Cooperative Baptists who identify as LGBTQ and their allies said the time is now for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship to drop its policy against hiring staff or missionaries who are openly gay on the eve of the June 28-30 CBF…
Group wants Southern Baptists to remove gays from ‘sin list’
Picketers at next week’s Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Phoenix will seek to persuade messengers and leaders to remove LGBT individuals from the “sin list” in the nation’s second-largest faith group. Faith in America, a North Carolina-based advocacy organization,…
LGBT-friendly student group sets up possible showdown between Samford and Alabama Baptists
Trustees of Baptist-affiliated Samford University are poised to vote on an officially sanctioned gay-straight alliance recommended by students and faculty, setting up potential conflict with the Alabama Baptist Convention. The convention’s State Board of Missions met behind closed doors May…
Baptist pastor says faith-based adoption agencies shouldn’t discriminate against gays
The pastor of a Texas Baptist church which recently went on record as welcoming and affirming of gays has opposed pending legislation to allow faith-based adoption and foster care agencies to refuse to place children with same-sex couples. In testimony…
Mississippi religious liberty law has day in court
An attorney defending Mississippi’s controversial law allowing state employees to refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples and various businesses to deny services to LGBT individuals claimed in federal court April 3 that individuals challenging the statute should not…
Baptist church funds N.C.’s first homeless shelter for gay youth
Myers Park Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C., has announced a $100,000 gift to help build North Carolina’s first homeless shelter for LGBTQ youth. The gift, announced March 30, will help Time Out Youth — a support and advocacy organization for lesbian,…
Orphan care takes center stage in LGBT/religious liberty debate
Adoption and foster care are taking center stage in the latest conflict between LGBT equality and religious liberty. In the Texas legislature, State Rep. James Frank (R-Wichita Falls) is proposing an amendment to the state’s Human Resources Code to protect…
AWAB leaders empathize with ‘unambiguously gay’ Disney character
Controversy over the “exclusively gay moment” in the live-action musical remake of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast offers a glimpse of what many gay people experience growing up in church, leaders of the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists commented…
Politics, homosexuality, roil competing Baptist bodies in Texas
Separate state conventions affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention in Texas that parted ways during the SBC conservative resurgence now face challenges of their own generated by current controversies over homosexuality and President Donald Trump. The Baptist General Convention of…
Religious Right criticizes Trump’s secretary of state
Conservative white evangelicals credited with helping to elect Donald Trump as president oppose his pick for secretary of state not because of his cozy ties with Russia but for his role in leading the Boy Scouts of America to drop…
Southern Baptist leaders, others, oppose laws battling LGBT discrimination
More than 75 religious conservatives, including several leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention, have signed a public document opposing policies that ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Charter signers of the “Preserve Freedom, Reject Coercion” proclamation coordinated…
Texas Baptist church opens doors to LGBT community
Another Texas congregation has joined the ranks of moderate and progressive Baptists moving toward full inclusion of LGBT Christians, setting up potential conflict with the Baptist General Convention of Texas. Lake Shore Baptist Church in Waco, Texas, amended bylaws Nov….