Award to Charles Stanley angers Jews who support LGBT rights
Decrying Atlanta pastor Charles Stanley’s “sordid history of virulent homophobic statements and actions,” a gay Jewish group is protesting the Jewish National Fund for plans to bestow a high honor on Stanley, senior pastor of First Baptist Atlanta and a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Stanley, who rose to national prominence in the 1980s with his “In Touch” television series and books that sold millions of copies, “has publicly called AIDS God’s punishment for America’s acceptance of homosexuality and called homosexuality ‘destructive behavior,’” reads a letter to JNF Southeast region leaders from the Southern Jewish Resource Network for Gender and Sexual Diversity (SOJOURN).
“He has said that ‘God does not agree with the lifestyle of the homosexual’ and that accepting gay people is ‘an act of disobedience to God,’” the letter continues....