Church Denies Funeral for Lesbian Woman

[c.d.]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/01/13/church-funeral-lesbian/21702347/

c.d.

[GUT]

It sounds like the Church didn't deny her a burial just wouldn't allow the showing of one small part of a video and the family said well don't hav ethe funeral then.

I am never ceased to be amazed that someone who clearly doesn't agree with a particular Church's beliefs then wants to be married/baptised/buried by that Church and cries when told Nope.

If you don't agree with that organisations opinions why do you want them to hold your funeral service.

Probably the only thing that can see that the Church did wrong is the request to delete that part of the video could have been [possibly] made earlier, but it seems the family/friends would still have refused to delete it and the location changed.

[Ausgirl]

It sounds like the Church didn't deny her a burial just wouldn't allow the showing of one small part of a video and the family said well don't hav ethe funeral then.

I am never ceased to be amazed that someone who clearly doesn't agree with a particular Church's beliefs then wants to be married/baptised/buried by that Church and cries when told Nope.

If you don't agree with that organisations opinions why do you want them to hold your funeral service.

This. Can understand why they're upset. But really, why expect the church to adapt, rather than just changing churches, and then make a national to-do about it - not a very accurate headline either, but I suppose it got more readers than a factual one might've.

[Limehouse]

Why didn't the church view the video days before the funeral rather than minutes?

From what I read of the article, the church had agreed to conduct the funeral, and then minutes before it was due to start they asked the family to remove a particular portion of the video.

The church must have known the status of the deceased and her wife at the time the funeral was arranged. I think this church imposed unnecessary distress on this family.

[Ally]

Most videos that are put together for funerals aren't put together "days in advance" so there would hardly have been "days: for the church to review it in advance. Most funerals happen within days of the person dying, and in all likelihood the video slideshow probably wasn't finished until a day before the funeral but regardless, its not incumbent on the church to do things according to the families timeline. And this church didn't know in advance that she was gay, because she wasn't a member of the church and neither was her family. The family picked the church out of a phone book due to its proximity. As they were asked to edit the video, I imagine it went something like this: the church finds out she's gay, reviews the video when they learn of it, and asks that it be edited. When they did it is irrelevant.

I am with the ones who say "it's idiotic for a family to hold a service in a church, and then bitch because the church has religious objections".

Why would the family have chosen some random church, that none of them belonged to, in order to hold her funeral in the first place? Why not hold it in the convenient Funeral Home right across the street from the get go? The church has the right to hold to whatever religious convictions it has, even if you and I think they are stupid and out of date. That's why I wouldn't have a funeral in a religious establishment to start with. They have the right to believe and hold to whatever beliefs they want.

[Robert]

She was a lesbian woman. Well, lesbians do tend to be women.

[Limehouse]

Most videos that are put together for funerals aren't put together "days in advance" so there would hardly have been "days: for the church to review it in advance. Most funerals happen within days of the person dying, and in all likelihood the video slideshow probably wasn't finished until a day before the funeral but regardless, its not incumbent on the church to do things according to the families timeline. And this church didn't know in advance that she was gay, because she wasn't a member of the church and neither was her family. The family picked the church out of a phone book due to its proximity. As they were asked to edit the video, I imagine it went something like this: the church finds out she's gay, reviews the video when they learn of it, and asks that it be edited. When they did it is irrelevant.

I am with the ones who say "it's idiotic for a family to hold a service in a church, and then bitch because the church has religious objections".

Why would the family have chosen some random church, that none of them belonged to, in order to hold her funeral in the first place? Why not hold it in the convenient Funeral Home right across the street from the get go? The church has the right to hold to whatever religious convictions it has, even if you and I think they are stupid and out of date. That's why I wouldn't have a funeral in a religious establishment to start with. They have the right to believe and hold to whatever beliefs they want.

Fair enough Ally, but I think things are a bit different here in the UK and that was the perspective I was taking. Usually, funerals here are conducted either in a church, or in a chapel at a cremation facility. We don't have funeral homes. Also, the minister/celebrant conducting the funeral, even if they do not know the family, would almost always visit the family before the funeral to find out about the deceased and their lifestory/lifestyle. That's when hymns and songs to be sung/played at the funeral are chosen and other inclusions to be made at the funeral are discussed.

I would not expect a church to change its policies or its religious practices to suit me, and I would make sure in advance that they could meet my requests.

[GUT]

Fair enough Ally, but I think things are a bit different here in the UK and that was the perspective I was taking. Usually, funerals here are conducted either in a church, or in a chapel at a cremation facility. We don't have funeral homes. Also, the minister/celebrant conducting the funeral, even if they do not know the family, would almost always visit the family before the funeral to find out about the deceased and their lifestory/lifestyle. That's when hymns and songs to be sung/played at the funeral are chosen and other inclusions to be made at the funeral are discussed.

I would not expect a church to change its policies or its religious practices to suit me, and I would make sure in advance that they could meet my requests.

The article says the video was given to the Church Thursday and viewed Saturday.

The celebrant that was to conduct the service appears to have still done so in another location ie across the street at the funeral chapel, so was probably not associated with the Church.

Your last line hits the nail on the head.

The article also says that the Church had no problems with her sexuality per se it was the open display that they wanted not shown, the family could have agreed to end the slideshow video at that point or start t after that point

[Robert]

Has there been a Twitter storm? Have people tweeted "I'm not going to die near your church" etc?