United Methodist Church: "homosexuality incompatible with Christian teaching."

Delegates at the General Conference of the United Methodist Church (held every four years to set church poliy) upheld a church law that says gay and lesbian relationships are "incompatible with Christian teaching."

Gay advocates at the conference also failed to remove a sentence from the Methodist Book of Discipline that says the church "does not condone the practice of homosexuality."

Methodist delegates retained a policy that lets pastors deny memberbeship to gays and lesbians.

Sunday's Herald Leader Article - Dr. James Holsinger.

The Herald Leader had a front page article today about Dr. James Holsinger, the homophobic nominee for U.S. Surgeon General.

"His posture on things is based on the science of health and disease, not on any moral or health issue," said Dr. F. Douglas Scutchfield, a colleague at UK.

[...]

In Lexington, Holsinger and his wife, Barbara, were asked to be part of a team that founded Hope Springs Community Church, which has a Hispanic ministry and recovery ministries for those with addictions to drugs, alcohol and sex. The recovery ministry includes some who no longer wish to be gay, the Rev. David Calhoun has said.

However, Calhoun said in an e-mail last week that the church does not have a specific ministry targeted at "curing" gays -- as some gay-rights groups have charged.

In 2000, Holsinger was elected to the United Methodist Church's Judicial Council, which rules on disputes involving church doctrine. As one of the nine members of the court, Holsinger ruled with others that a lesbian in a committed relationship could not continue to be a minister and that a pastor could withhold church membership from a gay man.

In 1988, Holsinger began serving on a national church committee to study homosexuality and make recommendations on whether church doctrine should be changed.

The committee took four years to consider the issue, and, in 1991, Holsinger wrote a paper entitled the Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality. In it, he makes a biological argument that gay sex is unnatural and unhealthy. He argues that, like male and female pipe fittings, certain body parts are designed for one another.

The paper has drawn wide criticism from gay-rights groups. They say it represents an out-dated view, even for 1991, of gay sex. The American Psychological Association, for example, removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders in 1973.

Shortly after he submitted the paper, Holsinger withdrew from the committee. At the time, the committee was beginning to form its opinion, said the Rev. Phil Wogaman, who served on the committee and is now retired.

Most of the members wanted to remove language from church doctrine that said the church did not condone homosexuality and "considered its practice incompatible with Christian teaching," Wogaman said.

The majority believed that homosexuality, if practiced in a caring, committed relationship, was acceptable, Wogaman said. "When the majority was beginning to form its views, Dr. Holsinger was in strong disagreement with that and chose to leave the committee, in some anger," Wogaman said.

Holsinger opposed any recognition of homosexuality as normal, Wogaman said. "He took the view that it's pathological, that homosexuality is both sin and a kind of mental sickness," Wogaman said. "He was quite vocal about it."

Moral issue? What moral issue? This is crazy! What if someone has a "moral" issue with him being Methodist?

Dr. James Holsinger for anti-gay U.S. Surgeon General.

President Bush's choice for surgeon general likely will face questions about his stands on AIDS, sex education and abortion during the confirmation process.

Dr. James Holsinger clearly has some pretty definite views on right and wrong; he's got it straight all right. Dr. Holsinger has made his negative views on homosexuality known for nearly two decades.

• In the early 1990s, Holsinger resigned from the denomination's Committee to Study Homosexuality because he believed the committee "would follow liberal lines," according to Time magazine. At the time, he warned that acceptance of homosexuality would drive away millions of churchgoers.
• As a member of the Judicial Council, he voted with the majority in 2005 that a Virginia pastor could deny church membership to an openly gay man.

Aside from him clearly being "anti-gay," Holsinger’s record is mired with incompetence, zealous conservatism, and, of course, sizable campaign contributions to Republicans.

As Chief Medical Director of the Department of Veterans Affairs under Bush’s father, Dr. Holsinger was neglecting our vets long before Walter Reed made it fashionable.

• A government investigation found “several cases in which incompetence and neglect led to the deaths of patients.” Dr. Holsinger was forced to admit blame for the deaths of six patients in less than a year at a single Chicago hospital alone.
• But the problems weren’t limited to Chicago. In Wyoming, a patient scheduled for surgery for a treatable cancer died after he was ignored for 45 days following the resignation of the staff urologist over a contract dispute. Thirty VA hospitals were found to have “high numbers of patient complications and other indicators of substandard care.”
• A decade later, Dr. Holsinger was appointed Kentucky’s Cabinet Secretary for Health and Family Services. By the end of his tenure, a Kentucky newspaper found that the state was at the bottom of the nation for almost every health measure. Kentuckians die at a rate of 18 percent above the national average, the newspaper reported.

Placing people in positions who are fair, honest, and have a compassion for their work and bettering our culture doesn't seem to be a priority for either the Bush or Fletcher Administrations.

KY's largest Methodist Church bars gays from membership.

Click here for the complete story from Bible Belt Blogger.