It’s churches, if you can call them that, like this that give Christians a bad name. They are pretty much about as far from the teachings of Christ as you could get. I applaude the Sun for not covering their upcoming protest.

God does not hate any man/woman!
Read your BIBLE!
Any person who can hold a sign up or think that God hates fags, is not a christain!
GOD is LOVE!

I'll pray for this group of idiots. I'll pray they receive wisdom and guidance. I wonder what will be said when they lose a son or daughter?

Although originally outraged by this church when it began protesting gay events, I came to found them somewhat amusing because they were actually detrimental to their own cause. But protesting funerals -- that is just so incredibly mean and wrong -- I can't believe this is an OK thing to do, even though I support free speech rulings in general. They do not express any qualities of christian behavior -- they have latched on to one or two convenient bible verses and made a career out of hurting people certainly no worse than they are.

Every religion has its extremists. Just as some Muslims take theirs to extreme, so it seems do some Christians. Both are equally obnoxious.

It is examples of American culture like this that reinforce my view that the last country on Earth that should be preaching to others about tolerance, justice and humanity is the United States of America.

Sara
Scotland

ravensfan posted saying that "God does not hate any man/woman!" This is true. God "so loved THE WORLD that He gave His only begotten son" [emphasis added]. Jesus died to free men and women from sin, like homosexuality. And make no mistake, it is a sin. Westboro Baptist Church's behavior is as bad in God's eyes, as homosexuality. Maybe even worse, because the church is smearing the Name of Jesus. Jesus said that the world would know Christians by their love, and I don't see any Christian love in the reports I read about that church.

Lehmann mentions that homosexuality is bad in God's eyes... WHO CREATED GAYS? GOD! Some day, all those who still believe Gays choose to be Gay will face God, and will be asked "why have you judged, condemned and crucified those who were born differently from yourself?". Those who bring so much good "creation" to this world!

Gays don't choose to be gay ... do you think people choose to be excluded, hated, and condemned just for fun? God created gays for God's reason. Curb the world's overpopulation, bring good parents to children abandoned by straights. We need to trust in God's plan, no matter how different we may think it is.

The bottom line ALWAYS prevail: WHAT ONE SOWS, SO SHALL THEY REAP! I pray only that they are enlightened, and realize why they are reaping what they have!

Steve Leong - Hawaii

Rev Tim Lehmann bug off--you are another one of those prigs who thinks he knows what God thinks. Sex is sex man. Heterosexuals indulge in anal sex too. Is that OK with God? OK for men to do it with women but not for men to do it with men eh? God, if there is one, has better things to do than to be a voyeur in every person's bedroom. The Bible is full of gobbledygook if, as you say, it says homosexuality is a sin. Lying is a sin, stealing is a sin, killing is a sin, disrespecting your parents is a sin, but having anal sex it ain't a sin and if it is a sin then all sex is sin; I don't see why one modality of sex should get a pass grade from God and another should get an F because the Biblical God who is asexual, unlike Zeus the ancient Greek God, should be above the lowly job of placing orifices for fornication in a taxonomy of superior versus forbidden --V for vagina good, A for anus bad. Come on Reverend Lehmann, get off your ambiguous God is love gig. You commit a sin and a boo boo when you suggest your God is preoccupied with carnal lust and has made rules for how sex should be had by two bit humans--the Christian God, plain and simple knows nothing about sex--He hasn't had it, not as the Father, not as the Son and certainly not as the Holy Ghost.

Anonymous - Any Pentecostal, or Catholic Christian knows that God is an all powerful, all knowing, universe spanning entity that has a deep and personal interest in your sex life.

Rev. Lehmann, I couldnt agree with you more. Thanks for your comments.

Anonymous that post of yours was as hateful and disrespectful as the so-called church makes. At least Rev. Tim Lehmann didn’t feel the need to be disrespectful in his post. Pity you can’t say the same. I guess that’s you were too embarrassed to even leave an id.

Rev Lehmann is right. Homosexuality is sin. Christ died for sinners to redeem them from sin. To continue to live in sin is to choose hell. All too simple, really. As they say, tis the easy bits of the Bible that are the toughest.

I am not a bit ashamed of what I wrote Ravensfan--for you and all the others on this board sex itself is a dirty word. Reverend Lehmann or Clay or John Sutherland, despite polite expressions, are not innocuous men. They, and people with similar beliefs, are responsible for the marginalization and persecution of numerous people, for nothing more than their sexual orientation. Several homosexuals have either killed themselves or been killed, they have suffered housing discrimination, lost children they have adopted and reared, dismissed from the army despite excellent and heroic service and have been unable to serve as linguists and translators at a time of great need for just such polyglots in our war on terror. Plain and simple these opinions hurt lives, cause legal inequities and leave corpses burned by the Molotov cocktail of religion and politics. A cool head and eternal politeness may be your trademarks but as you have said elsewhere there is also a place in these blogs for angry rhetoric born of righteous indignation. You just wander and contradict yourself as fancy dictates depending on who is at the receiving end of your homilies. Anyway, what you consider hateful was right up Robert's alley for banter. As for your obsession with IDs it borders on the absurd. When Mr.Brown wants to censor me he will do so and I will be duly chastised.

