It's the Churches, Stupid. . . .

Two bits that came together.

First, from earlier this week, this story about homophobia in the pulpit:

Two out of three Americans believe gay people commit suicide at least partly because of messages coming out of churches and other places of worship, a survey released Thursday found.

More than four out of 10 Americans say the message coming out of churches about gay people is negative, and about the same number say those messages contribute "a lot" to negative perceptions of gay and lesbian people.

Catholics were the most critical of their own churches' messages on homosexuality, while white evangelical Christians gave their churches the highest grades, the survey found.

It seems, though, that in America, people just tune out the sermons (except for evangelical "Christians"). In Finland, they leave:

The minister in charge of church affairs Stefan Wallin (Swedish People’s Party) said on Sunday that Päivi Räsänen, the leader of the Christian Democrats, could not escape her responsibility for the record number of people leaving the Evangelical-Lutheran Church after the televised gay rights debate. Räsänen was one of the programme’s guests.

Wallin added that Räsänen should bear in mind her long career as lawmaker and as leader of a party representing Christian values.

“But if Räsänen’s objective is to prune the Church’s membership register and turn back the Church’s clock, she should be honest about it rather than departing the scene at a time when the consequences of her views – views that lead to inequality – begin to affect the church’s reputation as well as its finances,” Wallin said.

24,000 left the church in one week.