Easter: a time to Celebrate Jesus, unless a church proposes saying 'Jesus Loves All'

[muriel_volestrangler]

in which case it literally gets thrown out of the parade:

The Celebrate Jesus Easter Parade has been growing in Eureka Springs over the past three years. This year the Eureka Springs First Methodist Church applied to be in the parade, wanting to carry a sign saying "Jesus loves all." The church was denied, and now they're asking why.
...
First United Methodist of Eureka Springs applied to be in the parade, and was initially accepted. One week before the parade, however, they were told they were no longer welcome. Church member Suzie Bell believes it's because of their stance on the LGBT community.

"They wanted to know what our banner was going to say, and it said "Jesus loves all. They had decided that they did not want us in the parade, and that we weren't welcome." Bell said.

Bell says the Methodist Church has recently become a "reconciling congregation" meaning they are publicly welcoming of the LGBT community. Bell says that is the reason they weren't allowed in.

http://m.nwahomepage.com/display/20386/story/859698c6e1cad93023bb48464add0e32

Much of the town is apparently very gay-friendly, so it looks like this is the conservatives throwing a temper tantrum at the thought that some Christians actually like LGBT people.

[katsy]

1. Discrimination against red letter Christians.

n/t

[guillaumeb]

2. very sad that people who claim to follow Jesus' example

cannot do unto others unless the others are just like them.

[cbayer]

3. The statement released by the parade organizer was fairly bizarre

and did not address the refusal at all. I suspect the group that organizes this parade are not happy about the town's pro-GLBT reputation and run this parade as a protest of sorts.

There is apparently an ongoing struggle between the two factions.