LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY jargon_john)

[Department of Health and Human Services] Removes Gay Advice Section

Pro-family groups are asking why it was there in the first place.

Its not there anymore but for a time the Department of Health and Human Services website included what many considered homosexual propaganda. Peter Sprigg with the Family Research Council complains that good information on the site was minimal while the web page instead focused on celebrating homosexuality.

“There were links to outside organizations as information sources as resources that people could go to and virtually all of those links were to pro-homosexual activist organizations. There was no balance.”

Regina Griggs with PFOX wants balance too but she goes a step further. She thinks organizations that claim homosexuals can’t change should not be allowed to advertise on a government website dedicated to health.

“I think if you’re not a medical association, if you’re not providing fact-based, replicated studies and information you ought to not be listed. We ought to be concerned about the AIDS infection rate, drug use, sex outside of marriage.”

Now that the pro-gay page is gone, Jody Huckaby with the activist group PFLAG is complaining.

“The problem for us is that taking the information off the website will not make the issues go away. These issues have to be dealt with; it’s complete lack of equal treatment. There was very good information on those websites.”

Others beg to differ. The Department of Health and Human Services has not indicated when or if they will update the information on their site.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY kiji_kat)

The Toms River, NJ, school board took a stand against bigotry by refusing to fire a transgendered teacher at the request of a fundamentalist parent.

You can thank the board for their efforts and decision here: trboe@trschools.com

x-posted to kiji_kat

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY gleef)

Here is a pair of articles by Real Live Preacher that I thought people here might enjoy and be able to use. Real Live Preacher is the blog of Gordon Atkinson, the ordained minister of Covenant Baptist Church in San Antonio, Texas. In these articles, Rev. Atkinson takes the religious right to task for their treatment of homosexuality and homosexuals.

    I Have No Title For This
    A Look at the Bible and Homosexuality

Some excerpts I especially enjoyed:

"Do you smell the reek of this injustice? It is a stink in the nostrils of the very living God. We are dressed in beautiful clothes and we wear pretty smiles, but we stink of this blasphemous hypocrisy.

"Every church in America - mine not excepted - has a cellar like this. We must shovel 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, because every chapter and book we ignore must be burned to warm our comfy pews.

"We should all agree that none of us are able or willing to follow all the teachings of scripture. Let the one who is obeying God's word ask for detailed scriptural explanations from others.

"In my book, that settles the argument, and there is no reason to go further. However, if you are determined to hold homosexuals to a higher standard, demanding detailed explanations for why they do not obey minor parts of the Bible while all of Christendom tramples on the very heart of scripture, move on to part two:

Read the articles, there's plenty more where that came from, including direct refutation of common biblical arguments against homosexuality from a Christian biblical scholar..

(Snagged from chris_king_2005 on gsa_lj)

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY gairid)

This is just insane. In reading this community I understand what the dominionists are doing and I know that their bleating about being persecuted is all part and parcel of the way they gather people to their cause, but Jesus Christ! Advocating murder is okay? It's sickening, it really is.



The American Family Association opened its airwaves to advocate for executing gays, adulterers, abortion doctors

Summary: Far-right Christian author and American Vision president Gary DeMar was the guest on the February 2 edition of American Family Radio's Today's Issues. In the past, DeMar has advocated the installation of a theocratic government in the United States in which homosexuals, adulterers, and abortion doctors would be executed.

Here's an excerpt of the interview:

DeMAR: The definition of Christian Reconstruction is simply this: The Bible applies to every facet of life. That means not just the judicial aspects of life, such as civil government, church government, but business, economics -- every facet of society. The Bible has something to say about each area. For example, on homosexuals: We do not believe that homosexuals ought to be executed. The Bible doesn't say that homosexuals ought to be executed. What it says is this: If two men lie together like man and woman, they are to be put to death.

PORTEOUS: What the hell do you think that is?

DeMAR: Well, wait a minute. If a guy comes up to me and he says, "I'm a homosexual," that doesn't mean he's to be executed. If you understand the Scriptures, it says very clearly: If a man comes up to you and says, "I've murdered somebody," that doesn't mean that person ought to be executed.

GONZALES: Oh, so what you are saying, Gary, is, if you catch homosexuals in the act, then the Bible says to execute them.

DeMAR: The Bible lays forth the severest penalty, which would be capital punishment for two men who publicly engage in sodomy.


http://mediamatters.org/items/200602140005

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY nebris)

From AlterNet

( As conservative Christianity spreads beyond U.S. borders, the views of the far right begin to influence politics in developing nations. )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY cheap_laugh)

and I have listened.... Oy.....

to keep your ears to the madness, iTunes music store has the hatecast available.

as his theme song goes:
(with apologies)

God hates America
Land I abhor!
Stand beside her
and defile her

Through the night
jeer the plight
of military dead

From the Gay bars.
to the coal mines
to the parents
filled with Grief

We Hate America
You are all damned to Hell


In listening to him, he really is a nutjob. He'd be amusing if he weren't so powerful within his Church. I predict, a Waco-Jonestown Flavr-Aid fire drinking end...

