Your ideas for solution are well-taken. These types of things in my church are already only available to church members, so we wouldn't be impacted. And we don't own and operate schools below the University level.
I actually had the Catholic Church in mind because they also operate schools and hosptals. The hospitals shouldn't have any problems I can envision, but the schools could. Also there are all kinds of denominations that own and operate schools for the sole purpose of teaching the contents of the Bible as well as the general curriculum.
The prospect of a child who was adopted by a gay couple being banned from a summer church camp out of prejudice against their parents is a sad prospect indeed.
Yes it would. However, the child wouldn't know unless the parent applied and got the child into a religious camp or school. Such a child could grow pretty much to adulthood, I would think, before knowing there were groups who disapproved of his/her parents' relationship.
What would be piercingly sad would be the child sent to the summer camp and finding him or herself trapped in a class setting, being taught that Church's standards for sexual behavior and feeling shame realizing this applied to his parents.
At any rate, I feel confident that unless religious schools, camps, pre-schools, etc. are exempted, there will be applications made followed by litigation.....test cases all over the place and from every angle. I'd expect gay litigators to be gunning for the church community once there's legal precendence in place. The gay community wants approval, not just to be 'tolerated' and given equal rights....no one could blame them for wanting this...and the Church community has thus far stubbornly refused to rewrite the Bible and make that more easily come to pass.
And it is sad. Everything about this issue leaves people sad on both sides of it, but it just is what it is. To call it culture war is probably too strong a phrase. It's an impasse. |
