LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY zarq)

Reports indicate the Vatican is considering banning all gay men from joining the clergy even if they accept a vow of celibacy.

From A Globe of Witnesses: an editorial discussing why the Church needs gay priests to survive.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY kalibex)

'Psychologist Rex Rosenberg believes in demons.


'He believes its possible to measure demonic influence with a survey he created.


'Does the subject of the survey smell foul odors? Are they homosexual? Do they deny Jesus of Nazareth is God?


'If the answer is yes to these or the other survey questions, that could indicate demonic possession.


'Some say Rosenberg shouldn’t be the state’s chief evaluator of who is committed to the state’s sexual predator program at Larned State Hospital...'

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY kalibex)

School Expels Girl for Having Gay Parents

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

From the New York Times:

Serving Gays Who Serve God
By ANDY NEWMAN

This spring, Brenda Oliver, depressed and desperate for spiritual sustenance, visited the church near her home in Bushwick, Brooklyn. She lasted until the minister started talking about the men of Sodom who demanded that Lot let them have sex with his houseguests.

He looked straight at Ms. Oliver, a sturdy, dreadlocked woman dressed in her customary long pants and black work boots.

"The preacher said that if a bunch of gays went to his house, he'd start shooting and killing them," recalled Ms. Oliver, who is a lesbian. She walked outside, leaned on the church gate and cried.( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY deridetenebras)

From Media Matters: Quicktime Video of Pat Robertson calling homosexuals "self-absorbed narcissists" and blaming them for abortion & divorce

You go back to the various laws that took away the difficulty of getting a divorce, and the people leading the charge were homosexuals, way back in the '70s. So we have no-fault divorce. Who are leading the charge for abortions? So often, you'll find people who are lesbians leading the fight for the destruction of human life. Now they want to destroy marriage.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY breezyg)

I've been reading this community for a while, and I figure you're the people to ask.

I'm out searching for some information for a coworker of mine. What organizations/individuals would be the type to protest against an event whose proceeds go to LGBT causes? One that includes artistic 'desecration' of christian themes?

Anything you could give us would be great. We're just trying to gauge what we could potentially be up against.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY mysticknyght)

Via Sadly No!, here's some words of wisdom from extremist cleric James Dobson:

Is My Child Becoming Homosexual?

Evidences of gender confusion or doubt in boys ages 5 to 11 may include:

1. A strong feeling that they are “different” from other boys.

2. A tendency to cry easily, be less athletic, and dislike the roughhousing that other boys enjoy.

3. A persistent preference to play female roles in make-believe play.

4. A strong preference to spend time in the company of girls and participate in their games and other pastimes.

5. A susceptibility to be bullied by other boys, who may tease them unmercifully and call them “queer,” “fag” and “gay.”

6. A tendency to walk, talk, dress and even “think” effeminately.

7. A repeatedly stated desire to be — or insistence that he is — a girl.

What's interesting is that this series is entitled " Helping Boys Become Men, and Girls Become Women ," but I see no warning signs of lesbianism.  This is male homophobia, pure and simple.

I think my favorite is #2, A tendency to cry easily, be less athletic, and dislike the roughhousing that other boys enjoy..  As a four-year letterman on the Brother Martin High School Debate Team, I find this to be highly objectionable.  Telling fathers that emotions and non-athleticism in a boy is bad is an invitation for many of them to engage in behavior towards their sons that is both physically and emotionally abusive.

Then there's #5, A susceptibility to be bullied by other boys, who may tease them unmercifully and call them “queer,” “fag” and “gay.” The kids who get bullied are often the overweight/underweight ones, or the "smart" kids, or the loners.  Bullying doesn't make them "become gay," but it can lead to them wanting to shoot up their high schools.

Now, I'll buy #7 as a problem.  If a boy consistently insisted that he/she was a girl, I'd look into counseling, not because I was worried that he was gay, but that he has some serious issues in general.

