Waylan Owens, vice president of planning and communications at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, assures us in this article at the Southern Baptist Council's BP News that we got the story about that North Carolina church all wrong:

Those people weren't ousted from East Waynesville Baptist Church because they were Democrats.

They were ousted because they voted for John Kerry.

Gee, I feel much better knowing that, don't you?

Owens writes,

I keep waiting to read or to hear the fact that at the same time Chan called on members to repent for voting for John Kerry, he also called on members to repent if they had voted for two Republicans.

Since I can't imagine a pro-choice or pro-gay rights Republican even bothering to run for office in western North Carolina, I struggle to guess what sins those two Republican candidates were guilty of. (Maybe they don't believe that scientists who experiment on embryonic stem cells should suffer the death penalty?)