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Associated PressChurch leaders say it wasn't his support of gay marriage that hit a sour note with them, but his presuming to speak for the congregation.
SEBRING - A church choir director was fired after church officials took issue with a newspaper opinion piece he wrote urging support of gay marriage.
Dennis Adam Ray, who is gay, was removed by the First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) after a July 22 guest column in Highlands Today in which he claimed half of his church's members believe in acceptance of gay people.
Church officials, including pastor Johan Van Der Merwe, said that while the church considers homosexuality a sin, Ray has the right to express his opinion. But they said he went too far in claiming publicly that half the congregation shared his opinion.
"He has a right to have his opinion and to believe what he believes, but he cannot represent the church because our bylaws state that the minister and committee do that," Van Der Merwe said.
Ray, 43, who directed music at the church for two years, said his firing from the $100-a-week job surprised him.
"I couldn't stop myself from writing that article," Ray said. "I listen to Christian radio. The songs are beautiful, but in between the music they had all these fundamentalist preachers spewing nothing but hate and bigotry on issues having anything to do with homosexuality, from branding us as child molesters to being mentally ill and everything in between."
Ray didn't mention the name of the church in the column, but Van Der Merwe said that didn't matter.
"Several weeks ago in a separate article, he placed an ad recruiting choir members including his name and the name of the church," Van Der Merwe said. "People can put two and two together."
Ray said church members knew of his sexual orientation.