Baptists OKs anti-gay policy

GREENSBORO, N.C. – The Baptist State Convention of North Carolina voted Tuesday to cut ties with congregations that affirm or approve of homosexuality, formally adopting a rigid anti-gay policy that allows the group to investigate whether member churches are gay friendly.

The policy adopted by the North Carolina convention, which includes more than 4,000 member churches and 1.2 million members, is even stricter than that of the national Southern Baptist Convention, according to a more liberal Baptist organization.

“It’s not something that we wanted to do, but homosexuality is the only sin that has its own advocacy group,” convention spokesman Norman Jameson said.

The vote changes the convention’s long-standing laws, which previously only required its members to support the convention through cooperation and financial contributions. Now any churches that “knowingly act to affirm, approve, endorse, promote, support or bless homosexual behavior” will be barred from membership.

The convention’s board of directors adopted a similar anti-gay policy in 1992, but its members had never voted to include the policy in its written articles of incorporation. And that past rule, unlike the one approved Tuesday, didn’t give the convention the authority to investigate gay-friendly churches.