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY gairid)

Look! The Christian Right has an answer to Brokeback Mountain.

Here's the synopsis:

Provoked by temptation, a tumultuous affair is about to begin, and it will burn as deep as the desires that brought it to life. Michael Gooden is a God- fearing man who has been married for eighteen years. He has a wonderful wife and two teenage children. But one day he is cornered by an ultimatum that will unleash the desires pent up inside of him. Michael begins an affair that has him torn between guilt and desire and right and wrong. Michael’s wife Sarah is blindsided by his affair. Throughout her struggle to deal with the truth she must find a way to maintain her sanity and strengthen her children for the fiery events ahead. She holds on to her faith amidst the turmoil that plagues her family and her church. Michael abandons his church, family, and home for his new life with his lover Jimmy. His one choice sets off a firestorm of events that will consume everyone in its path.



http://www.sodomandgomorrahthemovie.com/home.htm

Sadly, this one does not include Kirk Cameron in the cast.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY tinhuviel)

( Truth Ministry )

It's a constant joy to live in South Carolina.....

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sesby)

In South Carolina, a neighborhood group is objecting to the presence of a group home for four mentally disabled men. I'm sure it has a lot to do with fear of declining property values, but the group says they're afraid of "violence" -- and what's more, they object to a state law that describes the men as a "natural family."

A quote from the group's leader: "As a Christian and as a father, I strongly object to that," he said. "That’s an attack on your family and all our families. Change that."

I had no idea one could somehow bring homophobia into one's hatred and fear of the different and the weak, but this man has done it. I wish he understood that we're all one blow to the head or three minutes without oxygen away from needing the kind of living situation those men do.

They have so little. How can anyone with a heart try to take it from them -- and get up on a "My family is the ONLY kind of family" high horse while doing so? Inhuman.

Read the rest of the article at http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/local/13576221.htm.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY diala)

Barbie Accused of Being Part of the Transgender Movement

"The Concerned Women for America were … well, concerned. Outraged, even. Was Barbie becoming part of the transgender movement?

On Dec. 30, CWA, a leading Christian conservative group, noted on its Web site that on the Barbie Web site, www.Barbie.com, "there is a poll that asks children their age and sex."

...

The age choices were 4 to 8 but children "are given three options for their choice of gender": I am a Boy, I am a Girl and I Don't Know.

Bob Knight, director of CWA's Culture and Family Institute, said Barbie manufacturer Mattel was being influenced by the "transgender movement."

To pose "this transgender question at little girls, they've really crossed the line," Knight said, who added that "bisexuality gender confusion" is the Web site's agenda, which is "very dangerous."

...

"This was just an innocent oversight," says Lauren Bruksch, a spokeswoman for Mattel. As a rule of thumb, Bruksch said, the questionnaires at barbie.com always try to have a neutral answer or nonresponse option. For gender, this third option should have been "I don't want to say," rather than "I don't know." The Web site has since been fixed."

Not really a shock, but amusing as hell.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY britzkrieg)

An anti-gay marriage petition circulated in Massachusetts has received a record number of signatures. But are they all legitimate?

Supporters of the ban said their effort shows that gay marriage is still a burning issue among thousands of voters, and legislators should pay heed.

"The people have not just spoken, they have shouted to let the people vote on the definition of marriage," said Kristian Mineau, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute, which spearheaded the signature drive...

Opponents of the ballot question say the eye-popping number of signatories does not reflect a tidal wave of support for overturning the Supreme Judicial Court's landmark 2003 ruling that declared same-sex matrimony legal. Rather, they said, it shows that paid signature-gatherers were particularly effective at tricking unsuspecting voters into signing a petition they didn't support.

"This is a groundswell of fraud and deceit, not of voter insistence," said Arline Isaacson, cochairwoman of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus.

Hundreds of Bay State residents complained to gay organizations and state officials this fall that they were duped into signing the antigay marriage measure when they thought they were backing a proposal to allow supermarkets to sell wine. The state Senate this year passed a bill outlawing paid signature-gathering, but the measure sits in the House with little prospect of success.

Read the full story here. I'm not sure I agree with the posting of signatories' names, addresses, etc. on the Internet.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY nagisa_kaworu)

Montgomery, Alabama) Former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore is asking supporters for a Christmas gift of cash to help his campaign for governor.

Moore is facing off against Gov. Bob Riley for the GOP nomination.