Anonymous the fact that you aren’t embarrassed by what you said is even sadder then the actual hate filled rhetoric you posted. How exactly do you know what I think of sex? It would appear you are guilty of making the same sort of prejudgment you accuse others of doing. You also make the same sort of self righteous judgments on several others as well based on their religious beliefs. As with most anti-religious bigots you take a few extreme examples and apply to all of us. Funny because in doing so you exhibit the very narrow mindedness you accuse most of us of having. I don’t recall saying that “there is also a place in these blogs for angry rhetoric born of righteous indignation”. It sounds much more like something you or Robert would say. Maybe you’d care to point out where I contradicted myself as well. You seem to be big on accusations, but short on details. My commenting on your lack of id seems to be bothering you quite a bit. I don’t ever recall saying you shouldn’t be able to post that way. If you like hiding in the background while posting that’s your business. All I did was point out the obvious sorry if once again that bothers you.

Yes, Ravensfan on another blog, with Clay you defended Robert's right to post what he wanted to post. You are ever the civil rights advocate with Clay and that is good Ravensfan--I have taken note of it and actually admired you for it except you change in your journey through these blogs depending on who is at the receiving end of your homilies. That's fine Ravensfan--I don't mind being at the receiving end of your moralizations--makes life more interesting.

Anonymous - I haven’t changed. You simply don’t agree with me and instead of saying that you need to make the empty allegation of change. I believe I already asked for you, assuming you are the other Anonymous here, to point out any contradictions. I didn’t see where you bothered to do that just make the empty change allegation. You finish by offering yourself as a sort of martyr to me. That’s sort of funny considering you were the one to attack, belittle and mock someone whose moral views differ from your own. Maybe you should be taking note of your own change as you journey through these blogs instead of concerning yourself with mine.

"For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error." Romans 1:26-27

"'You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination. " Leviticus 18:22

"And He answered and said to them, 'Why do you yourselves transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?'" Matthew 15:3

"Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men." Mark 7:8

"Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned--" Romans 5:12

I was born a sinner though I did not choose to be born in this manner.

Sara, where, exactly, did Jesus say that Homosexuality was a sin? I'd like book, chapter and verse, please. I won't bother waiting, since said verse does not exist. If homosexuality was such a horrible sin, then you think Jesus would have said at least something about not doing it. Yet he didn't.

Hmm.... maybe homosexuality is just a normal part of the human condition, rather than a sin, as some sanctimonious hypocrites have decided to brand it?

Gays never choose to be gay, however, christains choose to be hateful. Your god, if I follow your logic, makes everyone straight but then people willing choose to be harassed, murdered, assaulted, and attacked because of what?

The bible says slavery is okay. The bible says its okay to rape a woman as long as you marry her. The bible says you can sell your daughter into sexual slavery. The bible says only 144,000 jewish males untouched by woman can enter heaven.
TL/DR Why should we listen to folks who have imaganary friends in the sky?

"Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved."

- Catechism of the Catholic Church

Given this teaching, It says NOTHING about not loving the individual. On the contrary, we MUST love all people. The church does not condemn the individual but the ACT the individual makes. Just as "straight" couples are not to engage in extramarital sex.

These extremist are totally missing the mark. How terribly distorted their view on scripture and teachings (taking nothing away from the abnormality of homosexuality).

Our sexuality is always a choice, regardless of what our bodies tell us. The devil loves to point out things in the bible like there were slaves in those days and therefore insinuate that if you are black dont listen to God, etc because look what happened to your ancestors, etc. Hogwash. I remember reading an email from a black man who was saying not to support Obama. He stated that he was a Christian first and black second. Thanks.

Clay – How exactly did you come to the conclusion that “our sexuality is always a choice”? The bible only speaks to the act not anything else. Your slavery comment was down right dumb not to mention racist. In fact I don’t recall ever hearing something so ridiculous. Are you making this stuff up? Please tell me your not serious. If you are serious you are being fed some very flawed doctrine.

Hi Anon. You are right we are to love the individual but not the act. People tend to forget that when they are being critical as well as when they are trying to be loving.

Clay, the plain and simple fact is this:anal sex occurs among heterosexuals and it is a common birth control practice in many parts of the Christian Third World. You've got a bundle of sexual hang ups Clay and you are placing a big fat Gutenberg Bible over your puritanical self even as you spout garbled nonsense about loving the sinner but not the sin. In this case the sinner is inseparable from his sin-- his sexuality--it is his instinct, his life, his being that you condemn--therefore you neither accept him nor love him. In the eyes of your own good Lord Jesus you are a liar if you say you do, and you break one of the Ten Commandments by lying. Chow, pal--you are a migraine to those in pursuit of rational thought.
Ravensfan's Anon