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The Church State Council Contradicts Itself

In an attached document on the front page of the Pacific Union’s Church State Council website, Alan Reinach states, “In our own advocacy of Proposition 8, there are two points worth repeating here: first, the Church State Council has not opposed gay rights generally, or domestic partner rights in particular.”

Not true.

In fact, in an E.lert from Aug. 8, 2002 entitled “‘Domestic Partner’ Bill Threatens Seventh-day Adventist Institutions,” the Church State Council writes:

A bill introduced late in the session is moving rapidly through the legislature, posing an unusual threat to Seventh-day Adventist colleges and hospitals. AB 1080 (Kehoe) would require all contractors doing business with California to provide the full range of employee benefits to “domestic partners.” Seventh-day Adventist church policies clearly preclude granting recognition to same sex couples or providing them with benefits. Indeed, both state and federal law permit churches to make faith-based employment decisions, including discipline of employees for sexual misconduct.

AB 1080 would give California officials the power to cut off CalGrant funds from students attending Seventh-day Adventist colleges. It would also threaten MediCal reimbursements to our hospitals for services provided to the poor. Without such state funding, the survival of these institutions will be at risk.

It is ironic that in the name of human rights and equality, the bill tramples on rights of conscience and belief. Christian businesspersons and social service providers, as well as religious institutions, will be coerced into violating sincerely held religious beliefs. By providing these benefits, contractors would be required to implicitly endorse conduct in which they do not believe.

The Seventh-day Adventist church has largely stayed out of the public policy battles over gay rights. In this case, however, we cannot remain on the sideline when the effort to provide benefits to gays threatens the rights of conscience and religious freedom.

WHAT TO DO NOW!!!

The bill is expected to move quickly in August. Time is of the essence. Check our web site, www.churchstate.org, for the most up-to-date information. Without your immediate help, this bill is expected to easily pass. Only a groundswell of opposition will turn it around.

Somehow we’ve survived sans the swell.

Alan Reinach was the director then as well.

Of course, for the past six years, legal domestic partnerships have not coerced any Adventist institution or individual into “violating sincerely held religious beliefs.”

It is increasingly clear that the Pacific Union’s Church State Council is being dominated by a scare-based agenda directed toward homosexual legal rights. Instead of focusing on serious religious liberty issues, time and resources are being wasted on sexual issues that do not threaten Adventist rights to practice our faith.

In its current political campaign on Prop. 8, the CSC has listed multiple cases meant to establish this coming threat. As this extensive research document shows, the conclusions of the CSC do not follow from the evidence and in one case, ruled on in January, the California State court found in favor of a Lutheran High School to expel two lesbian students based on the denomination’s beliefs. But Alan Reinach and other Prop. 8 proponents continue to include a pre-ruling story about this case in their arguments.

http://adventistsagainstprop8.org/fact-checking-the-csc/

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