ORLANDO, Fla. — Warning that homosexuality in the U.S. military will bring God’s judgment and jeopardize national security, the Southern Baptist Convention on Wednesday voted to oppose efforts to allow openly gay Americans to serve in the armed forces.

While President Barack Obama has called for a repeal of the nation’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” law, Southern Baptists predicted the move will “cripple” military recruitment efforts, undermine combat readiness and resultin a wave of retirements.

Roughly 1,300 Baptist delegates - known as messengers - were on hand while the resolution was debated early Wednesday morning. It passed overwhelmingly.

Delegates to the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention, meeting in Orlando, also voted to oppose the proposed Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would prohibit job discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

The federal legislation sponsored by Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., House Resolution 3017, has 202 congressional co-sponsors - none of them from Arkansas.

The Southern Baptist Convention, with 16.1 million members, is the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

Since 1976, it has passed roughly two dozen resolutions at its annual meetings related to homosexuality, including statements each of the past four years.

Past resolutions opposed same-sex marriage, Gay Days at Disney World in Orlando, hate-crimes legislation aimed at protecting homosexuals and a presidential proclama-tion designating June 1999 as “Gay and Lesbian Pride Month.”

Wednesday’s gays-in-themilitary resolution warned that “homosexual behavior is intrinsically disordered and sinful.” It also predicted Southern Baptist military chaplains will be censored, forced to attend “sensitivity sessions” and pressured to accept homosexuality if the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law is jettisoned.

Obama, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the U.S. House have all favored repeal of the 1993 law, which allows homosexuals to serve their country, but only if they don’t disclose their sexual orientation.

Obama is the second president to try to allow openly gay Americans to serve in the military. The first, Southern Baptist Bill Clinton, had to settle for the “don’t ask, don’t tell” compromise after failing to gather widespread support for ending the military’s longstanding ban on homosexuals.

Bobby Clark, a delegate and pastor of Abbott Baptist Church in Mansfield in Sebastian County, said Wednesday’s resolution on homosexuals is “a great policy that most Southern Baptists stand for.”

“I don’t think we need the gays in the military,” Clark said. “I just think it puts them [heterosexuals] in a very awkward situation.”

Steven Bailey, a delegate and pastor of Earle Baptist Church in Crittenden County, said he agreed with the resolution, saying openly gay military personnel are “a detriment to our servicementhat are there that are doing their jobs.”

“You don’t want a gay next to you, nor do you want, really, a lady next to you in the military. I think the military is for men. Heterosexual men. I think it makes for a safer environment because you’re already in a hostile environment anyway.”

James Trammell, pastor of 47th Street Baptist Church in North Little Rock, said he voted for the resolution, but that homosexuality in the United States is merely a symptom of a larger problem.

“The real disease,” he said, “is sin.”

Also Wednesday, delegates rejected a proposal by Doug Hibbard, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Monticello, calling for the expedited release of recordings of the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force’s deliberations.

The task force, which met over the past year, proposed sweeping changes in how Southern Baptists organize - and pay for - their mission programs. The recordings are currently set to be released in 2025.

The committee on resolutions also declined to consider two resolutions submitted by delegate Mike Turner, pastor of First Baptist Church in Stamps.

In other business, the Southern Baptist Convention voted to:

“Encourage pastors to keep the Gospel foremost in every sermon they preach.”

Promote “family worship,” urging families to regularly set aside time to pray and read the Scriptures together.

Address the “scandal of Southern Baptist divorce” and the “spiritual wreckage left in our Southern Baptist churches by our own divorce rates.”

Pray for an end to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and call for “full corporate accountability for damages, cleanup and restoration.”

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 06/17/2010