Gay/LGBT Religious News (T22R-1)
 GossipCop | White House takes stance against gay-marriage ban Religion News Service The brief marks the first time the administration has weighed in on the constitutionality of any state ban on gay marriage. Although it was aimed at the voter initiative passed in California in 2008, it put the administration squarely against other ... Gay marriage laws in 3 maps Where Do Christians (And Others) Go From Here? Obama goes beyond own brief on gay marriage |
 Advocate.com | Ex-Bears QB Miller: Religion a barrier for gays in locker room Chicago Tribune "Teams want to know if Manti Te'o is gay," Florio said. "They just want to know. They want to know because in an NFL locker room, it's a different world. ... It's been described to me as the proverbial elephant in the room and I don't think anyone ... QB Says Religion Would Hinder Gay Acceptance in NFL Former Chicago Bears quarterback Jim Miller says religion is road block for ... Jim Miller relies on religion to justify intolerance of homosexuals |
 Telegraph.co.uk | Police chaplain 'forced out after criticising gay marriage' Telegraph.co.uk "Whilst the force wholly respects the Rev Ross's and, indeed any employees' personally held political and religious beliefs, such views cannot be expressed publicly if representing the force, as it is by law an apolitical organisation with firmly ... |
 The Vancouver Observer (blog) | Religion has no place in same-sex marriage debate The Vancouver Observer (blog) Newly-wed couples leave the courthouse on the first day of same-sex marriage in Washington State. The issue remains a major wedge within both U.S. and Canadian politics. But do arguments from the religious right have any place in this heated debate? Letter: Whose business is gay marriage? |
 Washington Blade | 'Love Free or Die' Washington Blade The documentary “Love Free or Die,†a film about Bishop Gene Robinson who became the first openly gay bishop in the history of traditional Christiandom, screens at St. Mark's Episcopal Church (3rd and A St. SE) tonight at 7 p.m.. Robinson was ... |
Washington Blade | 'Love Free or Die' Washington Blade Gene Robinson, gay news, gay politics dc, Washington Blade. Bishop Gene Robinson became the Episcopal Church's first openly gay Bishop in 2003, setting the stage for a decade of advances for LGBT people in the church. (Washington Blade file photo by ... |
 The GA Voice | Do we need religion to win LGBT equality? The GA Voice Last month, five gay couples lined up at the DeKalb County Probate Court to ask for marriage licenses. In a poignant protest, all were denied, as Georgia law bans gay marriage. A handful of local LGBT and allied clergy were on hand as “peacekeepers ... Revisiting sinners of the past The most popular politician is…; Disney's gay president |
'No Shade,' New Web Series, Touches On Transgender Issues, Religion And ... Huffington Post It's a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) dramedy about four flamboyant friends (three gay men and a transgender woman) on a journey to success, love and evolution. The humorous New York City-based show touches on religion, disabilities, sex ... |
Most government bodies do everything in their power to avoid lawsuits, but some do things so foolish that they seem to be begging someone to sue them. One entity that apparently welcomes the prospect of a long and costly legal battle is the governing board of the Chambersburg Area School District in Pennsylvania.
Recently, the board voted 5-4 not to allow a Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) club at Chambersburg Area Senior High School. A news report on the vote did not include any comments from the five who voted against the club, but the story did make one very important point: The 1984 Federal Equal Access Act requires secondary schools to allow a variety of student-run religious and non-religious voluntary clubs that meet during “non-instructional†time. This law was later upheld by the Supreme Court.
And the board cannot plead ignorance, here. Before the vote Stephanie Metz, an educator in nearby Shippensburg who is a Chambersburg resident, warned the board of the consequences that could come from banning a GSA. She said, according to the Chambersburg Public Opinion, that she doesn’t want her tax dollars to be used on a court case because the Constitution allows equal opportunity when it comes to student club formation.
At least one board member, Kim Amsley-Camp, who voted to allow the club, seems to be well aware of what’s at stake here. Public Opinion reported that Amsley-Camp said prior to the vote that she contacted the Pennsylvania Association of School Boards about the GSA club and was informed that the district has to allow the club under the Equal Access Act.
The alternative, Amsley-Camp was told, is that the school has the option to allow no clubs at all. It seems that the board wouldn’t care much for that plan, since Chambersburg Area Senior High School has not one, but two Christian clubs open to students. Â
Others who spoke up at the meeting noted that gay students need support because they are at a much higher risk for suicide, while others simply said allowing a GSA club is a matter of fairness.
 “Students need a place to talk safely,†said Matthew Basillo, who planned to serve as a mentor for the new club. “Is this need being addressed? It’s not. They need a place to feel safe, dispel myths, grow and prosper.â€
It’s ironic that when Congress was debating the Equal Access Act, conservatives were the ones really pushing for the law. They were eager to see students form Christian clubs, and it’s incredible that they didn’t realize the law makes it easier for everyone to create a club â€" including those the Religious Right finds offensive.
If the board won’t reverse its decision or ban all student clubs, there’s a pretty good chance someone is going to sue the school district back to the Stone Age. That would be pretty fitting, since it seems some of the board’s members already act like they live there anyway.
