bob Allen

[wonkowasright]

Bojangles Blanchard, an ordained Baptist minister in Louisville, Ky., says denying same-sex couples the benefits of marriage treats them as second-class citizens.

A Kentucky Baptist minister and gay-rights activist filed a lawsuit Feb. 14 claiming the state’s ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional.

Maurice “Bojangles” Blanchard — who with his partner, Dominique James, was fined 1 cent for trespassing in November for refusing to leave a county clerk’s office after being told they could not apply for a marriage license — asked U.S. District Judge John Heyburn to build on his finding two days earlier that Kentucky must recognize same-sex unions performed legally in other states.

Blanchard leads the True Colors Ministry, founded in 2011 at Highland Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky., as an outreach ministry to members of the LGBTQ community.

He and James and another couple denied marriage licenses by the county clerk in Louisville claim denying them rights available to others violates the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which says that no citizen can be denied equal protection under the law.

[ReformationFan]

Hmmmm. So this so-called “pastor” thinks that homosexuality is fine but infant baptism is sinful?

[Army Air Corps]

Ping.

[HiTech RedNeck]

I kind of doubt this is an SBC church :-)

[HiTech RedNeck]

Ah, it might be about as Baptist as the Westburros, only a different kind of error.

[RichInOC]

Jews don’t recognize Jesus.

Protestants don’t recognize the Pope.

Baptists don’t recognize each other in the back room.

[HiTech RedNeck]

back room... i thought that was bar room...

[Army Air Corps]

Ain’t that the danged truth!

[fish hawk]

Have you heard of a traitor named John Roberts? Never say never again.

[RichInOC]

Well, in this case, it’d work either way, wouldn’t it?

[circlecity]

"I hate to do a Rush and say “I told you so” but Baptists just like other protestants paved the way for this when they allowed and started using contraception."

Nonsense. The Catholic Church has its Father Pfleger crowd who are essentially the same as this guy's crowd. One is a false Baptist the other a false Catholic. Both are false Christians.

[Alex Murphy]

This group belongs to the Kentucky Baptist Fellowship. From the KBF website:

2. Why does CBF exist?

During the ‘70's and ‘80's, the Southern Baptist Convention moved more and more toward Fundamentalism. In 1990, the moderate Baptists, whose voice had been stifled in SBC gatherings, held a conference in Atlanta to discuss the possibility of forming a separate organization. The basic disagreement centered on three things: 1) a hierarchical structure that threatened to erase equality among Baptists; 2) an interpretation of scripture that denied the possibility that God might call women to pastoral roles; and 3) an insistence that the Bible be held to a strict literalist interpretation, denying the right of the individual to draw conclusions about scripture based on his/her own prayerful study. The support for a separate organization was overwhelming, and in 1991, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship was born. For more information, see thefellowship.info.

BINO

[Mrs. Don-o]

Actually, even gay couples have always been able to marry each other, as long as the couple consisted of a gay man and a lesbian.

It happens.

Andrea Dworkin & John Stoltenberg

Leonard Woolf & Virginia Woolf

Vita Sackville-West & Harold Nicolson

And any number of famous (in their day) late Victorian upperclass couples.

[expatguy]

Perfect, but like I said, their sexual proclivities have no relevance.

An American Expat in Southeast Asia

[Mrs. Don-o]

True.