Monday, September 21, 2009

Dan Savage: Church Bans Gay Soda Pop

Huh? What?

"The Bell Shoals Baptist Church in Brandon, Florida, made the news last week when its pastor replaced the megachurch's 10 Pepsi vending machines with 10 Coke machines. The pastor felt that Pepsi was far too supportive of—can you guess?—"the gay lifestyle."

What I found most remarkable about this story wasn't the stupidity—more on that in a moment—but the fact that a single church in Florida has 10 soda-pop vending machines. Ten! You would think the good Christians at Bell Shoals could make it through an hour or two on a Sunday without a cold can of corn syrup.

And psst... Bell Shoals? Coke supports gay rights, too. Your best gay-hatin' soda-pop option may be ZamZam Cola. It was a subsidiary of Pepsi, true, but that was before the Islamic Revolution. Made in Iran, ZamZam Cola is the most popular soft drink in Saudi Arabia, and I'm guessing the good folks at ZamZam don't like the gays any more than you do. But if the "soft drink of the Hajj" doesn't appeal to you, Bell Shoals, how about asking your parishioners to go without soda pop for an hour a week?"

I think if your church is so obviously taken over by greed, what's a little gluttony to go along with it?

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