Pastor Apologizes For Church Sign Criticizing Same-Sex Marriage Decision

The U.S. Supreme Court issued a watershed ruling last Friday that essentially legalized same-sex marriage across the country.

The Christian Church at Holbrook made it quite clear that it’s not a big fan of that decision, which will have minimal impact in New York, where same-sex marriage has been legal since 2011.

On Monday and Tuesday, a message on a sign outside the church located at 1123 Broadway Avenue reads: “THE SUPREME COURT IS NOT THE SUPREME BEING!”

On the church’s Facebook page, one man wrote: “Lots of local residents think your sign outside your church is in very poor taste! If you were trying to get people upset then it worked...I think you should please consider changing it to something more loving or lose support from lots of local residents. thank you.”

Speaking with Patch Wednesday, the senior pastor at the church, Pete O’Leary, confirmed the sign was in response to the Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage. The message posted was a quote from Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who blasted the ruling at the Western Conservative Summit in Colorado over the weekend.

O’Leary, who has been part of the 80-member church for 18 years, said the message was an attempt to ”honor God through the obedience of his word,” but it was never the church’s intention to ”upset, annoy, insult or anger anybody.”

“Your intent really doesn’t amount to much when it does upset somebody,” said O’Leary, adding that the church apologizes for the sign and asks for forgiveness from the community.

Asked for their thoughts on the sign, Sachem Patch readers were divided.

“Normally I enjoy their inspirational positive messages while driving by but this made me feel like I was on a dirt road in the south. We are too progressive as a community for this,” one resident wrote on Facebook.

Others, however, said the church was free to express itself on the issue of same-sex marriage.

“I have no problem with the sign, it’s their belief,” one person wrote. “I also have no problem with same sex marriage. You can’t slam someone for their religious beliefs.”

O’Leary did argue that the church seems to be held to a different standard when it comes to free speech.

“We can’t say what we think, but everyone else can do it,” he said.

But for now, O’Leary’s mission is to repair the church’s image, which he said has been “tarnished” by the controversial sign. O’Leary, who has been part of the 80-member church for 18 years, invited anyone in the community to the church’s Sunday services at 10 a.m. to “see for yourself what our beliefs are all about.”

The sign was “one of those things that projected out there the wrong way and we are hoping it’s something we can fix,” he said.

The church sign was changed on Wednesday morning to: “GRACE TO ALL WHO LOVE OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST...EPH 6:24”

The church posted the following on its Facebook page Wednesday afternoon: