It's Getting DARK...U.S. Churces being forced to allow use for homosexuals

[Brittain33]

A couple of questions.

1. Did these churches receive funding from the state for historical preservation or because they identify themselves as common spaces with free access? That's usually the backstory here. They take the money on those grounds.
2. Has anyone actually sued or tried to reserve these spaces? Or is this purely speculative, the churches pre-emptively suing to be allowed to deny access? Speaking from experience, people generally don't want to deal with wedding vendors who are only working with you under obligation of law.
3. Can a Jewish couple sue a Catholic church to force that church to host their wedding under non-discrimination laws?
4. If it comes to pass that the churches haven't taken money from the state on the grounds that they are public accommodations, then someone will surely legislate an exception from them.

[Brittain33]

The prospect of a same-sex civil union being held in a church against the will of the church's owners are as likely as the prospect of a Jewish couple compelling a privately-funded church to rent to them for their wedding: nil.

The judge pointed out that current law doesn't forbid it from happening. That's all. That doesn't mean that the series of unlikely events requiring it to happen, and without any change from the legislature, has a greater than 0% chance of coming to pass.

[Brittain33]

you really underestimate the depravity of homosexuals...for they are hell bent to shut down churches that preach against homosexuality.

No, there aren't. Probably some extremists will say things, just as extremists will always say things, but no one who has any affiliation with same-sex marriage as a legislative or judicial solution thinks that fighting churches' right to exist and say what they want is a goal they want or should pursue.

People want to get married. That's what it's about. It's actually a pretty conservative goal--have our families recognized by the legal system. It's hard to sign people up for the further goal of trying to shut down the Southern Baptist Convention by legislative fiat. (!) At that point 98% of the volunteers drift away to cocktail hour somewhere or to watch Modern Family and you lose the big donors completely.

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Were these people pursuing the legal right to kiss in the church?

[Brittain33]

I'm with brittain on this one; why does such an exemption need to be codified? Do Catholic churches regularly get hit by lawsuits because a divorcee wants to use the chapel hall for her wedding?

This is a question that I'm eager for jmfcst to answer. How often are churches required to host weddings they don't recognize?

The only exception I know is of an oceanfront pavilion in Ocean Grove, NJ that took substantial state funds for restoration, claiming they were a public space and public accommodation, but which then tried to cite religious reasons for excluding same-sex couples.

http://www.aclu-nj.org/news/2012/01/13/judge-rules-in-favor-of-same-sex-couple-in-discrimination-case

[Brittain33]

I think you understand that this conversation could have been had without you intentionally suggesting that gay people want orgies in churches, are "depraved" as a group, and news about them should be offered in "Flamer Red."

Hey, where's my religious exemption on the word choice of "depraved"?  But, I guess "inflamed" would have been a better choice than "flamer" and would have allowed a full religious exemption.

Rom 1:26 "Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.  28 Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity."

We've completely changed from discussing same-sex marriage to discussing the occasional protest in churches—kiss-ins and the like. That should get its own thread because it's separate from the push for same-sex marriage and is a fringe event that's usually led by members of the church protesting specific church policies.

[Brittain33]

We've completely changed from discussing same-sex marriage to discussing the occasional protest in churches—kiss-ins and the like.

I only brought up the kiss-ins to show that church's who teach against homosexuality WILL be pressured to conduct these homosexual unions.  For, even though some gays don't want anything to do with church's that don't accept their actions, some gays are hell bent on shutting down these churches.

Generally, these protests are not intended to "shut down churches." Usually it's a protest against the church's policies aimed at persuading them to change through embarrassment or to engage them. They are not looking to shut them down. Also, it takes much more than "we don't recognize same-sex marriage" to get attention like this.

[Brittain33]

we will soon begin to see the deep blue states use all the gay rights and hate crimes laws to attack the freedom of religion of the churches.  

We've had gay marriage in Massachusetts for 8 years. It's been a decade since the collapse of the Catholic Church's influence in state government.

