The Whistle Wasn't the Problem

[Doug]

Pastor Quits After Revealing Same-Sex Relations

Published: December 12, 2006
The senior pastor of a suburban Denver evangelical church resigned Sunday after admitting to having had sexual relations with men. The move apparently came after the pastor was confronted by another minister in his church who had been alerted by an anonymous caller, The Denver Post reported.

The resignation of the pastor, the Rev. Paul Barnes, from the pulpit of the 2,100-member Grace Chapel megachurch in Englewood came by way of a tearful, 32-minute videotaped address to his congregation.

His departure occurred a month after the Rev. Ted Haggard quit as president of the National Association of Evangelicals and senior pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs when a former male prostitute disclosed that Mr. Haggard had had a sexual relationship with him.

Dave Palmer, the associate pastor of Grace Chapel, told The Post that the church received a call last week from a person who had overheard someone speak of “blowing the whistle” on other evangelical ministers in clandestine homosexual relationships, among them Mr. Barnes. Mr. Palmer then spoke with Mr. Barnes.

Read the rest here.

[Savonarola]

If Barnes had just had "private meetings" with fellow Coloradan Haggard, there would have been no suspicion and nobody willing to do any whistle blowing...

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

I could feel sorry for the guys, if they weren't so hypocritical. To be afraid to come out because of the reactions of family and/or society or religion, is understandable. But to marry, have kids (in a firmly/adamantly "heterosexual" relationship), and publically avocate anti-gay positions is something else again.

(And yes, I "got" the not whistle blowing comment.)

[Betsy]

how do these men get to be right-wing evangelical preachers in the first place? I would think that if you know you have homosexual leanings, becoming a Baptist (or similar) preacher would be a bad career path. Jesus! How stupid!

[Doug]

how do these men get to be right-wing evangelical preachers in the first place? I would think that if you know you have homosexual leanings, becoming a Baptist (or similar) preacher would be a bad career path. Jesus! How stupid!

DOUG
I suspect it's the same reason many gays go into the Catholic priesthood. They have certain urges that they hate about themselves, and they think that if they become holy the evil urges will go away. And they don't.

Roughly 50-70% of Catholic priests are gay.

'Gay Profession' In his book, "The Changing Face of the Priesthood," the rector of St. Mary's Seminary in Cleveland, Father Donald B. Cozzens, warned that the priesthood was becoming a "gay profession." And in the seminaries it wasn't merely a preponderance of gay students, but also "a disproportionate number of homosexually-oriented persons," including faculty, he wrote.

See here.

[Dardedar]

DAR
Apparently the guy had same sex feelings since he was five. His dad once threatened what he would do (some sort of physical attack) if a someone ever tried something gay around him. As a child he said he remembers feeling, that's what you would do to me? And we are to believe this is a "choice." Then he shut down of course. Married, two kids, lots of religion. As John Stewart says, "you can run from the gay, but the gay will find you."

D.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

In our "always blame the mother" society they used say (probably still do in some circles) that guys became gay because their mothers "coddled" them too much. Now those who pay attention to science (one more fundie reason to "dis" science) know that there is at least a genetic component, if not entirely genetic coding. So now we can look at how fathers keep gay guys from "coming out" - and send them into religious careers. Great help for the congregation, of course, to have a self-righteous, self-hating "shepherd" for the "flock".

[Betsy]

then again, we all tend to think everyone is like we are. I'm reminded of LaTour, on NWAP, who fought so zealously against books at the Fayetteville High School library that counseled to gay teens. He felt like the books would sway teens into being gay.

I think that fear comes from the fact that he must be torn by his own homosexual feelings, and he is assuming that everyone is like that. So he thinks if we read a book that says being gay is something we need to accept about ourselves, that we're all susceptible to "turning gay".

SO, these gay or bisexual men who go into the ministry don't realize that there really are 100% straight heterosexual people out there (I used to think we were the majority; lately, I'm not so sure). They think we ALL battle homosexual urges and tendencies, so them going into the ministry doesn't seem any different than anyone else going into the ministry.

Just a theory.

Also, the fundies argue and argue that scientists have not found a gay "gene." Do you really have to have a "gene" if it's the effect of hormones distributed to the fetus in the womb?

[LaWood]

"They have certain urges that they hate about themselves, and they think that if they become holy the evil urges will go away. And they don't."

Is it possible they join the club because they know where the butt is?

I have a somewhat mentally handicapped step-brother who is gay. He knows which charismatic congregations have the most gays. So when he is hunting he selects a church his buddies have told him about.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

They haven't found a cancer gene either, but we know that some cancers have a hereditary (therefore genetic) component. The research done many years ago my momma told me about linked homosexuality (amongst many other things) to overcrowding. That apparently something about putting too many critters (extrapolated to people) in close quarters triggers something in the genetic code to "opt out" some of the potential producers. If that's true, then the fundies are working against "god's plan" for crowd control.

[Doug]

One of the indicators of the possibility that a man is gay is the number of older brothers.

For each additional brother that precedes him, a boy's likelihood of growing up gay increases by a third.

See here.

The discovery was made by Dr Anthony Bogaert, from Brock University in St Catherines, Canada, who with a colleague first uncovered the birth order link with homosexuality.

Dr Bogaert did not conclude what biological factors influence the sexuality of homosexuals with elder male siblings, but previous research has shown that genetics and the womb environment can have a major impact on sexual preferences in both men and women.

Certain parts of the body are affected by the male sex hormone testosterone during foetal development. Clues from the shape of ears, fingers, eyes and arms all indicate that lesbians are on average exposed to higher levels of testosterone in the womb.

...Dr Bogaert studied nearly 1,000 heterosexual and homosexual men in Canada who had either biological or non-biological brothers.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Dr. Bogaert's research sounds to me even more like homosexuality is a "natural" form of population/crowd control by "opting out" people from the reproduction pool - and providing people to take care of orphans in emergencies. Most people look at evolution from the individual's standpoint, but the number and success of species that live in groups indicates that homostasis of the group is also an evolutional process. More than ever I'd say the fundies are combating "god's plan" (the procedure developed/put in place with life itself) for preventing overcrowding.

It'd like to see Bogaert's research replicated - and with equal or larger sample sizes, though.

[Betsy]

They probably consider their religious wars a natural way of population control and all that's necessary.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

If they are allowed to kill off everybody who doesn't belong to their sect, they'd be right.