Thousand-Plus Protest Antigay N.C. Preacher
More than 1,000 protesters gathered in Newton, N.C., Sunday to protest an antigay sermon by a minister in the nearby town of Maiden.
The demonstrators were objecting to a Mother’s Day sermon by Providence Road Baptist Church pastor Charles Worley, who advocated putting gays and lesbians in concentration camp–style settings. Video of the message went viral online.
Catholic Bishops launch investigation of Girl Scouts over 'problematic' ties
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops said it will launch a formal inquiry into the Girl Scouts of America over the group’s associations with organizations that promote views opposed by the church.
About one-fourth of the Girl Scouts’ 2.3 million youth members are Catholic, and the bishops’ investigation will look into “possible problematic relationships with other organizations,” according to a letter Thursday sent by Bishop Kevin Rhoades of Fort Wayne, Ind., to his fellow bishops.
The decision to scrutinize the Girl Scouts comes at a time when the 100-year-old institution has found itself under increasing pressure from conservatives for such moves as allowing a seven-year-old transgender girl to join a Colorado troop.…
Source: transfeminism
North Carolina preacher's homophobic rant
You’ve heard the sound bites - now here’s the full video (at the link above) of North Carolina preacher Sean Harris’s extremely homophobic sermon encouraging parents to beat their gender-nonconforming children. This is especially relevant considering North Carolina will vote on Amendment One next week.
TW: This is extremely homophobic and transphobic to the point of inciting violence, and should not be taken lightly. More.
(via loversintransition)
Source: gaywrites
LOL of the morning: Exodus Cancels Next ‘Love Won Out’ Conference Due to Lack of Interest
According to Ex-gay watch:
In what seems like the logical extension of the recent trend, Exodus International has decided there were not enough people interested in attending their Love Won Out conference scheduled for later this month to justify the expense. Conference attendance has been trending downward, with their last conference bringing in barely 400 people. This is down from nearly 1000 in Exodus’ headier days.
They recently sent out an email to their would-be attendees about the cancellation, which you can read at the source.
Source: exgaywatch.com
Individual Donors Fueling Fight Against Amendment One
Exactly one week before voters in North Carolina will decide Amendment One, a draconian measure that would bar marriage rights and all other forms of relationship recognition for same-sex couples reports filed to North Carolina’s State Board of Elections show that the Coalition to Protect NC Families, which opposes the amendment, has raised $2.3 million to date, with first-quarter expenditures this year of $1.8 million and $294,000 cash on hand. Individual contributors have donated $1.4 million, with $368,000 in contributions from non-profits. (WRAL has crunched the numbers on major donors, click here for more info.)
To read the full article, click the link above.
(TRIGGER WARNING: murder) 8-Year Old Dismembered Boy’s Murder Blamed On Gay Marriage By NOM Rabbi
Rabbi Yehuda Levin, associated with the National Organization For Marriage (NOM), just blamed last week’s horrific murder of an 8 year-old New York City boy on gay marriage and what he sees as the complacency of the Jewish Orthodox community in Brooklyn, the boy’s home.
(via wanderlustprince)
Source: christiantheatheist
Bryan Fischer: It’s ‘perfectly appropriate to discriminate’ against homosexuality
By Kyle Mantyla
Right Wing Watch
Russia’s Closet: The Politics Behind a Ban on Gay “Propaganda”
A draconian new law in St. Petersburg, Russia, bans any public talk of gay issues even on the Internet. The idea originated with the religious right in the United States.
Days before the United Nations held its first panel on LGBT rights, the St. Petersburg assembly passed a law banning any public activity (including what happens online) that promotes homosexuality, sodomy, lesbianism, bisexuality, and transgender identity, as well as any display of homosexual conduct that could potentially be seen by minors (which the lawmakers dubbed as promoting pedophilia). The bill was signed into law by St. Petersburg governor Georgiy Poltavchenko and took effect March 12. Many have started to look back on how exactly things got to where they are today. The answer: politics, and the rise of religious conservatism in Russia.
Click the link above to read the full article.
Catholic Church Deploying Parishioners To Help Repeal Washington Gay Marriage
The Archdiocese of Seattle is deploying parishioners and using Church funds and resources to help collect 120,000 signatures that will put Washington State’s same-sex marriage law on November’s ballot, essentially repealing it. Governor Christine Gregoire signed Washington’s marriage equality bill into law earlier this year, but opponents are waging war against the measure, and will likely force residents to vote on the law in November.
“The two bishops of the Catholic Archdiocese of Seattle, in a letter to the faithful, say they will deploy parishes to collect signatures for Referendum 74, a measure for the November ballot designed to roll back same-sex marriage in Washington,” the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports:
Keep reading at TheNewCivilRightsMovement.com
Source: bencrowther
Mormons working to overturn Md. marriage law
Members of the Mormon Church in Maryland are working to overturn the state’s recently passed marriage equality law, according to an email obtained by the Washington Blade.
In the message dated March 29 sent to D.C. and Southern Maryland-area church members, the writer states that a coalition of inter-denominational Maryland churches has joined to place a referendum before voters in November on the marriage law before it goes into effect.
“We need to collect approximately 200,000 signatures by the end of May,” the email states. “We are looking for people to gather signatures within the LDS community.”
LDS refers to the church’s formal name, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Those involved with the effort have told the Blade the message isn’t an official message from church leadership either at the local level or from its headquarters in Salt Lake City, but is rather part of a local ad hoc effort to challenge Maryland’s marriage law.
The email says the “important effort” is being led by Martha Schaerr, an LDS member who’s organizing signature collection within Montgomery County and within the church. Another named organizer in the email is Teressa Wallace.