Why haven't we seen anything like what you've described?

The only group closing churches down against the will of their members are the Catholic hierarchy. (see the vigils.)

[Brittain33]

You guaranteed your church's finances because you anticipate it being sued into oblivion by gays?

[Brittain33]

jmf, same-sex marriage has been legal in Massachusetts for 8 years.

It should be easy for you to find news of a church being sued for refusal to host a same-sex wedding. We have a robust anti-discrimination law on the books.

Isn't it getting dark in Massachusetts? Where's the goods?

[Brittain33]

This sounds like a completely different case. It doesn't fit the description of the Ocean Grove pavilion where they registered the site as "public" to get a tax exemption and didn't post any religious tests for weddings on their web site renting it out for $250 a pop.

In any case, if they opened up a separate wedding chapel to be rented out to people outside of their congregation to make extra money, they're pretty clearly running a business, not carrying out services for themselves.

jmfcst, please listen to me. What I said was hardly what your describe,

The jmfcst does not wish to listen to you, as that would imply the jmfcst values your opinions and perspectives. The jmfcst is above that. The jmfcst feels that it is far better to set up straw men and preach the jmfcst's paranoid delusions at them.

Dibble, you really need to go back and reread this thread.  You’ll find I understood this case from the beginning.  In fact, I’ll even give you a little inside baseball insight into the NJ case that Brittian brought up but misrepresented…

This rather huge NJ church owned a large piece of land, but not all of it was improved, so the local authorities made them pay property tax on the unimproved portions of the property, only allowing the church to take advantage of their tax exemption for the immediate segment of land their facilities were built on.

So this NJ church, being led by a rather unsophisticated bunch, thought they’d get cute and decided to cut a deal with the gov – they opened a wedding chapel which they would rent out to the public (like a lot of churches do).  Now that this portion of their land was improved, they were eligible to apply their tax exemption to that portion of the property, and thus avoided paying property taxes on it.  But, being unsophisticated, little did they realize that renting it out to the public would open them up to lawsuits charging discrimination, once gay rights became law.

A similar thing happened to our church last year – half of the land we own isn’t improved, and the local authorities attempted to start charging us property tax on the unimproved portion.  But, being a sophisticated bunch and having IQs a whole lot higher than the government, we put our heads together and had our pastor, who just so happens to be the longest tenured pastor in the city, informed the tax agent that he would be organizing a meeting of the pastors of all the local churches (many of which also had unimproved portions of property that could potentially be taxed) to “discuss” the matter.  After we relayed our intentions to summon the political clout of the local Christian community, the gov tax office backed off and reversed its decision – they continued to allow our tax exemption to cover the unimproved portions of our church property.

So, again, you should reread this thread.  You might even learn something from the jmfcst.

[Brittain33]

1) we did NOT want financial obligations to an entity (the bank) backed by the government (FDIC), because once homosexual rights are mandated (either by the legislature or the courts) banks will be required to call in loans made to organizations that "discriminate" against homosexual activities.

This is just nuts.

Your church can do what you like with your finances, but this is akin to the nutsiest pre-Y2K preparations. We didn't volunteer to be your rationale for doing something which may not be financially sound. Believe what you like, but whoever advised your church that homosexual rights were going to lead to loans being called in on churches was either dishonest or very naive.

Nothing you've said in the past has disturbed me, but knowing that you and your congregation have convinced yourself that because I'm married, I'm going to knock down your church and seize the land for the state, and therefore it's ok to war against me as the enemy, is just poor.

[Brittain33]

Why should the tax code encourage religious organizations to hold unimproved land, tax-free?

[Brittain33]

I'm disturbed because you're attributing nefarious motives and intent to me to come destroy your lives when nothing like that has any relation to what I have as a goal in my life.

You're casting me as the villain in your story. I don't care if that's the case in scripture, that's for you and other Christians to work out. I'm disturbed that you're casting me in that role in our secular world.