Religious Left

With the millions of dollars heaped upon passage of Proposition 8 in California it was hard to imagine it would be struck down. Many people fought a good fight and are to be commended. I’m sure many religious folks are very happy with the outcome. But when it comes right down to it they preserved a word, because, as we all know, given the divorce rate in the USA, there is very little sanctity or morality left in marriage. The greater victory last night was on a federal level with the election of Barack Obama as the next President of the United States. President Obama will level this marriage “playing field” on the federal level and of course, as we all know, Federal Law supercedes state law. Perhaps it won’t be called marriage but it will confer all the same Rights as marriage and after all, that is the goal. [ videos ] Included in those Rights will be all state laws currently reserved for married couples and many, if not most, of the over 1000 Federal Rights which no sta...

BBC News A vicar in Gwynedd has been reprimanded by the Archbishop of Wales for blessing a gay civil partnership between two women. The service was conducted by the Reverend Jim Cotter at St Hywyn's Church in Aberdaron, with the approval of the local church council. A complaint was made to the Archbishop who wrote to the Rev Cotter telling him he had exceeded his authority. The vicar said he had been given approval by the local church council to carry out the ceremony in July, and he was not aware of any opposition locally. full article

Today on Seattle’s KING 5 TV show, Up Front, Governor Christine Gregoire was asked about her personal beliefs on gay marriage. Her first and foremost statement was her belief in equality. She proudly stated her advocacy of civil unions. Reminding us civil unions were legalized on her watch. The interviewers mentioned civil unions were not marriage. Governor Gregoire responded, reluctantly, “I believe that is a religious issue”. If we didn’t know before, we now know Governor Gregoire feels civil marriage is a religious issue.

Evidently if you live in Britain you don’t have to perform the duties of your job if it is against your religious beliefs. Since we know Britain doesn't shut down on Sundays it's obvious there are many working on the Sabath. Up until this recent news I thought Britain was a forward thinking country. Evidently my assessment was incorrect. For those of you sitting there saying “what the hell is he talking about”, let me explain. First off let’s put this in perspective by stating the Christian Institute bankrolled the lawsuit. The group feels it is their religious duty to impose their views into politics and believe Christians should "participate fully in our democracy." Since it’s a registered “charity” it most likely doesn’t pay taxes. I’m talking about the recent case involving Lillian Ladele a registrar who refused to issue gay marriage licenses because of her religion. So in Britain, in this case, religion trumped the law and that is just plain ridiculous. Islingt...

by Sally Quinn Washington Post Homosexual couples are simply two people who love each other. Please explain to me how that can be wrong in the eyes of God. Didn’t God make us all in his image? Please explain to me why it is not better for society that two people who love each other cement their relationship in a legal union. Please tell me how it could possibly be harmful to society to have two loving people form a union. I simply don’t get it. I really don’t. full article

John Bogert received some interesting comments regarding the recent California Supreme Court ruling. By John Bogert, Staff Columnist The Daily Breeze "I am in favor of this. It is long overdue as a human rights issue," e-mailed Barb Contener of Torrance. "The people who will be outraged definitely have the right to stop gays from worshiping in their churches and from being ministers in same. But they don't have the right to impose their religious beliefs on law. Lately the separation of church and state has become blurry. But imagine this country without separation. It would turn this nation into the opposite of the heaven that some want me to believe in. It's time for all to step back and think about this terrible discrimination against fellow citizens. Also, people need to ask how they would feel if the state told them who they could marry." full article

By Staff Writer, PinkNews.co.uk A registrar will face her employer, Islington Council in an employment tribunal this week as she demands the right not to marry gay couples. Lilian Ladele, a civil registrar in Islington, north London has been told that she could lose her job unless she agrees to perform civil partnership ceremonies for gay couples full article

from MSNBC Episcopal bishop Gene Robinson knows he is inviting death threats by entering into a civil union with his gay partner on the eve of his church’s biggest ecclesiastical conference. And he says it is worth it, because he is doing what God asks of him. Full article and video

I am a big admirer of the current Pope , am glad he came to America , and hope he had a good time. Nonetheless, it really is about time for a papal proclamation announcing that God is a bi gender twister. But since that is not going to happen anytime soon, it would be good if he just turned down the gay bashing a bit. However, I tend to pay him no mind on this stuff. When the Pope preaches the sin of queerness , it carries the same theological weight as the edict against birth control —who cares? Not most Catholics . Jesus talked about a lot of stuff, most of which people don't follow. But he never bothered to mention homosexuality one time. And in the Bible there are only four or five passages on the subject, and the bulk of those are stuck back there with the dietary laws, which also address the necessity of griding your loins and wearing ash sack cloth on certain holidays. As far as specifically condemning dykedom -- there is one ambiguous obscure passage . The Pope adm...

