UCC Church Banished from Baptist Convention Center

A few years ago, the United Church of Christ produced a 30-second commercial that lots of people hated.  The commercial featured a couple of bouncers turning people away from a church before Sunday worship.  Among those turned away from the bouncers were a gay couple, a couple different non-Caucasians, and a person in a wheelchair.  The networks hated the ad because it promoted gay marriage, which then-president George W. Bush hated.  I don't follow the logic, but whatever...  And church people (including some within the UCC itself) hated the ad because they felt like the UCC was pointing fingers at them.  The problem with their complaints is that church bouncers really do exist, whether they like it or not.  I have no problem if they want to be bouncers.  I just wish they would own it.

Tonight I learned of a new Bouncer.  It's called the Lake Yale Baptist Conference Center and it's in Leesburg, FL.  According to the report I read, Lake Yale Baptist Conference Center has terminated its 28 year relationship with a UCC church called United Church of Gainsville because the UCC church promotes homosexuality.  It's an Open & Affirming (ONA) church, which means it's gone through a formal discernment process to welcome GLBT people in all levels of the church.  United Church of Gainsville has been ONA for two twenty years, which means the two programs coexisted amicably for most of their relationship.  The only thing that changed is that a few people from the UCC church wore some sort of ONA t-shirt to one of their retreats and a few staff members from the Baptist conference center realized was ONA meant.  The conference center began doing some digging and decided that the UCC church is not Closed & Unaffirming (CNU) and as a result they are no longer welcome at the conference center:

Congregation members plan to send a letter to John Sullivan, executive director of the Florida Baptist Convention, said (Rev. Sandy Reimer, co-pastor of Gainesville UCC). "We are asking that they give us, and, in the future, give all groups that rent their facility, written notice of their policy not to allow groups with gay/lesbian/bi members to use their conference center."

Don Hepburn, public relations director for the Florida Baptist Convention, said the retreat center has a "long-standing policy that groups that use our facility must be in conformity with our biblical faith. This particular group has used the facility for the past 30 years, and at no time have they ever forthrightly said to us, 'We're an alternative lifes [sic] group.' That is, 'We promote homosexual behavior.' Therefore, we've been unaware all these years of that particular perspective. Certainly, that is a conflict with our understanding of the Bible," Hepburn said.

And Christians wonder why GLBT people think that the Church hates them...