USA Today's religion reporter Cathy Lynn Grossman apparently has little use for Christian ministers who believe the Bible's teachings on sexual ethics.
Apparently already annoyed with evangelical pastor Rick Warren's stance on California's Proposition 8, Grossman took the California preacher to task for a letter offering use of his Saddleback Church to conservative Anglicans who have left the liberal Episcopal Church USA but were deprived of their church parish property due to a recent California court ruling (emphasis mine):
After sticking a fork in the eye of gay rights advocates by actively supporting Proposition 8 -- which overturned the legalization of gay marriage in California -- Warren compounded their outrage by equating gay marriage with incest in an interview with Beliefnet.
The hubbub lulled down a little over the holidays but today, he's back, with an open invitation to any group displaced by their denomination. This is code for Episcopal congregations that oppose that church's acceptance of a gay bishop in 2003.
Earlier this week, a California judge ruled that a breakaway congregation, St. James in Newport Beach, cannot keep its property now that they have left the Episcopal Church.
The Southern Baptist Warren shared his letter with Christianity Today which says, in part:
This is pretty much guaranteed to revive demands by gay rights advocates for Obama to reconsider Warren for the invocation.We stand in solidarity with them, and with all orthodox, evangelical Anglicans. I offer the campus of Saddleback Church to any Anglican congregation who need a place to meet, or if you want to plant a new congregation in south Orange County.
Grossman then predicted that Obama would hold fast to his promise to have Warren deliver the invocation at his inauguration before closing her blog post by rhetorically huffing, "Would you say the nation can afford to turn down anyone's prayers?"