Have you ever found yourself in disagreement with the political positions of the Catholic bishops? If so, you’re anti-Catholic.
Has it ever occurred to you that the church hierarchy didn’t handle the pedophilia scandal very well, and have you voiced that opinion? You’re anti-Catholic.
Do you get upset when priests and bishops violate federal law by endorsing candidates from the pulpit? That’s anti-Catholic too.
I learned these things after examining a new publication from the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights titled 2012 Report on Anti-Catholicism. Someone from the Catholic League was thoughtful enough to send it to me. I found its contents enlightening.
According to the League, “This comprehensive report documents incidents of anti-Catholicism that emerged last year from many different segments of society: activist organizations; the arts; business and the workplace; education; government; and the media.â€
Not quite. In reality, it looks like a gaggle of interns was set loose on Google News with a list of keywords. The report is more accurately described as an incoherent hodgepodge of news items from 2012 that annoyed William A. Donohue, the League’s president.
Many of the items listed have nothing to do with Catholicism. (One example: The report goes on at length about the controversy over the anti-gay views of Dan Cathy, owner of Chick-fil-A restaurants. Cathy is a Southern Baptist.)
I suppose the Catholic League sent me the report because Americans United is mentioned in it more than once. What did we do in 2012 that was “anti-Catholic� Well, we dared to assert that the bishops have no right under the First Amendment to restrict Americans’ access to birth control.
We asked the Internal Revenue Service to investigate a Catholic church in New York City that ran an item in its bulletin endorsing Mitt Romney for president as well as a bishop in Peoria who exhorted congregants not to vote for Barack Obama, comparing him to Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. For expecting that federal law be followed, AU was labeled anti-Catholic.
According to this report, just about any attempt to enforce the separation of church and state is an example of anti-Catholicism. It contains numerous accounts of organizations like Americans United, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union and others asking government officials to stop displaying sectarian symbols on public land or opening meetings with sectarian prayers. In many cases, the symbols and prayer used were not Catholic. No matter. According to the Catholic League, that’s still anti-Catholic.
Here are some other things that the report says are anti-Catholic:
* New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd is anti-Catholic because she wrote, “Even as Republicans try to wrestle women into chastity belts, the Vatican is trying to muzzle American nuns.â€
* Salon.com is anti-Catholic because one of its editors, Joan Walsh, asserted that the Catholic bishops often behave like an “unregistered arm of the GOP.â€
* Philadelphia officials are anti-Catholic because they put Msgr. William Lynn on trial for covering up the sexual abuse of children by priests. (Lynn, who was found guilty on one count of child endangerment, was sentenced to three to six years in prison.)
* An editorial cartoonist, Signe Wilkinson, is anti-Catholic because she drew a cartoon criticizing the bishops’ stand on access to birth control and asserting that even Catholic women don’t support it.
Here is my favorite example of anti-Catholicism from the report: Some thieves broke into a Catholic church in Hoboken, N.J., and stole copper pipes. Theft of copper has been a problem around the country because it has a high resale value on the secondary market. Such thievery is deplorable, but my guess is that the crooks who hit the church were interested in making a few bucks, not striking a blow against the Vatican.
(Unfortunately, the 2012 report is not online â€" although the League is happy to sell you a copy for $10 â€" but you can see examples from previous years here.)
With a definition this broad, can anyone escape the brush of anti-Catholicism? No â€" and that’s exactly what Donohue, wants. Under his definition, millions of Americans (including many Catholics) who don’t agree with the bishops on issues like legal abortion, LGBT rights, access to contraceptives and even the church’s handling of child-abuse allegations are anti-Catholic.
It’s really just an attempt to play the victim and intimidate anyone who is critical of the church hierarchy’s political views or their attempts to require all of us to live under their dogma. Will it work? Nope.
Your martyr complex is tiresome, Bill. How about a little truth in advertising? I’d recommend a new title for the 2013 report: A Long List of Things That Really Bothered William Donohue Last Year.
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On Saturday, I received a letter from my old acquaintance Ralph Reed.
Reed, you might recall, ran TV preacher Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition throughout the 1990s. After leaving the group, he started a political consulting firm that became mired in the Jack Abramoff casino lobbying scandal. He also tried unsuccessfully to launch a political career and even wrote some political potboilers.
None of these ventures gave Reed the payoff he wanted, so he came slinking back to the Religious Right. A few years ago, he formed a group called the Faith & Freedom Coalition.
Reed’s letter to me focuses on the National Cathedral here in Washington, D.C. Ralph is distraught because the cathedral in 2011 received $700,000 in tax money from the U.S. Interior Department for foundation repairs, metal work and restoration of stained-glass windows. Officials at Interior defended the grant by insisting that the cathedral is an historic structure.
Americans United protested the federal subsidy at the time. We agree that the cathedral is historic, but it remains an active Episcopal church with a congregation and regular worship services. It is owned by a religious denomination and is not a museum. The people in its pews, not the taxpayers, should pay for its repair and upkeep, we argued.