Click the link above to read more.
Catholic School Cancels Victoria Kennedy Speech Over Pro-Gay Stances
Vicki Kennedy and late husband, Ted Kennedy
A Massachusetts Catholic college has scrapped plans to have Victoria Kennedy, Ted Kennedy’s widow, deliver its commencement address, citing her support for marriage equality and abortion rights.
Robert J. McManus, the bishop of Worcester, Mass., pressured Anna Maria College in Paxton to cancel Kennedy’s speaking engagement and an honorary degree the college was to give her, Religion News Service reports. A spokesman for McManus said the bishop believes Catholic schools “should be honoring Catholics for their consistent public positions with the church, not for contrary positions with the church, especially on core issues such as the right to life and the sanctity of marriage.”
Actually, Victoria Kennedy has not been particularly outspoken on these matters, but her late husband was a strong advocate for LGBT rights and women’s reproductive freedom during his long tenure in the U.S. Senate. She issued a statement saying she was “disheartened” by the cancellation but understood the college’s position. Anna Maria College officials said they regretted withdrawing the invitation to Kennedy but had to take the action to maintain good relations with the local Catholic hierarchy. Read more here.
Santorum Is Bad for LGBT Adults, Worse for LGBT Youth
Would President Rick Santorum put the lives of LGBT youth in even greater jeopardy? Writer Joseph Ward says yes.
Over the last few weeks, the Republican race for president has been watched apathetically by many Americans, but Rick Santorum continues to shake things up with unexpected wins, courting “very conservative” Republican voters as his core strategy. While his rise may provide for interesting punditry across the media and rile up conservative Christians, it has also caused considerable anxiety and concern among moderate voters and many within the Christian community. That’s because Santorum stakes his candidacy on an old ideological framework that stereotypically pits people of faith against their LGBT neighbors. This rhetoric is not only damaging to many families and children, but it grossly misrepresents America’s religious community.
The Public Religion Research Institute recently showed that majorities of religious groups in the U.S. are actually supportive of the LGBT community, including their right to marry. The faith-LGBT dynamic in our culture is shifting, and as the research institute’s CEO, Robby Jones, notes, “assumptions about battle lines between secular proponents and religious foes no longer hold.”
Click the link above to read the full article.
Professor Says Antigay Activist Misused Her Research
Yet another scholar has complained about religious right activists distorting her research to back up their antigay stances, bringing the count to at least a dozen.
Theodora Sirota, an associate professor of nursing at Seton Hall University in New Jersey, says an adviser to the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality — which claims homosexuality is a disorder that can be “cured” — has mischaracterized her findings in a parenting study, using them to oppose adoption by gay people, Box Turtle Bulletin reports.
Rick Fitzgibbons (pictured), a psychiatrist and member of NARTH’s scientific advisory committee, wrote an article published online in November citing Sirota’s research, saying women with gay or bisexual fathers experienced more difficulties in adult relationships than did women with heterosexual fathers. Fitzgibbons used the research to support his claim that “children raised by same sex couples fare less well than children raised in stable homes with a mother and a father.”
Fitzgibbons, however, left out some key information about Sirota’s findings: “The gay and bisexual fathers in Sirota’s study were married to the mothers,” Box Turtle Bulletin reports.
Sirota contacted the blog this week for help in rebutting Fitzgibbons’s assertions, and she has contacted Fitzgibbons as well, but he has not altered the article. In a statement about his misrepresentation of her research, she writes:
“My study was only about women raised in the context of heterosexually-organized marriages where fathers were identified as gay or bisexual. My research was not about and did not measure anything in women raised by gay parent couples or by single gay fathers. The women I studied were not raised in the context of gay or lesbian partnerships or by single gay fathers actively rearing their children. Therefore, no conclusions about gay or lesbian fitness to adopt children or quality of active gay parenting can be drawn from the findings of my research. No conclusions about the well-being of children who are or were actively raised by gay or lesbian parents can be drawn from the findings of my research.”
According to Pam’s House Blend, at least a dozen individuals or groups involved in scholarly research have complained in recent years about antigay organizations misusing their data. Read more here.
Rick Santorum Has Pity and Prayers for Glitter-Bomber
Rick Santorum pities the man who glitter-bombed him during a campaign stop in Iowa last week, he told a radio host today.
“I feel sorry for that man that he felt like he was compelled he had to do that,” Santorum said, according to TheHuffington Post’s report on the interview. “Like I do, what I’m supposed to do, is you know, according to our faith, is to pray for them, and I hope people work that out.”
Glitter-bombing has spread as a way to protest antigay views, with Santorum and others left covered in handfuls of sparkly paper bits. But the practice got a heated response from the radio show’s conservative host, Jan Mickelson.
“When I saw that guy do that to you, I just wish I had been there,” Mickelson told Santorum, according to TheHuffington Post. He didn’t explain what he’d have done but did call out “the gay lobby” for Google-bombing Santorum. Results on the search engine surface an alternate definition of the candidate’s last name that has been propagated by activists, starting with Dan Savage, who was outraged by the candidate’s comparison of gay sex to bestiality and pedophilia.
“I’m not encouraging people to do this, but if you ever want to see hate, just enter Rick Santorum’s name on the Internet,” Mickelson said. “If there ever was an example of seething, satanic, wicked hatred directed toward a decent person, it’s that.”
The glitter-bombing comes in response to a long history of antigay statements, including Santorum’s most recent pronouncement that, if elected president, he would seek to invalidate the marriages of thousands of same-sex couples who had already wed.
Click the link above to watch the video.
