Extremist Right Wing Christians Cancel Veteran's Funeral Because He Was Gay

Posted by Steven Reynolds at 4:36 AM on August 10, 2007.

This post, written by Steven Reynolds, originally appeared on The All Spin Zone

Cecil Sinclair was going to be honored with a nice funeral service until the Radical Right Wing Christian Cleric in charge found out he was gay. Jesus would have accepted Cecil, but not these folks who claim to be his followers.

Cecil Sinclair was a veteran of Desert Storm. He died a few days ago after battling heart disease for a good long while. He's survived by his brother Lee, his mother Eva Bowers, and his partner of many years, Paul Wagner. Services were to be held at the High Point Church in Arlington, TX (also located at churchunusual.com), a megachurch headed by Gary Simons, brother-in-law of bigtime Radical Right Wing Christian Cleric Joel Osteen. That service has been canceled now that they found out Cecil Sinclair is gay.

This story started out sweet and patriotic. Cecil's brother Lee is developmentally disabled and employed by the High Point Church. It's through Lee and his love of his brother that High Point Church got involved, volunteering to host the service for Cecil. Heck, why shouldn't they volunteer? They've been praying for Cecil for years because of Lee's concern and love. The church had even volunteered to put together a multimedia thing for the service. It was when they looked at the pictures that they found out that Cecil was gay. Then they backed out. But they would have done the ceremony anyway, at least so it seems, if Cecil, now dead, of course, had just kept himself firmly in the closet. From the Dallas Morning News:

But the photos that the family selected alerted church officials that there might be a problem with the service, Mr. Simons said.

"Some of those photos had very strong homosexual images of kissing and hugging," he said. "My ministry associates were taken aback." And then, he said, the family asked to have its own people officiate the service. "We had no control over the format of the memorial," Mr. Simons said.

Family and friends discovered the church had withdrawn its invitation Wednesday evening, when Lee Sinclair called to tell his mother, she said. Ms. Bowers said that her older son is developmentally disabled, with hearing and vision problems.

Nobody from the church called her or Mr. Sinclair's partner, Paul Wagner, to discuss possible changes to the service, Ms. Bowers said.

"We could have reached a compromise," she said. "That was never attempted."

At least some theological questions could have been worked out, she said. For instance, the family was willing to allow the church to issue an "altar call" asking people to accept Jesus at the end of the service.

But it's not clear where the two sides could have found common ground on the central issue. High Point Church opposes homosexuality, and there was no way the church could host a service that appeared to endorse it, Mr. Simons said.

"Can you hold the event and condone the sin and compromise our principles?" he said. "We can't."

The issue was not so much that Mr. Sinclair was, from the church's perspective, an unrepentant sinner, he said. It's that it was clear from the photos that his friends and family wanted that part of his life to be a significant part of the service.

The pastor said that he could imagine a similar situation involving a different sin. Perhaps a mother who is a member of the church loses a son who is a thief or murderer, Mr. Simons said. The church would surely volunteer to hold a service, he said.

"But I don't think the mother would submit photos of her son murdering someone," he said. "That's a red light going off."

It seems here that Mr. Simons equates homosexuality, in this case the union of two souls who loved one another, with murder. I'm not shy about saying that makes his a church empty of compassion, the most important ingredient for a Christian congregation. It is simply wrong to equate homosexuality with murder, just as it is wrong to compare it to bestiality or to incest. Mr. Simons needs to spend some time reflecting on those hurtful words, and he owes Cecil Sinclair's mother an apology.

I hope the Sinclair family finds a real caring church to host a ceremony for Cecil. They deserve some peace, not the acrimony and betrayal given to them by the High Point Church.

Oh, and I'm not the kind to break out into insults for insult sake, but check out that picture of Reverend Simons. The pencil-thin mustache and beard makes me think "conman" far more than it makes me think "Minister." OK, I've got prejudices, too, against slimeballs with bad facial hair. So sue me.

Tagged as: veterans, homophobia, religious conservatives

Steven Reynolds is a regular blogger for the All Spin Zone