Anchorage Baptist Temple ousts Boy Scout troop over allowing gay Scouts

[Newsjock]

Source: Anchorage Daily News

The Anchorage Baptist Temple has dropped its sponsorship of a local scout troop over its opposition to the Boy Scouts of America's policy to admit openly gay scouts.

... In May, the Boy Scouts of America's National Council changed a longstanding policy and voted to allow openly gay members to participate. The council maintained a ban on gay adult scout leaders.

The church's decision came now, months later, because "we were just hoping there would be enough repercussions that the Boy Scouts might reconsider, and they haven't," the church's chief pastor, Rev. Jerry Prevo, said Thursday.

Prevo said he wasn't worried about backlash. The Bible's message is plain, he said: "No homosexual will enter the Kingdom of God."

Read more: http://www.adn.com/2013/08/08/3014921/baptist-temple-ousts-anchorage.html

[delrem]

1. IMO this is all part of "weeding out the garden".

These people "The Anchorage Baptist Temple" are probably like a lot of little groups covering the world. In this case they probably all think of themselves as "saved" and "washed in the blood of the lamb" and "reborn in Jesus", and this thought is the most important one in their lives. They listen to sometimes incredibly backward preachers. In case of other religions: apply the same formula but substitute religious icons.

This kind of person will always be here, and in great numbers. They might well be the massive majority. I don't think of them as *leaders*. I don't hate them either.
It seems to me that these are people who require and enjoy a sense of absolute security, of being right on earth and in heaven, so anything that might seem to shatter that sense of security is anathema. Well, why the fuck not?????

What I like about the progressive movement is that it operates on a "meta-level" over that, so it aims to change the kind of conditions under which people who require a sense of absolute security feel satisfied.

[Arctic Dave]

2. The ABT is full of nothing but hatful pieces of shit.

Self righteous scumbags who use god as a cover for their hatred.

Fuck everyone of them.

[delrem]

3. You wield a mighty hoe!

[Arctic Dave]

4. I've never met a member of that "church" that wasn't a scumbag.

It's not nicknamed the"Death Star" for nothing.

Prevo and Mimmery are world class scum.

[delrem]

6. uh huh, but how to get to their audiences?

I mean, the members of their churches.

If you tell those members that their church is scum, you won't get far.
That church is one of millions.
So you won't get far.
In fact
you'd be in the tar.

[Arctic Dave]

8. Not trying to get anywhere with them.

They are beyond reason and can only be corralled and marginalized.

This helps with that.

[delrem]

9. Oh. I totally disagree with that. nt

[Blue_In_AK]

11. Dave, I agree with that.

Jerry Prevo is not your normal fundamentalist preacher. In all my years here -- and I've lived in Anchorage almost as long as he has -- I've never understood his political power. It makes me sick each election season the way the candidates are expected to go out there and grovel for his cult's votes on their "election Sunday." It sickens me.

I'm all for marginalizing them as much as we can. Solidarity!

[Blue_In_AK]

7. Delrem, you have no idea

what an asshole this guy is. It's bad enough that he pulls this kind of stuff at his church, but he's basically held Anchorage's forward progress hostage for the past 40 years. He wields an incredible (and unwarranted) amount of political power. His "church" runs a K-12 school, he has a radio station or two, and all political candidates must genuflect before his awesomeness so he can tell his sheep who to vote for. He is a scourge.

[Blue_In_AK]

5. Jerry Prevo is the biggest asshat in Achorage

This was not at all a surprising move for him.

[TlalocW]

10. Kind of ironic

In that when Jesus references Sodom and Gamorrah, He refers to their inhospitality.

TlalocW

[Igel]

12. And he'd have been referring to the OT.

Read that for what "inhospitality" meant. That's exactly what every single one of his audience would have understood.

The other bit of context is what travellers and strangers were. People didn't usually move for the fun of it or just because there was a better job. You'd suddenly be outside your language area, your clan group, your tribe, your entire support network. They moved for drought, war, extreme poverty, or because they were outcasts--or they were traders, usually in caravans for protection against thieves and not needing to bother with inns.

Words without context are fairly difficult to interpret.

"DU is toxic and should be banned" is either freeper-speak or Democratic-Underground-speak, depending upon whether "DU" means "depleted uranium" or "Democratic Underground."