No Memorial Service For Cecil Howard Sinclair And Deservedly So

AOL News.com:

ARLINGTON, Texas (Aug. 10) - A megachurch canceled a memorial service for a Navy veteran 24 hours before it was to start because the deceased was gay. Officials at the nondenominational High Point Church knew that Cecil Howard Sinclair was gay when they offered to host his service, said his sister, Kathleen Wright. But after his obituary listed his life partner as one of his survivors, she said, it was called off.

"It's a slap in the face. It's like, 'Oh, we're sorry he died, but he's gay so we can't help you,"' she said Friday.

Wright said High Point offered to hold the service for Sinclair because their brother is a janitor there. Sinclair, who served in the first Gulf War, died Monday at age 46 from an infection after surgery to prepare him for a heart transplant.

The church's pastor, the Rev. Gary Simons, said no one knew Sinclair, who was not a church member, was gay until the day before the Thursday service, when staff members putting together his video tribute saw pictures of men "engaging in clear affection, kissing and embracing." Simons said the church believes homosexuality is a sin, and it would have appeared to endorse that lifestyle if the service had been held there.

Now I'm wary to side with any church that calls it "nondenominational" (too open-ended and suspicious for my taste). And I do recognize the fact that we live in a time where any old fool can gather some people up, enlist in some backwards theology and call themselves a "church", but I still want to commend this pastor for doing what he knew was right. Homosexuality is a abomination in the sight of God, true believers know this, liberals and non-believers don't. The idea that a church should overlook the fact that Sinclair chose to partake in a lifestyle (that he hid from the church) that is clearly anti-God, is stupid. Kudos to Rev. Simons for standing up for what's right when so many would've given in to avoid ruffling anyone's feathers. Liberalism, much less political-correctness, has no place in the house of the Lord.