Today's Houston Chronicle has an article about how Southern Baptists are drawing criticism for holding millions of dollars of stock in a cruise line that sponsors a gay excursion. It had some great quotes:
"The Baptists don't believe in gambling, liquor or pornography, or gays," said Don Allmon, a deacon at First Baptist Church of Dyer, Tenn.
But, they believe in you, Don.
"When I say that, we love gays, but we don't like their lifestyle."
Also known as, "love the sinner, hate the sin as long as we can make (you'll pardon the expression, Lord) assloads of money off of it."
The Baptist board owns about 26,200 shares of Carnival in its Equity Index Fund and 337,600 shares in its Value Index Fund as of Dec. 31, together valued at $14.5 million, according to the Associated Baptist Press, an independent Baptist news service. The board also has holdings in satellite and cable TV companies that provide on-demand or premium-priced pornographic programming.
According to the board's statement, its guidelines prohibit investments in any company publicly recognized "as being in the liquor, tobacco, gambling, pornography or abortion industries." Between 300 and 400 companies are on the board's restricted list, the statement said.
Sorry to break it you guys, but if you hold stock in any satellite, cable, or telecom company, you're investing in a company "publicly recognized" as being in the pornography industry. Phone sex was a $1 billion dollar business way back in 1996, and pay-per-view porn (broadcast by companies like AT&T) was a mere $750 million. Seems like the righteous thing to do would be to divest from such companies. Money can't be that important to the saved, right?
Right.
And yet, just because Carnival sponsors one big, gay boat ride every year hardly makes it a porn business. If the Baptists want to boycott a cruise company for immoral and tasteless behavior, they should go after Pacific Princess. That Love Boat was, hands down, some of the most disgusting TV I've ever seen.