Tampa church that cancelled gay man's funeral sees online backlash

New Hope Baptist Church near Tampa, Florida

Yesterday I reported on a small Tampa-area church that cancelled funeral services for 42 year old Julion Evans after learning he was gay and married to another man.

Evans' mother received the call canceling the service standing by her son's casket at the wake a day before the funeral. The pastor said it would have been "blasphemous" for the church to host the funeral service.

Now, New Hope Missionary Baptist has been forced to take town their website and contact information after the internet rose up to condemn the clearly "un-Christ-like" behavior of the church and pastor.

Just a sample of the 300+ one-star reviews on the Church's Facebook:

• Discriminatory practices that Jesus would never approve. Complete lack of Christian behavior. Shame on then.

• Using your misunderstanding of faith in a Divine and Loving God as a reason for turning away the funeral for one of God's beloved children is a perversion of the Gospel. God calls us to love and reach out to all persons. You have once again made Christianity look badly. Shame on you.

• Disgraceful. Utterly disgraceful and unforgivable. There are no "Christians" attending or acting as Pastor at this church. To cancel a man's funeral, simply because you and your "flock" do not agree with or like Homosexuals is beyond evil. A persons life before they have died has no baring on their right to a funeral. Do you refuse to hold funeral services for murderers? Adultors? Unwed mothers? People who have pre-maritial sex? All of these are also "sins" in the Bible but you don't refuse to grant these people a funeral at your church. You are all hypocrites and you disgust me.

• Christian = Christ like; There is nothing Christ like about what this Church just did. I am appalled that this should occur in a place were the compassion of Christ should be seen most. Shame on this place!

• True evil. So glad that I don't call myself a christian anymore, because churches like yours that are so exclusive and show none of God's love.

[via The New Civil Rights Movement]