This is the sort of stuff about Extermist Cleric Dobson that everyone needs to know.  There are all too many people who listen to his radio spots and think that FotF does good work.  The radio spots are a bait-and-switch, to get you on their mailing list and to get you to go to their website, where you read crap like this.


[YatPundit]
YatPundit entry)

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY ellid)

Rick Santorum, Dominionist, anti-gay activist, and all-around fun guy, is not only one of the most conservative men in Congress. It turns out he has an openly gay man on his staff. Behold:

http://www.gaycitynews.com/gcn_429/topsantorumaide.html



"They are like unto whited sepulchres, which are beautiful without and full of dead bones and uncleanness within...."

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY tully_monster)

How To Tell How Gay Your Gay Son Is. Because we all need a little bit of humor in a dark, dark world.

On a more serious note, if you didn't delve any deeper into SpongeDob's website, check out The Homosexual Campaign Against Children. Or maybe not. Now I'm kind of sorry I did. Ewwwwww.

This kind of made me do a double take:

1. Mary Eberstadt in The Weekly Standard (January 1, 2001): “The defense of adult-child — more accurately, man-boy sex — is now out in the open. Moreover, it is on parade in a number of places — therapeutic, literary, and academic circles; mainstream publishing houses and journals and magazines and bookstores — where the mere appearance of such ideas would until recently have been not only unthinkable, but in many cases, subject to prosecution.… If the sexual abuse of minors isn’t wrong, then nothing is.”

2. The motto of the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) is: “Sex before eight or else it’s too late.” While most homosexual publications haven’t endorsed NAMBLA, they also haven’t condemned it.

http://www.safepassagefoundation.org/

Specifically it is a group dedicated to helping kids in "high demand organisations" aka coercive religious groups (their definition used is at http://www.safepassagefoundation.org/Default.aspx?tabid=91)

As it is, this is probably one of the few groups that keeps info regarding what it's like for those of us who have grown up in coercive religious groups (http://www.safepassagefoundation.org/Default.aspx?tabid=64)

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY britzkrieg)

Zach, the Memphis teen forced to attend a Love In Action program aimed at "curing" his homosexuality, apparently updated his blog today.

I can't really tell, but it sounds like they got to him. :-(

( Content of blog entry -- mods, let me know if I should cut this out )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Here's the fourth and final part of Salon's series on the Christian 'ex-gay' ministry.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Here is part 3 of the four part Salon series about Christian attempts to reform homosexuals.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY deridetenebras)

This is an excerpt from a recent sermon made by Rev Willie WIlson, prominent DC minister and executive director of the Millions More March, an event to be held in commemoration of the Million Man March of 1995. Many GLBT groups/individuals who were planning to take part in the event are feeling angry/alienated by his remarks:

We live in a time when our brothers have been so put down, can’t get a job, lot of the sisters making more money than brothers. And it’s creating problems in families. That’s one of the reasons our families’ breaking up. And that’s one of the reasons many of our women are becoming lesbians. You got to be careful when you say you don’t need no man. I can make it by myself. Well, if you don’t need a man, what’s left? Lesbianism is about to take over our community. [...] I ain’t homophobic, because everybody in here got something wrong with him. Whoever you point at, you can point at your own self. You got something wrong with your life. But when you get down to this thing, women falling down on another woman, strapping yourself up with something, it ain’t real. That thing ain’t got no feeling in it. It ain’t natural. Any time somebody got to slap some grease on your behind, and stick something in you, it’s something wrong with that. Your butt ain’t made for that. You got blood vessels and membranes in your behind. And if you put something unnatural in there, it breaks them all up. No wonder your behind is bleeding. It’s destroying us. Can’t make no connection with a screw and another screw. The Bible says God made them male and female.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

The online magazine Salon (day pass or subscription required) is starting a four-part series today about an "investigation into the Christian netherworld of "reparative therapy," a disputed practice to convert gays and lesbians into heterosexuals." Sounds interesting. Part One is "Turning off Gays". I'll post links to the follow on segments as they are posted.

Despite their dubious scientific and therapeutic standing, reparative therapy ministries, some of which accept kids and operate like a cross between churches and boot camps, largely function without oversight and licenses.

