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Protesters Disrupt Baptist Meeting
ST. LOUIS (AP) _ The head of the Southern Baptists condemned homosexuality from the podium Tuesday as gay rights protesters shouting slogans marched through the convention hall and into the arms of police.
Twelve protesters were arrested inside the hall, and 38 more were taken into custody outside, where riot police stood near the main doorway.
The dozen protesters who infiltrated the annual meeting of the nation's largest Protestant denomination were charged with ethnic intimidation and trespassing.
"Stop killing us! Stop the spiritual violence!" one man shouted as police dragged him behind the curtains at America's Center. A woman from the group Soulforce, which claims Southern Baptist teachings lead to violence against gays, shouted: "God loves his gay children!"
"You need Jesus!" shouted back the Rev. Robert Smith, a pastor from Cedar Bluff, Ala. Others hissed as protesters were led away.
The protesters tried to disrupt Southern Baptist president James Merritt's keynote address to nearly 9,000 delegates and their families.
Merritt took aim at the media and Hollywood, citing surveys that show nearly unanimous acceptance in those groups of homosexuality.
"More and more we're being told sit down, shut up, go along, get along, be inclusive, be tolerant, be nice and be quiet," he said. But Merritt said Southern Baptists have a "biblical responsibility" to preach against such things.
"We now face the fact that there are certain groups that are going to protest us every year," he said. "They have let me know in their correspondence, `We are not going away.' Well, I've got news for the pornographer, the adulterer, the homosexual, the pedophile, the abortionist: We are not going away either."
On Tuesday, the Baptists elected a new president, the Rev. Jack Graham, pastor of the 22,000 Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas. Graham was the only nominee.
Also Tuesday, President Bush greeted delegates via satellite from the White House.
"I want to thank you all for your good works," he said. "You're believers and you're patriots, faithful followers of God and good citizens of America."
The Southern Baptists claim more than 16 million members.
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EDITOR'S NOTE: Allen G. Breed is the AP's Southeast regional writer, based in Raleigh, N.C.
We do not remember days...we remember moments.
Cesare Pavese
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Muslims Angered by Baptist Comments
ST. LOUIS (AP) _ A leading Islamic group demanded Tuesday that the Southern Baptist Convention condemn "bigoted" and "hate-filled" statements made by one of its pastors.
During a pastors' conference Monday evening, the Rev. Jerry Vines, pastor of First Baptist Church of Jacksonville, Fla., told conventioneers that many of this country's problems can be blamed on religious pluralism.
Pluralists "would have us to believe that Islam is just as good as Christianity, but I'm here to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that Islam is not just as good as Christianity," Vines, a former SBC president, told several thousand delegates at the gathering in St. Louis.
"Islam was founded by Muhammad, a demon-possessed pedophile who had 12 wives _ and his last one was a 9-year-old girl. And I will tell you Allah is not Jehovah either. Jehovah's not going to turn you into a terrorist that'll try to bomb people and take the lives of thousands and thousands of people."
Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the comments were outrageous.
"It's really unfortunate that a top leader in a mainstream Christian church ... would use such hate-filled and bigoted language in describing the faith of one-fifth of the world's population," Hooper said Tuesday. "This is the level of bigotry that requires a clear statement from the top leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention."
But William Merrell, a spokesman for the SBC executive committee, said the comments were made outside the actual meeting, and that it was not the SBC's place to comment.
"The Southern Baptist Convention does not by habit renounce things as said in pastors' conferences," he said. However, he said he did not "want to give the sense that we are not sensitive or caring about this issue."
In introducing Vines at a separate speech Tuesday, outgoing SBC president James Merritt said Vines is "my hero ... he is a prince of preachers."
The Rev. Jack Graham, elected the SBC's new president on Tuesday, refused to repudiate Vines' comments. "His statement is actually a statement that can be confirmed," said Graham, a Texas pastor.
"I believe the statement is an accurate statement," he said, adding that people should be careful, "just who you are following and what you believe."
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EDITOR'S NOTE: Allen G. Breed is the AP's Southeast regional writer, based in Raleigh, N.C.
We do not remember days...we remember moments.
Cesare Pavese
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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I an appauled........ No other words come to mind than that......
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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e
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On fire! |
Location: currently So Cal
Registered: May 2002
Messages: 1179
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Not much more can be said other than there's nothing like good old fashioned religion to perpetuate racism, bigotry and hatred.
Think good thoughts,
e
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tim
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Really getting into it |
Location: UK, West of London in Ber...
Registered: February 2002
Messages: 842
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They can denounce me for being gay. I support their right to free speech as much as I despise them for speaking in that manner. But my being gay will never cause a war.
Denouncing a faith is a much more major issiue and takes a serious position on the world stage. It causes major international conflicts. Not only Islam but so many major religions, including Christianity, espouse violence. It seems to me that the SBC comes very close to espousing violence itself.
In the 1930s and 1940s we saw racial based and religion based violence. We woudl have seen it before that if we had "enjoyed" wordl-wide media coverage, though "The Crusades" were a pretty good example, as was the English persecutionn of Roman Catholics and then of non Roman Catholics, and then of Roman Catholics again. More recently we have had the racial and religious based conflicts in Bosnia et al. in Britain we have sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, and there is often gang warfare between Sikh and Muslim youths in Slough, a major town in southern England. And there is the Israeli/Palestinian issue too. (And yes I do know that homosexuals, blacks, gypsies, disabled, mentally infirm and other "undesirables" were disposed of by Hitler)
Right thinking people despise and are horrified at such things, historical and present day. And many of those right thinking people are also Southern Baptists, but do not dare, for reasons I do not understand for it is not my church, to speak up. Perhaps it is the rehtoric of the obviously charismatic morons who speak so rabble rousingly.
I would love a Southern Baptist to comment, dispassionately. Some of us here are from that sect, and are very welcome to their religion, so let us not pillory a view agreeing with the articles (though I doubt we will see it), but let us learn instead what is behind it.
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