A church in New South Wales is attracting international attention with an unconventional sign and its views on homosexuality.
Father Rod Bower of the Anglican parish of Gosford announced his support of gay rights in 2011 with an outdoor sign that read, “Supporting marriage equality.” Now a photo of a recent sign has gone viral.
Bower posted a photo on the church’s Facebook page of their sign, which reads, “Dear Christians / Some people are gay / Get over it / Love God,” on July 23. It has gotten nearly 7,500 likes and more than 4,000 shares.
“Normally one of my posts might get a few thousand views, but nothing like this,” Bower said in an article from Australian newspaper The Telegraph.
“This has gone international now—there are people liking it all over the world, and it is just a little sign in Gosford.”
There have been a handful of negative responses, but Bower says reactions were overall positive.
“I have had a number of phone calls and ran into people who have said, ‘Good on you; this is really great,’ also,” he commented. “I think it shows that it’s an important issue and that a lot of people have spiritual questions that are not being met by traditional forms of Christianity.”
Still, some are concerned about the church’s support of the homosexual lifestyle.
“We live in scary times when a church supposedly under the banner of the bible rewrites Gods word in a manner that it appears to come from God himself,” Tiffany Mcclymont Braund wrote in response to the photo. “What is even more baffling is how they can make light of a situation that God saw serious enough to sacrifice his own Son for atonement of such immense sin.”
Matt Hendricks commented, “I don’t agree with the sign, Not because of me but what the bible says. Yes we can help them but we meant to lead them to Christ and they must repent and live a new life. No longer in sin.”
The Anglican priest says he put the sign up to show the community there is more than one way to approach gay rights.
“The conservative view is not the only view,” he explains. “Marriage equality is a hot issue at the moment, and it seems the church is struggling to get over this issue.”
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