In an e-mail sent to supporters and signed by Moore's wife Kayla, she asks for donations and says that her husband is opposed by people who want to promote gay marriage and who "fear nothing more than the emergence of a powerful national spokesperson for Christian conservatism.

"And make no mistake: If elected governor of Alabama, my husband will be that spokesman!" she wrote.

"I know I am asking a lot especially right in the middle of this Christmas season when your focus is on family, friends and loved ones," the e-mail reads. "But, I can think of no better time than this Holy Season to begin our campaign to return morality to our country and God to our public square."

In 2003 Moore was removed as Chief Justice after the state's nine-member Court of Judicial Inquiry found he had violated judicial ethical standards for defiance of a federal judge's order to move a Ten Commandments monument he had installed in the rotunda of the state courthouse.

Moore has a long record of anti-gay rulings.

More Moore here: http://www.365gay.com/Newscon05/12/122105moore.htm

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY kynn)

A judge has ordered the city of San Jose to stop offering benefits to the same-sex partners of municipal workers who were married in areas where those unions are legal. [...]

The Christian conservative Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund filed suit on behalf of the Values Advocacy Council of San Jose and the Proposition 22 Legal Defense Fund claiming the benefits violate Proposition 22 which defines marriage as between a man and a woman.

The ADF is involved in fighting same-sex marriage across the country and the Proposition 22 Legal Defense Fund is one of two groups currently collecting signatures for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage in California.

The Alliance Defense Fund is the lawsuit-happy lawyer wing of the Dominionist movement.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This article talks about the removal of two sponsors of a Gay/Straight Alliance student club from the school. The back story is Here:

Point in case -- a Palmer High School student brought the ACLU into a fight to create a Gay Straight Alliance (details of which I have previously posted elsewhere). After 2 years and $340,000 in legal fees, the district settled -- not because they felt the suit was right, but because the legal fees were becoming cumbersome. Be that as it may, the GSA was accorded its due status as a club at the school, with the rights and privileges assigned to all school sponsored clubs. You might think that means the issue is closed.

If you think that, however, you think wrong.

Palmer High School is in Colorado Springs, CO, the ground zero of the overt and aggressive dominionist movement. It is also the home of the Global Harvest Ministries, and the always aggressive Focus on the Family, as well as the besieged USAF Academy.

A student at the school wrote:

Yesterday, our two brave and incredible teacher sponsors, Mrs. Lindau and Mr. Schulzki, were interruped in the middle of their own classes by security and were literally escorted out of the building. This caused an enormous eruption throughout the entire school of confusion and anger. Apparently, the district has found Mrs. Lindau and Mr. Schulzki "guilty" of something that they are officially under investigation for and are not allowed on the school's property until the investigation is over, which could be weeks or even months. The faculty is not allowed to release any information as to why our two beloved teachers and sponsors are in so much trouble, but from the sounds of things, if proven guilty, they could be at the risk of being fired. Our principal, Tom Kelly, along with the rest of the faculty, have informed us that it has absolutely nothing to do with the G/SA, but I don't buy that for a second. It is far too coincidental that these two teachers, out of 200 others, would be accused of doing something so awful.

The bottom line: these people will stop at nothing to get their way. If they have a way to circumvent something, they will. If they have money, they'll spend it all to get their way. If they make the rules (as many do, since they have taken over many school boards), they'll use them against you. Mercy, tolerance and compassion are not qualities of dominionists.

Per http://news.yahoo.com/s/ct/20051212/cr_ct/lesbiandoctorsdeniedartificialinseminationbecauseofreligion the "moral refusal" movement in dominionist circles is now targeting reproductive services for gay/les/bi folks:

A lesbian woman will challenge an appeals court ruling that permitted two doctors to claim a religious defense in their refusal to artificially inseminate her.

A California appeals court last week sided with the doctors, Christine Brody and Douglas Fenton, saying they can claim religious liberty in refusing to treat a patient who was gay because it was against their Christian beliefs.

Guadalupe Benitez filed a sexual-orientation discrimination suit against the doctors at a San Diego women's clinic after they refused to artificially inseminate her in 2000.

Benitez claims that on her first visit, Brody informed her that while her religious principles precluded her from performing the procedure on a gay woman, another doctor in the clinic would.

Benitez says, however, that after 11 months of costly, painful tests and surgeries, when the time came for the insemination procedure, she was turned down and told that she "would not be treated fairly" or "get timely care" at the clinic because of Dr. Brody's and other staff members' religious beliefs.

The doctors' lawyer, Carlo Coppo, said his clients were committed to fair treatment of Benitez — from fertilization to pregnancy and birth — but that aiding the actual act of conception compromised their religious views.

"[Brody] believes that participating in the [fertilization procedure], she is acting as the male," Coppo said. "It is an elective, invasive procedure, and to be there for the moment of conception, she religiously can't participate."

