Featured Churches could be forced to marry 'gays'

Just don't perform weddngs period in the Church.

 

Wow. Someone who gets it.

 

Key point. even though this is a blatant attack against Christ and the Church, this is about individual liberties.

 

This is not a case where a church is actually being forced to marry two gay people, this is a case where a church entity, being the owner/stewards of de facto public property (and receiving tax exemptions that appear to be unique) is being told it must allow gay weddings on the property or lose their tax exemption. The church is not being forced to perform the ceremony they are being told that since it is a public place they must allow the ceremony to be performed on the property (by some other entity than the actual church) or lose tax exemption.

Still, it is an invite to a court case and we know how aggressive gays can be in prosecuting these sorts of things. Kind of worrisome. Thanks for posting the link.

 

Some preachers will not marry couples if both are not christians, Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers. Some preachers will not marry a couple if one or both of them has been married before. Preachers are not obligated to the state or government to marry anyone if they don't want to. The church cannot force them to marry anyone if they don't want to.

 

I should probably add that we've presented this issue to our legal council and had them review what is going on to help protect ourselves. They came back and said as things stand right now (and likely will after all the dust settles) there is no way for the government to regulate who a minister does or doesn't marry. Likewise, churches where ceremonies are performed will not be regulated or cited for not doing certain marriages.

They actually mentioned a situation where a minister on our staff refused to do an inter-racial marriage. Nobody can do anything about it. The minister's license is private and the church isn't at fault.

Now they did recommend that we strengthen our bylaws and constitution to better explain our position and reinforce our legal standing. They did say it is likely that gay couples will sue a church(es) for not recognizing their union or allowing their union. The outcome of those lawsuits is difficult to discern.

 

Churches cannot lose their tax exemption. They can lose their 501c3 letter but their tax exemption is not dependent on that letter. Churches have a specific exemption in the tax code. Other non profit entities do not.

 

Maybe, but after a "landmark" case or two where precedent is set this isn't going to happen to the vast majority of churches.

This is the kind of argumentation just befuddles me. It is the kind of negative, conspiracy theory mentality that sounds crazy. When has this happened? When will this happen?

Keep in mind, we're not just talking about evangelical churches. This kind of action would impact Catholic churches, Orthodox, Protestant, and other mainline churches. Along with these are non-Christian groups like Mormons, Jehovah's Witness, Orthodox Jews, Muslims, and other religions that oppose same sex marriage. This would impact all of them. Do you think all of these groups would stand idly by and allow this kind of action to happen? Do you things the spineless politicians that currently run our government would allow leaders of these groups to be disenfranchised?

I just don't see this happening.

 

Really? An amendment in the Consitution about forcing religious groups to marry anyone asking? Really?

You really think you'll 2/3rds of both houses of Congress and 3/4 of the states to approve that? Over marriage? Really?

 

Denying membership based on race is not Biblical. I would storm out of a church that denied a black person or family membership based on the color of their skin and take as many people with me as I could. That goes for interracial weddings also.

However, that has nothing to do with gay and lesbian marriages. It is a sin to the Lord, and there is no debate about it like drinking, etc. Being black or white is not a sin. It is a sin to deny them membership based on ones hatred of a group of people. We are comparing apples and oranges here.

 

Would you deny membership to someone who drank?

 

That would be up to the covenant of the local church one was joining. But to answer your question, it is like the comparison of race compared to gay marriage, there is no similarity or link. Gay marriage is an abominaiton, drinking (which I do not do) occasionally cannot be Bibilcally established as a sin, no, I would not deny the person membership unless he or she was a drunkard. It all has to do with what God's Word says to me, not a bunch of church members who put vices on a sin pedestal.