Why is it contraversial to run ads for a church which accepts gays?

I see the ad for the UCC on our front page and it talks about the TV ads which they have been running on mostly cable channels. One network, I think it was NBC, rejected the ads for being too contraversial. I could see why ads extolling gay marriage would be contraversial but simply letting us in a church. Is that really such a radical notion that there would exist one denomination where we wouldn't be summarily tossed out? Is that idea so out of line that we need to be protected from its very mention? This is the same NBC which made oodles and oodles of money off Will and Grace not to mention such gay written hits as Frazier and Cheers.

We have a long way to go if a network which makes money off gays and their ideas can't even run an ad saying there exists one church out of literally hundreds of them which lets us in. That should be so appalling that they would be ashamed to say it. Instead, they got away with it. We haven't come far enough.

I've seen that ad, and there's nothing that implies the gay couple is married.

where Jesus says, "If you think someone is a sinner, make sure to deny him entry into my father's house, because I only came here to save people who think like you"?

Um, yeah. Neither do I.

Anyone, and I mean anyone and everyone, is welcome at ELCA churches. We have some work to do on acceptance of marriages/blessing ceremonies and rules for partnered gay clergy, but I firmly believe that will come.

Everyone is welcome. Everyone.

Please do not confuse this "evangelical" with "Evangelical Christians". It refers to the Gospel-based liturgy.

That churchs for a very long time stayed out of politics. Oh certainly throughout history it has been a rollercoaster. But in the latter half of the 20th century it was the rise of the NeoCons that precipitated and brought the religious right into the political arena.

Traditionally fundamentalists stayed out of politics because they did not trust it. They held to the notion that if religion and politics get in bed together they both get out dirty. Most other churchs took this position for a long time as well.

But the NeoCons pushed abortion and later homosexual issues into the religious right and drew them into the political melee. This changed the balance in the US for decades.

Most nonfundamentalist churchs still retain the notion that mixing religion and politics is a bad idea. But the religious right has shifted the social dynamic. The extreme liberal Churchs such as Unitarian Universalists have already entered the political frey but their ability to make a difference is limited. So more churchs that are offended by the message of the religious right are being drawn into the battle and as the fundamentalists have held the center stage for so long the liberal message of tolerance sounds controvercial rather than sensible.