Dallas Methodist Pastor Stands Up For Gay's Against Baptist Mega Church

The pastor of little Grace United Methodist Church took a swipe at big First Baptist Church of Dallas on Sunday with a sermon titled "Why Gay Is OK."
The message was delivered as a counterpunch to "Why Gay Is Not OK," a November sermon by First Baptist pastor Dr. Robert Jeffress.
"I knew I had to preach about this," the Rev. Diana Holbert said Sunday.
She told her diverse East Dallas congregation that homosexuality is not a big issue in the Bible and that Christians should be more focused on subjects such as health care, greed in the corporate world, and the welfare of children.
About a third of the church's membership is gay or lesbian, she said.
During her sermon, Holbert said, "God doesn't discard or discriminate."
"The Bible has often been used to attack gay and lesbian persons," she said. "Let's put a stop to that."
Jeffress issued a rebuttal to Holbert's sermon even before her service began.
"I wonder if her follow-up message will be 'Why Adultery is OK' or 'Why Incest is OK,' " he wrote last week in an e-mail to The Dallas Morning News.
"The Bible says sex is reserved for a man and a woman in a marriage relationship," he continued. "Once you reject God's Word as our absolute authority in all matters, then any perversion is permissible."
Holbert, whose husband is a professor at Southern Methodist University's Perkins School of Theology, chose her words slowly in responding after her sermon. She said she had never met Jeffress.
"I want to be careful," she said in an interview. "I don't want to call him anti-scholastic. I don't want to get in a fight with him."
Then she added, "I kind of feel sorry for him."
(DMN)