The Knucklehead of the Day award

Today's winner is High Point Church and its Pastor Rev. Gary Simons. They get the award for the following.

ARLINGTON, Texas - A megachurch canceled a memorial service for a Navy veteran 24 hours before it was to start because the deceased was gay.

Officials at the nondenominational High Point Church knew that Cecil Howard Sinclair was gay when they offered to host his service, said his sister, Kathleen Wright. But after his obituary listed his life partner as one of his survivors, she said, it was called off.

"It's a slap in the face. It's like, 'Oh, we're sorry he died, but he's gay so we can't help you,'" she said Friday.

Wright said High Point offered to hold the service for Sinclair because their brother is a janitor there. Sinclair, who served in the first Gulf War, died Monday at age 46 from an infection after surgery to prepare him for a heart transplant.

The church's pastor, the Rev. Gary Simons, said no one knew Sinclair, who was not a church member, was gay until the day before the Thursday service, when staff members putting together his video tribute saw pictures of men "engaging in clear affection, kissing and embracing."

Simons said the church believes homosexuality is a sin, and it would have appeared to endorse that lifestyle if the service had been held there.

"We did decline to host the service — not based on hatred, not based on discrimination, but based on principle," Simons told The Associated Press. "Had we known it on the day they first spoke about it — yes, we would have declined then. It's not that we didn't love the family."

You have a very funny way of showing your love Reverend. In all fairness, the Church did offer to help make other arrangements. Still the abrupt cancellation and the reason I feel are unjustified. I will be the first to admit, my views on GLBT issues is middle of the road to liberal. These people shouldn't be discriminated against, and should be afforded equal protection. In this case we're talking a church, and people who should know better. Maybe Rev. Simons should have asked what Jesus would want him to do? High Point and its Pastor were not being very Christ like.

High Point Church and its Pastor Rev. Gary Simons are today's Knuckleheads of the Day.

Linked to- Adam, Amboy Times, Big Dog, Bright & Early, Conservative Thoughts, Leaning Straight Up, Outside the Beltway, Perri Nelson, Pirate's Cove, Planck's Constant, Pursuing Holiness, Right Wing Nation, Samantha Burns, Third World County, Webloggin, Yankee Sailor,