Dear Sirs, July 25 2006 (published on 27th)
Please print this rebuttal to the press and your recent letters concerning our courts decision.
Pastor Ed Rice
Good Samaritan Baptist Church,
54 Main St, Dresden NY 14441 (315) 536-0878
Home Phone (607) 292-6639
The press and now the public has tried to emphasize a constitutional discrimination issue in our courts rejection of homosexual marriage. In her July 19th letter in the Chronicle Express Barb Crumb calls out for same sex marriage as the “only reasonable non-discrimination decision for all citizens of this country now.” I am a citizen and I oppose such a decision with every fiber of my being. The carte blanche end of every discrimination about moral issues is ludicrous. Homosexual behavior is a moral issue. For a Christian, God calls it a sin and an abomination, which makes it a very UN-reasonable non-discrimination decision for all citizens of this country, ever. Giving the institute of our homes over to this powerful immoral lobby is akin to making kleptomaniacs bank tellers, pedophiles and transvestites our school teachers and Arabic Muslims in charge of our port security. When it comes to moral issues we need to hold onto discrimination, it don't matter if they think they were born that way. Even our Congress used national and religious discrimination for our port security. Despite the mockery of our press and tom-foolery of a few outspoken advocates, discrimination about moral issues is appropriate and the courts ruled very proper on this moral issue. Discrimination is not against the law nor our constitution. Indeed it is legally necessary and wise to be very discriminating in this world filled with evil and danger. Especially when it come to bearing and rearing our children. Our government's purpose and the purpose of all law is to maintain our society on a high moral plain. That takes discrimination, moral discrimination.
Sincerely Yours
Edward Rice (322 words)
Pastor, Good Sam
Baptist Church
Finger Lakes Times Mon Jul 31 2006 Answer
What pastor believes is a matter of debate
To the Editor:
Pastor Rice (Times letter, July 27) speaks at length about the reasonableness of discriminating against gay people because it is a “moral” issue. There are too many examples of “moral” issues in the Bible to list, so I will only cite one: slavery. Not only was slavery condoned, slaves were exhorted to be true to their masters.
Pastor Rice makes it sound as if he is in direct communication with God. I believe that our closest recent communications from God came from Jesus Christ.
There are many translations of the Gospels, from the original Aramaic to today's many versions. Nowhere in these Gospels does Jesus mention homosexuality. Jesus did preach inclusivity and love for all believers.
I hope that Pastor Rice will study these Gospels again.
CLAIRE F KREMER, Geneva (149 words)
Pastor's hateful letter (Aug 8th)
was a form of gay bashing
to the Editor:
We would like to respond to the Dresden pastor's letter regarding moral discrimination (Times, July 27),
His comments regarding homosexuals and same-sex marriage were an insult to a minority group, to their families, and to those who stand behind them in their ongoing struggle for equality in a country that was founded on “liberty and justice for all,” and that “all men are created equal.”
We are in a transition between a new consciousness and old definitions, and the new consciousness will win. Christianity is a divided religion, and conservative and liberal Christians interpret the Bible in very different ways. Therefore, they reach totally different conclusions about their meaning.
Opponents of gay rights, and specifically same-sex marriage, often quote the Bible to defend their disapproval, i.e. Lev 20:13.
That same Bible also directs us to stone to death disobedient sons (Deut. 21:18-21) and women who are not virgins on their wedding nights (Deut. 22:20-21). Fundamentalists can't single out which passages to enforce.
There are many organized religions.
Their churches have the right to say no to same-sex marriage, we respect tat. But so many people miss the point when discussing this.
It is not about church-sanctioned marriage. It is about family. It is about love, commitment and equal opportunity for all.
What does the Bible say about same-sex marriage?
Nothing.
The argument about same-sex marriage is rooted in prejudice and fear.
Remember when women couldn't vote?
Blacks and white couldn't marry?
There were fewer accommodations for the disabled. Change has defined and will continue to define our history – religiously and politically.
This pastor's hateful letter about moral discrimination being acceptable is just another example of gay bashing, hiding behind the Bible, trying to highjack Christianity to advance his own radical agenda. Was it not Jesus who said, “Judge not, lest you be judged.”?
Perhaps we should all learn to stop judging others and to practice Jesus' ethic of love expressed when he said “Don't criticize your brother for the speck that is in his eye until you have removed the log from within your own eye.”
John and Gloria Paris
Seneca Falls. (375 words)
Dear Sirs,
Since my honor and Christian integrity have been slandered in the Finger Lakes Times Editorials please print this letter. (I carefully kept my word count equal to Mr. Paris's defamatory 8 Aug letter.)
Pastor Ed Rice
Good Samaritan Baptist Church,
54 Main St, Dresden NY 14441 (315) 536-0878
Home Phone (607) 292-6639
The radical left has done so much Christian bashing in the last few weeks that it should be said that the Baptist Pastor in Dresden is a preacher of forgiveness and the saving Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. I bash no man. I hate no man. I judge no man. I plainly teach what Jesus taught, that “except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish” (The Gospel According to Luke 13:3) “Then began (Jesus) to upbraid the cities ... because they repented not;” ( The Gospel According to Matthew 11:20) This is not inclusivity but exclusivity. Of what, then, should you and I repent? Repent of SIN! And sodomy, men with men, and effeminate men is a listed sin!
If you don't like nor understand why God, 4000 years ago, required his chosen nation, Israel, to publicly stone offenders, tough beans. That does not make the listed sins any less of a sin. It did preserve a nation for 2000 years. A nation that gave us the oracles of God, the Holy Bible, and the Messiah of God, Jesus Christ the Righteous. Those penalties had effectual purpose for Israel but are not for us today. Any Fundamental Christian understands that, as well as they understand that rebellion, fornication and sodomy are still sins and require repentance not acceptance.
Jesus taught through his eyewitnesses, his ordained apostles, that “men with men working that which is unseemly” (Paul's Epistle to the Romans 1:27) is immoral sin. When effeminate males are abusers of themselves with males, Jesus and Paul's Epistle to Corinth says it is a moral sin and repentance is required. I am a Bible believing Christian; sodomy is an immoral sin; don't bash me or accuse me of hate, for preaching His forgiveness.
This country's courts have already passed 'a law' condoning immoral sin and today 4000 human lives were aborted to trash cans because of it. We should never pass any law that would condone the sin of sodomy. I hate no man. I bash no man. I judge no man. I do pass on God's judgments and His requirement is that you repent of sin and accept Christ as your “propitiation.” That is the Gospel that Jesus and this Baptist Pastor preach.
Pastor Ed Rice
Pen Yann Chronicle Express 31 Aug 2006 Letter
Thank you to many
to the editor
First I would like to thank those of you who wrote in to support my concern against discrimination. For those of you who might disagree, though, I am happy to lear that you do not judge others, and that you whave such a direct line to the Almighty that you can determine which of His commandments to follow, and which are no longer necessary in today's world. I am, however, a bit confused about a part of that recent letter. I have been taught all my life that the love that Jesus taught when he said that the second great commandments was to “Love thy neighbor as thyself” referred to unconditional love. But apparently love IS conditional, limited only to htoes who have repented of “sin” as defined by those with that direct line so that they know which listed sins are still in force, and which have become no longer applicable in today's world.
Barbara Crumb