Benitez's attorney, Jennifer Pizer, said the appeals court ruling was troubling because it opened the door to all kinds of discrimination.

"It certainly is a social problem and a legal problem if someone enters a commercial business and can be told they will not receive the same services that another person can," Pizer said.

Both attorneys agree the case is the first of its kind and tests whether a doctor can choose who to treat based on religious beliefs.

Coppo says denying doctors their religious rights is also a form of discrimination, and that the law allows doctors to choose who they treat consistent with their religious convictions as long as they offer alternative means for care.

Pizer says a doctor's religious freedoms should not come at the expense of a patient's care.

If the courts rule in favour of the clinic, this could open the floodgates to dominionist doctors flat out refusing to render any medical treatment--even lifesaving treatment--to people simply because they think they are gay or disagree with "lifestyle" of the person they're treating (even more so than they are open already--Mississippi's law, and proposed laws in two other states, are *already* so broad as to allow any medical professional to refuse to treat you simply because you may be gay or pagan and they feel treating you would "violate their morals").

I've posted a summary of the various threads on "Moral refusal clauses" that I've done here on Dark Christianity in past. Dominionists will *not* be satisfied unless and until they not only can completely control people's reproductive (and other) destinies but they also hope to establish a sort of "medical apartheid" in which people will have to submit to dominionist rule or else. Convert or die, literally. They literally want to have the legal choice to allow someone to die because they are not a dominionist. They've admitted this to their own.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY dark_rekhet)

....or the danger?

"When You Need a Miracle"

For a bit of background, I have been to a few of Rev. Kostelnik's sermons. Long story short, I had relationship with a man who was a member of this church who also thought I needed saving. It was always a confusing situation. "Pastor Joe", as he likes to be called, is by all accounts a nice man, kind to animals, all that. I wanted so much to like the guy. Unfortunately during his sermons he did what I consider to be no-no's if I'm going to like a person. He claimed to have witnessed miracles, he claimed to have performed miracles, and he did the whole usual thing about other religions. Mentioned something about Christians prayers being closest to God, and that only the Christian god is a living one, etc. As a non-Christian I found this offensive, and as a person with a chronic illness as well, my warning bells went off.

I wonder how many people have been suckered into churches because they have been told that is where they have to be for god to hear them, or that's where they need to be to be healed?

And to add to it, the sister site created by the same people has a few articles that I found to show their Dominist attitudes fairly well.

"America's Innocence Lost"

"Is There a Plague on America?"

And a last one that shows their religious intolerance.

"Religions United in World Peace"

Intolerance like that hurts me deeply. *sigh*

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY kalibex)

'Far-right group to use Macy's parade to spread antigay message' (More Dobson high-jinks)

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Meet the Fundies
By Steve Satterwhite, Texas Observer
Posted on October 20, 2005, Printed on October 20, 2005
Alternet

Every soul who testified at the Texas Senate State Affairs Committee hearing on May 19 on the topic of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage and civil unions had more to say than they could cram into the three minutes made available to each speaker.

There were so many people who wanted to testify that the hearing was held in a packed Senate Chamber instead of a committee room. For upwards of 10 hours, they took their turns, the on-deck speaker sitting beside the one who was already testifying.

For those who supported gay marriage and gay rights in general, the proposed amendment was cast as a hideous step toward the Dark Ages, a crippling legal twist on the civil definition of marriage. What's worse, it codified discrimination in the state constitution, a document that should be used to guarantee civil rights. It would deny some human beings the freedom to be fully human.( Warning: Some of this article contains graphic material. )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This Talk to Action article talks about the overt and protracted attempts to 'undermine and destroy' mainline churches in the US.

Rev. John Thomas, president of the United Church of Christ acknowledged on Friday what mainline church leaders have been reluctant to address for two decades. The rightist Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) and allied groups are seeking to undermine if not destroy the mainline Christian churches in the United States.

The conservative movement and parts of the corporate sector have loathed the rise of the social gospel in the mainline churches for a century. They have loathed the social justice traditions that were catalysts for the civil rights movement, women's rights, and principled opposition to the excesses of American foreign policy from Vietnam to Central America. [emphasis mine- ed] It was the latter that led to the formation of the IRD as a hub of antichurch organizing. Since then, IRD-affiliated "renewal" groups have been at the center of nearly every controversy in mainline Christianity -- most recently, but certainly not exclusively, issues of gay and lesbian equality in church and public life.

Read the whole article. If you do not believe that the extreme right is out to destroy all churches that are either progressive or 'not Christian enough', this might help to convince you that it is true.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY helenangel)

State bill would limit procreation assistance: Process would rule out homosexuals, singles

( Full story, as taken from site, behind the cut )

You have GOT to be kidding me. If this isn't a glaring violation of personal rights, I don't know what is.