Throughout the course of his career, Reed has pushed for voucher subsidies for religious schools, “faith-based†funding for various ministries and so on. Like a lot of fundamentalists, he seems to believe that taxpayer support for religion is not really a problem.
But suddenly it is a problem for Ralph, at least in this case. Why? Well, he’s upset because the National Cathedral has announced that it will perform same-sex marriages. For this reason, Reed says, it should be denied public support.
“The Faith and Freedom Coalition is leading a national charge against this policy by launching a nationwide petition DEMANDING that all taxpayer dollars to support the National Cathedral be IMMEDIATELY discontinued,†Reed blusters in the letter.
Oh, Ralph! Are you really that clueless?
Let me try to explain this to you: Ralph, you spent most of your professional life working to undermine the wall of separation between church and state and electing men and women who don’t respect that protective barrier. Those elected officials, in turn, nominated judges who also don’t see much use for the church-state wall. Their rulings have weakened it. One of the things they did was erode previous court decisions that flatly barred tax aid to religious institutions.
And you see, Ralph, once we start going down this road, we can’t make distinctions among churches based on their political views, as your group would apparently have us do. The government would have to use neutral criteria to decide these questions.
Here’s a better alternative: No taxpayer money for houses of worship. Period.
If we had stuck with that constitutional principle, we wouldn’t be having this discussion right now.  I’d also like to point out that it’s a wee bit hypocritical to advocate for government support for religion as long as it’s a religion you like and then screaming bloody murder when it’s extended to a faith you don’t care for.
Here’s the bottom line: There is one thing that could have stopped taxpayer aid from propping up the National Cathedral â€" the separation of church and state. Reed has spent nearly his entire professional life laboring to undermine that principle. Thanks in part to his nefarious schemes, tax money is now flowing to a church that has policies with which he disapproves.
Reed’s not happy about this.
I hate to say I told you so, Ralph, but we did. Over and over.
As the U.S. Supreme Court considers two cases dealing with same-sex marriage, the Religious Right and its allies are attempting to sway the justices with a barrage of briefs in support of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California’s Proposition 8.
Most of these groups are tossing around some pretty flimsy secular arguments in a weak attempt to make it seem like their opposition isn’t based in religious dogma. We know better.
Consider this breakdown from USA Today, which shows the various arguments from religious lobbies that want their sectarian doctrines to be enforced by the civil marriage laws of the United States. The article notes that one of the most quoted sources among these many legal briefs is none other than the Bible.
Still, some tried to pretend that they support DOMA and Prop 8 for secular reasons.
Take the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The bishops said that if gay marriage is legal, they would be forced to accept it in order to remain tax exempt and be eligible for government contracts. Â
“If the Constitution were construed to require government affirmation of same-sex relationships as marriage, it would seem a short step to requiring such affirmation as a condition of receiving government contracts, participating in public programs or being eligible for tax exemption,†the bishops said. “Those who disagree with the government's moral assessment of such relationships would find themselves increasingly marginalized and denied equal participation in American public life and benefits.â€
That seems highly unlikely. The bishops are already known to discriminate and ignore the provisions outlined in government contracts if they contradict their beliefs, and yet Catholic organizations remain tax exempt and Catholic groups continue to secure federal contracts for various services. And, frankly, if the bishops don’t want to serve legally married gay couples on the same basis as straight couples, maybe they shouldn’t get government grants.
The bishops’ brief also brought up the old logical fallacy that legalizing gay marriage will lead to all sorts of other legalizations, like marriage among minors, relatives or polygamists.
No one is seriously arguing for the legalization of any of those things, and having same-sex marriage on the books no more legitimizes incest than does traditional marriage.
Others, like the Family Research Council, said gay marriages can’t fulfill the primary purpose of marriage, which is child bearing.
But what about couples who marry when they are too old to have kids or couples who simply don’t want to have them?  Would the Family Research Council support a ban on those marriages?
Still other groups cited historical reasons for supporting DOMA and Prop 8.
“Before 2003, same-sex marriage had never existed in the United States, and it still is comparatively rare,†said the Marriage Law Foundation, a group of college professors, in a brief. “Indeed, before 2000, it had never existed in human history.â€
That proves absolutely nothing. Any history of discrimination is wrong, and just because something is tradition doesn’t mean it’s right. Slavery was a “tradition†in America from 1619-1865 and you don’t see many people arguing for the return of that.
Then there’s the Rev. Fred Phelps’ Westboro Baptist Church. There is no question that group spews vile hatred, but at least it is up front about the religious basis for its opposition to same-sex marriage.
“Same-sex marriage will destroy this nation,†the group said in its brief. “If the leaders of this country treat what God has called abominable as something to be respected, revered, and blessed with the seal of approval of the government, that will cross a final line with God.â€
American laws should be based on fairness, justice and equality, not religious dogma. Let’s hope the Supreme Court makes its decision based on those concepts and isn’t fooled by sectarian lobbies trying to disguise their doctrines with paper-thin secular farces.
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