Three months after the Diocese of San Joaquin took a momentous vote to leave the U.S. Episcopal Church, Bishop John-David Schofield says there's a lot of work to do and there's no looking back. John-David Schofield, 69, bishop of the Fresno-based diocese for 20 years, says he never has felt he was leading people down the wrong road. On Dec. 8, the local diocese became the first American diocese to secede from the U.S. Episcopal Church since the Civil War, largely over differences with the national body's approval of same-sex blessings, ordination of a gay bishop, the role of women in the church and how to interpret the Bible over such issues. The diocese also aligned with the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone of South America, based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which has similar views as the diocese. In response, the Episcopal Church banned Schofield on Jan. 11 from practicing his religious duties for 60 days, which ends Tuesday. The Diocese of San Joaquin said the nation...

Glenn Stanton, director of global family formation studies at Focus on the Family, said there's a clear consensus among anthropologists. "A family is a unit that draws from the two types of humanity, male and female," he said. "Those two parts of humanity join together, create new life and they both cooperate in the legitimization of the child, if you will, and the development of the child." Since its beginnings as a scientific discipline in the 19th century, anthropology has documented the historical and cultural variability of marriage and family forms. From ghost marriages to "female husbands" to polyandry, polygamy and cousin marriage, the cultures of the world exhibit incredible diversity in how they manage the universal problems of cultural transmission and the reproduction and care of the next generation. ... In fact, the [American Anthropological] Association requires academic recruiters who advertise with its service to state whether they prov...

The New York State Supreme Court recently ruled that same-sex marriages performed legally in other jurisdictions are now legal in New York. Two women from Chili, Pat Martinez and Lisa Golden, were legally wed in Canada. When one tried to add the other to her insurance plan and was told “No,” they sued. Martinez knows change comes slowly at times. "We're going to advance towards the road of full equality,” she said. Advancing down that road is something the co-ministers of the First Unitarian Church of Rochester started doing when they stopped signing marriage licenses. Co-Minister Kaaren Anderson said, "In this state, I can only sign a license saying this is true and authentic for a heterosexual couple and I can't do that for a same-sex couple, which makes you feel really sick to your stomach." full story

Signature collection is getting more difficult for right-wing extremists on both coasts. A group in California has failed to garner enough support to remove civil rights protections provided by SB 777. And now the Orlando Sentinel reports that a conservative group backing the gay-marriage ban has failed to collect the appropriate amount of signatures necessary to place a constitutional amendment - to ban gay marriage - on the 2008 ballot. Although the group announced last month it had enough signatures to put it on next fall's ballot - the effort was actually more than 20,000 signatures short of the number needed . Maybe a Bush appointed federal judge will step in (which happened in Oregon) after some out of state conservative agency gets involved.

Rome (1 January) - Heterosexual Pope Benedict XVI has called for peace in the world during his New Year's Mass in Saint Peter's Cathedral. Since 1967, New Year's Day has been World Peace Day in the Roman Catholic Church. The pope said that there is a direct relationship between peace in the world and the traditional family, based on a bond between man and woman. Indirectly he criticised unmarried couples and homosexual marriage, which has been legalised in many countries including Spain, which is mostly Catholic.

Uruguay will become the first country in Latin America to allow gay and lesbian couples to engage in civil unions nationwide as a result of legislation passed Thursday. The legislation would grant same-sex couples the same social security, pension, inheritance, and parenting rights that heterosexual couples enjoy, though civil unions will not be called marriage. Edgardo Ortuno, a member of the center-left ruling party, said the law could take effect as early as mid December. "This recognition of the legal status of couples ... recognizes the legal status of homosexual couples, which gives it a completely new dimension," Ortuno said to the Union-Tribune. (The Advocate) If you'd like to know more, you can find stories related to Uruguay to allow civil unions .

The only openly gay bishop in the worldwide Anglican Church has unveiled plans for a civil union with his longtime partner, unleashing an attack by church conservatives who call it a publicity stunt. New Hampshire's Episcopal Bishop, Gene Robinson, tells the British Broadcasting Corporation that he and his partner of 18 years, Mark Andrew, 53, will have a civil union shortly after the state's civil union law goes into effect next year. http://www.365gay.com/Newscon07/08/082307roun.htm