Not that science or psychiatry have ever been a roadblock to the religious right. In the nation's divisive culture wars, gay issues have proved to be winners for Christian conservatives, who helped power right-wing Republicans into control of two branches of the federal government (the third may soon be in hand). In the last election, gay-marriage bans passed in all 11 states where they were on the ballot.

Religious conservatives are on a mission to ban more than gay marriage. They want to outlaw civil unions giving same-sex partners some of the legal privileges of married heterosexuals, reinstate state sodomy bans, and defeat hate-crimes legislation that would increase penalties for violence against gays. They are also taking their battle to the states. This spring, the Texas House considered a measure that would have banned gays from becoming foster parents. Opponents argued the measure would uproot 3,000 foster kids. It didn't pass.

The Christian right's political agenda rests on its contention that sex is natural only among heterosexual couples. A sexual preference for partners of your own gender is therefore a psychological disorder and a sin. In the words of the Rev. John J. Smid, who left "homosexuality and its entanglements in February of 1984," and is now the executive director of Love in Action International, a reparative therapy group in Memphis, Tenn., people who identify themselves as gay or lesbian are in the hands of the devil: "Satan, working behind the scenes, has succeeded in redefining the meaning of key words, and therefore we only reinforce and strengthen a false identity by calling individuals by a name that does not apply."

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY britzkrieg)

The father of Zach, the gay Memphis teen forced into a Love In Action "rehabilitation" program, speaks out.

CBN's Coverage

365gay's Story

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Church's gay marriage decision proves faiths change with time

BY RON GROSSMAN
Chicago Tribune

(KRT) - With faith-based conservatives on a seemingly endless roll, this hasn't been a fun season for the liberally inclined. The religious right styles itself as a divinely installed power behind the throne. Fundamentalists are so convinced that the road to heaven runs through their church's door, and they issued such finely detailed specs for a Supreme Court nominee, that even President Bush was taken aback.

Yet while the era now seems as distant as Noah and the flood, a respect for human diversity and a sense that no creed has a monopoly on truth once were in the mainstream of American religious thought. Now, though, it virtually requires what the Bible calls "signs and wonders" to believe that the spirit of toleration might someday return.

So here is a sign - and, even more so, a wonder - for the progressive and perplexed to contemplate. On July 4, the general synod of the United Church of Christ endorsed same-sex marriage.( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY gothic_oreo)

Heads up from kynn.

MIDDLEBROOK — A small fire was set in St. John’s Reformed United Church of Christ this morning and anti-gay graffiti was painted on the side of the building.

The outside of the church was vandalized with anti-gay messages and a declaration that United Church of Christ members were sinners. The graffiti’s message appeared to be a reference to the national church’s decision earlier this week to endorse gay and lesbian marriages.



This has eerie echoes back to the burning of black churches in the civil rights movement.

http://rainbowsendpress.com/exposed/index.html

Pretty good exposes, including links (including to the dominionists' own words) on various dominionist groups. Has a bit more info, as well as links to other "friendly" (to antidominionists) groups such as the Matthew Shephard Foundation (http://www.hatecrime.org)--again, networking with both of these groups is recommended.

(Gods, I feel just like a little sheepdog at times. Or a professional cat herder *laughs* But if herding cats helps to stop the people what hurt me and hurt so many other folks, all good)

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Want a sneak preview of what life would be like should Dominionist-ridden Republicans totally take over? Look no further than the Oklahoma GOP. Here's what Left2Right has to say about this platform:

The Oklahoma party calls for state and federal legislation to prohibit same-sex marriages and domestic partnerships, and also a constitutional amendment to limit marriage to one man and one woman. I'm not sure if this is to leave states the room to adopt civil unions, or just carelessness — the party thanks "the members of the Platform Committee who gave two long Saturdays to produce this document" — but I'd prefer to think it's the former. (And yes, it could be carelessness: in short order the platform supports and opposes the same Taxpayer Bill of Rights for the state.)( Read more... )