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| Pastor Frank Schaefer |
A man's son, a minister, asked him to perform his wedding ceremony and he did, as most ministers (that I know of anyway) would. After performing the ceremony, he was asked to "give up his credentials" by his church (in effect taking away his ability to minister to that denomination). He refused. The church then basically kicked him out; sort of 'ex-communicated' him, to use the Catholic terminology, because his son was gay, and was marrying his partner.
In my opinion we are in a battle for our society's ethics and morals; we're no longer in the age where it was a shock to find people living together without benefit of marriage. Children are no longer routinely raised by two people who love them and who are committed to one another, they grow up in households with one parent who struggles to raise them while dating various people and presenting a horrible example for the child of what they have to look forward to. Weren't we not long ago bemoaning the fact that people didn't get married anymore? Ministers get up in the pulpit and preach every Sunday against fornication and promiscuity, yet here is a minister who has brought up a child that believes in marriage but because he doesn't marry who the church thinks he should, his father is punished for doing the ceremony!! Come on!! What kind of example does this set? You are telling the clergy in your church that if their child comes to them and wants to be married to someone they love, they should turn their back on him and say no? I don't see any difference between this man marrying his son and a man, and marrying his son and a woman that he didn't approve of. While he may not approve in either case, he has to support his son; if he doesn't, he's made a mockery of everything that the church teaches. God embraced the sinners, why can't the church? I know a lot of people are pointing their fingers and saying "See, this is why I don't attend church, why I no longer believe in religion; they are hypocrites and liars." I can't exactly dispute that either, not in this case. What kind of example does it set when we have so many cases of priests being 'outed' as pedophiles yet the church kept them on, but because this man performed one ceremony for his same-gender loving son, he was kicked out. What does that say about the church? It would be difficult to be comfortable in a place where you are constantly overshadowed with the ugly spectre of discrimination and ostracizm by the people around you. Is this their plan for rebuilding our society, by telling people that it's okay to be a member of a church and volunteer your time and donate your money, but if you want to get married, you're going to have to take it somewhere else because they won't marry you if the person you love is not someone they approve of! Is the church ever going to stop this close-mindedness, and learn that there is more to God's love than always standing in judgement of others?? It's this singleminded purposeness that has contributed more to the decline of the church than anything else ever conceived in the name of God.
I'm sorry; I didn't mean for this post to go in the direction it has. After all, the point of the article is about a man, his son, and his church, not about the church and its role in tearing down our society. It's just such a shame to see an institution that weilds so much power in our society misusing it like this. Instead of taking advantage of every opportunity to bring people together, they are alienating people from one another. Having a man tell his son he can't perform his wedding because of who he chooses to marry is not the way to rebuild the family structure. Those who made the decision to 'defrock' Pastor Shaefer need to be defrocked themselves.
Of course this is strictly the opinion of the author, coming to you Live From Bikini Bottom.....
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