GENESIS II: HOMOPOLAR, GOD DAMN IT! HOMOPOLAR!: Methodist jury convicts Pa. pastor for gay wedding

Rev. Schaefer

and

His Gay Son

Methodist jury convicts Pa. pastor for gay wedding | Boston Herald: SPRING CITY, Pa. — A United Methodist pastor was convicted Monday of breaking church law by officiating his son's same-sex wedding and could be defrocked after a high-profile trial that has rekindled debate over the denomination's policy on gay marriage.

Boger, the church's sole witness, testified Monday that he felt betrayed when he found out that Schaefer, who had baptized his children and buried his grandparents, had presided over a gay wedding.

"When pastors take the law of the church in their own hand ... it undermines their own credibility as a leader and also undermines the integrity of the church as a whole," Boger said.

"It's his son. He loves his son. In a way I felt bad for him. But he's also shown no remorse or repentance, nor has he apologized to anyone."

When Schaefer chose to hide the marriage from the congregation, Boger said, "It was a lie and a broken covenant."

But Schaefer testified he had informed his superiors of his part in the marriage. He said he kept it from his conservative church's congregation because it would be divisive.

"I did not want to make this a protest about the doctrine of the church. I wasn't trying to be an advocate," Schaefer said. "I just wanted this to be a beautiful family affair, and it was that."

Schaefer's son came out to his parents at age 17, revealing he had contemplated suicide over his struggle with sexual identity and the church's stance on homosexuality.

"He had heard messages that were hateful from the church, from the culture around him, that told him you're not normal, you're not valid, you're a freak," Schaefer testified.

The nation's largest mainline Protestant denomination accepts gay and lesbian members, but it rejects the practice of homosexuality as "incompatible with Christian teaching."

The church's lawyer, the Rev. Christopher Fisher, told the jury that Schaefer clearly violated the Book of Discipline.

Fisher used his closing argument to condemn homosexuality as immoral and said Schaefer had no right to break a Methodist law that bans pastors from performing same-sex marriages just because he disagreed with church teaching. He told jurors they were duty-bound to convict.

"You'll give an account for that at the last day, as we all will," he told the jury, to audible gasps from spectators.

***

"You'll give an account for that at the last day,

we all will."

~(Methodist Church's Lawyer/Rev. Christopher Fisher)~

Though the main purpose of the Priests Rape Boys website is to criticize Catholicism, the WBC also criticizes several mainline Protestant churches on the website, including Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Anglicans, and Baptists. The WBC states that

...their preachers have shirked their responsibility to tell people the truth about sin, and instead lie to them about what the Lord their God doth require of them. If these lying, false prophets told people the truth about what God says regarding those who suffer sin upon their neighbor (Lev. 19:17–18), there wouldn't be any butts in the seats when the plate got passed. These preachers are not preachers of righteousness, they are teachers having itching ears (2Tim 4:3), and they absolutely count on the abysmal bible illiteracy of their parishioners ... "Priests rape boys" is indeed an air-tight, three word case against all of the mainline "christian" churches – their preachers and members, without exception. They are all going to Hell!

Itching ears is a term used in the Bible to describe a person who seeks out messages that please them and fit their lifestyle, as opposed to seeking a truth that might make them uncomfortable. The term is used by the Apostle Paul in 2 Timothy:

2 Timothy 4:3-4:

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

A superstition of ear itch is that if the left ear itches, someone is speaking positively about you; if the right ear itches, someone is speaking negatively about you.Left is love,right is spite.

Itching ears: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

***