Jeanne Assam, a member of the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, was working as a volunteer security guard in December of 2007 when a disturbed man started firing into the crowd outside the Church. He killed two churchgoers and wounded two others before Assam got to him and shot him and took him down, at which time he killed himself.
Assam was praised as a hero and appeared with the church leaders in dozens of media appearances. Well, it turns out Jeannie Assam is gay. When she told church authorities this, she was told she was no longer welcome.
This is the same church that was led by Ted Haggard, who was outed by a male prostitute in 2006 and sent to a “counciling” session in the desert with four ministers, after which one of the ministers proclaimed him “completely heterosexual.”
Some of the comments after the article are priceless.
Even if you accept their premise that homosexual behavior is a sin (which most but not all churches do), I seem to recall sinners being the kind of people Jesus usually hung out with. Something about the healthy not needing a physician. I just don’t understand the reasoning behind any church showing a gay person the door, even the most conservative ones. If anything they should be going to gay bars and inviting everyone to church.
Well, the church leadership seems to be denying that they said she was not welcome. So this is not as cut and dried, apparently, as the OP makes it out to be.
Also, this controversy is coming at the same time she is releasing a book that she wrote. This tends to taint her side of things a little, possibly.
I honestly don’t know why she would want to continue to attend a church like that. If she is just now coming to terms with her sexual orientation, and accepting it, the last place she needs to be seeking spiritual comfort is a church where probably a huge percentage of the congregation would be unhappy with her presence, regardless of the “official” church line.
I’m going to put her down as confused and still seeking wisdom.
On preview: Skammer, I would also not want to hang out with people who thought I was broken and needed to be fixed.
Roddy
The lead Pastor says that she is welcome, and he may honestly believe that, but anyone familiar with that church and it’s members knows that Ms. Assam is telling the truth. They don’t have to say the thread title to her face for her to get the message that she is no longer welcome. To the New Life Church, homosexuality is the number one sin in all the world, bigger than all the Ten Commandments put together.
That Pastor, Boyd, was brought in after the Ted Haggard scandal to tone down the self-righteousness the church was known for, but the parishoners haven’t changed.
I agree, not only do I not keep a Religious Rolodex on which churches hate LGBT people like me, I also don’t personally know anything about the woman who claims she was ousted. As much as I’d like to believe her, and as often as it turns out Christian churches would rather take all LGBT people to the Nevada desert and nuke them than let them through the front door, doggone it, I have a problem when the church goes on record as saying it’s untrue. And if the lead pastor says she’s a “hero” to him, that surely deserves some consideration.
Paul, the line in the OP about this being the church of “Ted Haggard, who was outed by a male prostitute in 2006” didn’t ring any bells? I don’t feel like Googling those terms while I’m at work, but just feeding that into Google oughta bring you up to speed.
I remember that was the scandal where Dan Savage pointed out that the pastor had ceded moral high ground to a gay drug-addicted prostitute, since IIRC one of the reasons the gay hooker outed him was because Haggard is married and has children.
Because my experience leads me to believe that even though the pastor said she is welcome (and I believe that he means it), it doesn’t mean that she wasn’t made to feel unwelcome by the congregation.