Fort Worth's Broadway Baptist Delays Vote on Listing Gay Members in Directory

I previously did a post on the controversy going on in this Baptist Church in Fort Worth Texas pictured at left. As reported by the Dallas News (http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/religion/stories/120307dnmetbroadwaybaptist.5f3dbfb9.html), the Broadway Baptist congregation has now put off a vote until February 24, 2008. In keeping with my post on Sunday (delayed til Monday, actually), I hope the congregation will vote to do the right thing and not give in to the brain dead traditionalists who want to selectively apply the Bible. Here are more highlights from the Dallas News story:

A Fort Worth church continues to struggle with how to handle photographs of gay members in a pictorial directory that's to be part of its 125th anniversary celebrations. Broadway Baptist church has debated whether the directory should include gay couples, or gay people individually but not as couples, or whether to omit all individual and family photos. Members were to vote Sunday after morning worship. But in a clear indication that they are divided over how accepting to be of homosexuality, they met for an hour and then postponed any decision until deacons make a recommendation on Feb. 24.

Broadway is well known in Southern Baptist circles as a moderate church, where a diversity of views is welcomed and women have a strong role in leadership. The church has long had gay members. Brett Younger, senior pastor, said during Sunday morning's worship service that some Broadway members believe homosexuality is a sin, based on certain Bible verses. Others think differently and note that Bible verses have been used to justify polygamy, slavery and the oppression of women, he said. Earlier, in a church newsletter, Dr. Younger wrote that some members feel that allowing gay couples' photos in the directory would be too strong an endorsement of homosexuality. Others hold that letting gay members be shown in the directory, but only on an individual basis, would constitute an unfair "judgment" against gay couples, he wrote.

What amazes me is that how, in light of all the horrible things the Bible's literal passages have been used to justify, supposedly educated and intelligent people continue to commit the same error by clinging to a few selected passages rather than admit that just perhaps they have been wrong in their conduct/beliefs.