Since when should the news media be worried about what the church thinks?
Ft. Myer's, FL - Pittsburgh television station KDKA ran a teaser on an investigative piece that was going to reveal some under the table sexual goings on with Rev. Brent Dugan, pastor of the Community Presbyterian Church of Ben Avon. However, upon seeing the teaser Rev. Dugan disappeared only to turn up later, dead of a suicide in a motel.
KDKA found about about the suicide and did not air the story. However, they did catch a load of flak for this. Many people blamed the television station, especially some of the congregation.
The 1 million member Christian Associates of Southwest Pennsylvania were so upset that their leadership held a meeting with KDKA executives. KDKA, church leaders meet over pastor who killed himself
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
By Ann Rodgers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Management representatives of KDKA met this morning with local religious leaders to discuss the case of a pastor who committed suicide after the station ran promos promising to expose scandalous behavior on his part.
The meeting was held at the offices of Christian Associates of Southwest Pennsylvania, whose member-churches account for about 1 million people in 10 counties. It concerned the Rev. Brent Dugan, pastor of the Community Presbyterian Church of Ben Avon, who committed suicide in November when the station aired promos showing his face and promising to reveal illicit behavior. Advised that the pastor was missing and suicidal, KDKA-TV never aired the story that had been prepared by reporter Marty Griffin. But that word apparently never reached the Rev. Dugan, who killed himself in a Mercer County motel room.
In a last letter to Pittsburgh Presbytery, the pastor apologized for bringing shame on the church and confessed to a sexual relationship with a man he said had betrayed him and set up his visit to an adult bookstore where the KDKA news crew taped him.
Christian Associates sent a letter earlier this month to KDKA's management, asking for an apology and for the station to re-evaluate its news judgment concerning stories about clergy.
(Read more) Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Now wait a minute...
Aren't these the same people that throw a fit whenever the subject of any kind of fair and decent treatment for gays or lesbians comes up? And isn't this the same group of folks that live in fear that someone at the public school might tell their child that it's okay not to hate a gay or lesbian person. Don't these very same folks that tremble at any suggestion a gay lifestyle should be socially accepted, let alone suggest it may be normal for some people?
So it's okay for the fine upstanding church goers to condemn, ostracize, ridicule and make every attempt to destroy the lives of every gay or lesbian appearing person in their midst. But when one of their own gets caught walking on the other side of the street all of the sudden it needs to be kept quiet and low key out of some kind of respect?
Uh-uh... They cannot have it both ways.
Superstition, idolatry, and hypocrisy have ample wages, but truth goes a-begging.
- Martin Luther
KDKA found about about the suicide and did not air the story. However, they did catch a load of flak for this. Many people blamed the television station, especially some of the congregation.
The 1 million member Christian Associates of Southwest Pennsylvania were so upset that their leadership held a meeting with KDKA executives. KDKA, church leaders meet over pastor who killed himself
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
By Ann Rodgers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Management representatives of KDKA met this morning with local religious leaders to discuss the case of a pastor who committed suicide after the station ran promos promising to expose scandalous behavior on his part.
The meeting was held at the offices of Christian Associates of Southwest Pennsylvania, whose member-churches account for about 1 million people in 10 counties. It concerned the Rev. Brent Dugan, pastor of the Community Presbyterian Church of Ben Avon, who committed suicide in November when the station aired promos showing his face and promising to reveal illicit behavior. Advised that the pastor was missing and suicidal, KDKA-TV never aired the story that had been prepared by reporter Marty Griffin. But that word apparently never reached the Rev. Dugan, who killed himself in a Mercer County motel room.
In a last letter to Pittsburgh Presbytery, the pastor apologized for bringing shame on the church and confessed to a sexual relationship with a man he said had betrayed him and set up his visit to an adult bookstore where the KDKA news crew taped him.
Christian Associates sent a letter earlier this month to KDKA's management, asking for an apology and for the station to re-evaluate its news judgment concerning stories about clergy.
(Read more) Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Now wait a minute...
Aren't these the same people that throw a fit whenever the subject of any kind of fair and decent treatment for gays or lesbians comes up? And isn't this the same group of folks that live in fear that someone at the public school might tell their child that it's okay not to hate a gay or lesbian person. Don't these very same folks that tremble at any suggestion a gay lifestyle should be socially accepted, let alone suggest it may be normal for some people?
So it's okay for the fine upstanding church goers to condemn, ostracize, ridicule and make every attempt to destroy the lives of every gay or lesbian appearing person in their midst. But when one of their own gets caught walking on the other side of the street all of the sudden it needs to be kept quiet and low key out of some kind of respect?
Uh-uh... They cannot have it both ways.
Superstition, idolatry, and hypocrisy have ample wages, but truth goes a-begging.
- Martin Luther