c. 1997 Religion News Service
Minister vows mass gay marriages if Alabama legislation passes
(RNS) The Rev. Troy Perry, founder of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches (UFMCC), says he will hold a mass wedding for homosexuals on the steps of the Alabama state capitol if the legislature passes a bill imposing a fine on ministers who perform same-sex marriages.”The day any such bill passes the Alabama legislature, I will be on a plane for Montgomery where I will invite all of our UFMCC pastors, as well as enlightened clergy from any other faith community, to join me on the steps of the Alabama Capitol for the largest mass wedding for the gay community ever seen in Alabama,”Perry said.
Perry, who went to junior and senior high school in Mobile, said he was angered by legislation introduced earlier this year that would impose a $1,000 fine on any member of the clergy who officiates at a wedding for a same-sex couple.
The bill, which has passed the state house but did not make it to the floor of the state senate before it adjourned at the end of May, is scheduled to be brought up again, perhaps when the legislature goes into a special session this fall.”I find myself amazed that an elected official who is sworn to uphold the Constitution would endorse and introduce legislation that so obviously violates the constitutional separation of church and state, and which curtails the free exercise of religion,”Perry said.
State Sen. Roger Bedford, a Democrat from Russellville, responded that if Perry”followed through on his suit, I hope he’ll be serving time in the prisons, as should anyone who flagrantly breaks the law.” Bedford said as a Christian he believes same-sex marriage is morally wrong. “I don’t think you should persecute gays, but I am totally opposed to holding up their alternative lifestyle as a proper and normal lifestyle for the children of Alabama,”he said.
Perry, however, said that”Holy Union and Holy Marriage are rites and sacraments of all UFMCC congregations. I will serve time in jail before I will allow the government to dictate our religious practices.”
Scientist loses legal battle with creationist
(RNS) An Australian scientist has lost his legal battle to silence a creationist over claims about Noah’s Ark.
On Monday (June 2), Federal Court Judge Ronald Sackville dismissed geologist Ian Plimer’s suit that creationist Allen Roberts had breached fair trade laws by making false claims about the resting place of Noah’s Ark during a 1992 lecture tour.
Sackville ruled the fair trade legislation did not apply because Roberts was not involved in a commercial venture aimed at profit, Reuters reported.
Despite ruling in Roberts’ favor, however, the judge did find that the creationist made false representations in describing his explorations of what some believe is the resting place of Noah’s Ark at a site near Mt. Ararat in Turkey.
The case brought to the fore two sharply opposed views on the origins of the Earth and humanity, and the debate over whether Noah’s Ark actually existed. Roberts’ creationist views argue that the world was created in seven days, 6,000 to 10,000 years ago. Plimer supports a more evolutionary view and argues that geology shows the world to be millions of years old.
Roberts hailed the ruling as a victory for free speech while Plimer said his stance against the creationists was vindicated.
Churches join in criticizing Clinton-Congress budget deal
(RNS) A dozen religious groups and agencies have joined a host of other public interest groups to urge Congress to reject the budget deal recently agreed to by President Clinton and top congressional Republicans.”We favor budget discipline and are pleased to acknowledge the new opportunities which a declining deficit allows,”the groups said in a June 2 letter delivered to members of Congress.”Unfortunately, congressional leaders and the president have chosen an approach which makes life harder for those who have been losing ground economically while giving extraordinary benefits to those who have profited so greatly over the past decade,”the letter said.
On May 2, the White House and Republican leaders announced an agreement that would balance the budget within five years, cut taxes on the middle and upper classes and expand spending on education. The compromise was fueled by news that the deficit over the next five years was likely to be $225 billion lower than many analysts expected.
But the religious and public interest groups said the new plan commits the nation to moving in”three wrong directions”by directing substantial resources to the wealthy, continuing”unjustified”levels of military spending and increasing subsidies for corporations that are already highly profitable.”It is unconscionable at this time of new budget opportunity that the health, employment, social services, housing, environmental and other programs serving people who already live at the margins should be pressed for further cuts,”the letter said.”This has been the budgetary pattern since the early 1980s, and it must stop.” Among the religious groups signing the letter were the American Friends Service Committee, Bread for the World, Church Women United, the Friends Committee on National Legislation, Maryknoll Society Justice and Peace Office, Mennonite Central Committee, NETWORK: A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby, Presbyterian Church (USA) Washington office, the United Methodist Church General Board of Church and Society’s Ministry of God’s Human Community office, the Unitarian Universalist Association and the United Church of Christ Office for Church in Society.
United Methodist students reject endorsing pro-gay movement
(RNS) The policy-making arm of the newly formed United Methodist Student Movement has rejected a resolution that would have had the organization endorse the denomination’s”Reconciling Movement,”which affirms the full participation of gays and lesbians in church life.
The proposal, submitted to delegates of the new organization during its May 22-25 meeting in Winter Park, Colo., received a 53.5 percent affirmative vote, far short of the two-thirds approval needed in order to pass. About 350 students attended the meeting.
Debate on the proposal mirrored that among the church at large.
Said Jim Talbott, a student at Columbia University in New York and a sponsor of the resolution,”Gay people don’t feel welcome in our church and related organizations. … Through exclusion we deny them salvation.” But Rebekah Hanover, a student at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, said those opposed”are not saying we should keep people out, but we need to say this is not an acceptable form of life because God says it is not.” Present policy in the United Methodist Church, the nation’s second largest Protestant denomination, states that gays and lesbians are”individuals of sacred worth”but considers homosexual activity”incompatible with Christian teaching.”Ordination to the ministry and appointment to a congregation of self-avowed practicing homosexuals is prohibited.
Samuel DeWitt Proctor, preacher and educator, dies at 75
(RNS) The Rev. Samuel DeWitt Proctor, a preacher and educator, died May 22 after suffering a heart attack the previous day. He was 75.
Proctor, the former pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York’s Harlem section, was in Iowa for a lecture at Cornell College in Mount Vernon when he was stricken.
Proctor served in a variety of posts, including the presidency of Virginia Union University and administrative positions with the Peace Corps, the National Council of Churches and the Office of Economic Opportunity before becoming the pastor in 1972 of Abyssinian Baptist Church, a prominent black congregation. He retired from Abyssinian in 1989, but had continued preaching and teaching there, The New York Times reported.
Proctor, who served as an education professor at Rutgers University from 1969 to 1984, was the author of”How Shall They Hear? Effective Preaching for Vital Faith.”
Quote of the Day: Paul Q. Beeching on Bible literacy
(RNS) Paul Q. Beeching is a retired professor of religion and philosophy at Central Connecticut State University and the author of”Awkward Reverence: Reading the New Testament Today”(Continuum). In the June issue of Bible Review magazine, Beeching commented on the Bible literacy of his students over the years:”When I began teaching in the Midwest more than 40 years, Protestants came to class with a good grasp of the gospel narrative and the Old Testament stories it assumes. Catholic students were less informed, but could be counted on for passages generally read at Mass. Today, only the fundamentalists are familiar with anything in the Bible.”But as the children of parents who have deliberately resisted the influence of modern American culture and science, they cannot honestly engage in historical study of what they take to be an inerrant, timeless text.”
MJP END RNS
