Sunday, July 10, 2005

Church Burnings Not Hate Crimes

Me and Cletus was havin' a weenie roast behind the colored church and things just got outta hand, yer Honor. Same as at that queer church last week." (story in comments)
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3 comments:

LNewsEditor said...

JNC (Just in case)

Tenn. police nab suspect in church fires

MATT GOURAS

Associated Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Police on Saturday arrested a suspect believed to have
set fires that burned two black churches in Tennessee, but investigators
said they had no reason to believe the blazes were a hate crime.

Sparta police expected to charge the man with arson on Monday. He was being
held without bail Saturday on unrelated charges. Authorities were not
releasing his name.

"At this point, we have no evidence to support in any way that it was a hate
crime," detective Allen Selby said. "The only way I could characterize this
was criminal activity."

Five vacant houses were burned Friday along with the two churches, all in
the same neighborhood.

Sparta, a town of 5,000 people about 75 miles southeast of Nashville, was on
edge following the blazes. About 5 percent of the town's residents are
black, according to census figures.

Meanwhile in Virginia, a small fire and anti-gay graffiti were found
Saturday at a church belonging to the United Church of Christ, a
denomination that endorsed same-sex marriage last week.

The exterior of St. John's Reformed United Church of Christ in Middlebrook
also included a message that United Church of Christ members were sinners.

A Virginia State Police fire investigator was on the scene Saturday, but
declined to comment.

The United Church of Christ's rule-making body endorsed a resolution July 4
endorsing same-sex marriage. UCC churches are autonomous, meaning the
General Synod does not create policy for its more than 5,700 congregations.

Someone also tried to set fire to a mosque early Saturday in Bloomington,
Ind., and the FBI was investigating it as a hate crime.

7/10/2005 9:02 PM
Anonymous said...

I wondered if there was going to be a backlash to the recent "official" announcement of UCC's approval of gay marriage. Here's to hoping it is only one small blip on the radar. If you have never seen them, the UCC "Still Speaking" ads are great.

http://www.stillspeaking.com/intro1.htm

If I was the type of girl who went to church, you'd find me at a UCC.

7/11/2005 1:27 PM
Anonymous said...

A church that quotes Gracy Allen in its ads? Very cool, indeed!

And here's to hoping any backlash is only a blip...

7/13/2005 12:55 PM

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