Religious Left

www.QueerPublicRadio.com a 24/7 LGBTQIA Licensed Independent Internet Radio Station. Visit, Listen, Support and become involved.

PHOENIX – The Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix stripped a major hospital of its affiliation with the church Tuesday because of a surgery that ended a woman's pregnancy to save her life. Bishop Thomas Olmsted called the 2009 procedure an abortion and said St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center — recognized internationally for its neurology and neurosurgery practices — violated ethical and religious directives of the national Conference of Catholic Bishops. Click here for full article . www.QueerPublicRadio.com a 24/7 LGBTQIA Licensed Independent Internet Radio Station. Visit, Listen, Support and become involved.

In many cases, religion is about control. What's happening in Australia provides proof. Recently Australia voted in an openly atheist Prime Minister (head of state). Her name is Julia Gillard and she has honestly and openly stated she is atheist. Now we hear the Catholic Archbishop in Perth, Australia, Barry Hickey, from the pulpit, stating "her atheism might influence Christian voters not to vote Labor at this month's federal election." You see, Julia Gillard is a member of the Labor Party in Australia. So this statement by the Catholic Archbishop in Perth, as some see it, is clearly stating anyone who votes for a Labor Party candidate is supporting atheism. full story www.GayTalkRadio.org a 24/7 LGBTQIA Licensed Independent Internet Radio Station. Visit, Listen, Support and become involved.

CHICAGO, May 14 /PRNewswire/ -- The following is being released by the Rainbow Sash Movement: The Rainbow Sash Movement (Gay Catholics) will enter Catholic Cathedrals nationally and internationally on Pentecost Sunday, May 23, 2010 wearing Rainbow Sashes. The purpose for our Pentecost Sunday presence is to give voice to the voiceless in our Church. There is something bipolar about a Church that will not give members of the Rainbow Sash Movement communion because they self identify as gay publicly, while at the same time elevating men to the office of Pope, Cardinal, Archbishop, or Bishop who placed the reputation of the Catholic Church ahead of needs of innocent children who were sexually victimized by both predator priests and Bishops. The only word that comes to mind to describe such a dichotomy, in charity, is hypocrite. Gay Catholics should not be divorced from public self-identification because of sexual orientation. Unfortunately the currency of hierarchical pronouncements ...

This sexual abuse issue with the Catholic Church is really quite understandable for many of us in the LGBTQI community. As most know the Catholic religion, and many others feel that sex outside of marriage is a sin. Most of those religions say they love the sinner but don’t love the sin. So abstinence comes into play. The church is fine with whatever orientation you are as long as you don’t have any sex outside of marriage (heterosexual marriage). We have the religious folks taking vows of chastity. I realize the reasoning is not solely related to marriage. But it doesn’t matter what the reasoning is. We have the religious folks denying their natural desires, in many cases, for decades. It really should be no surprise that an insulting and perverse form of sex resulted! As many professionals will tell you and most in the LGBTQI community already know; you can not deny your true self for extended periods of time without severe consequences. Usually, mental health consequence...

www.GayTalkRadio.org a 24/7 LGBTQIA Independent Internet Radio Station. Visit, Listen, Support and become involved.

Today’s news told of a Court Case involving a gay mans murder in Ireland. Shaun Fitzpatrick, 32, was found dead on March 23rd 2008 in an alleyway. The Court was told that the he had 52 separate injuries, 36 of them to his head. Two ‘men’ are on trial. Both blame the other for the killing. The trial continues. ( article ) Then I read a related article that said 64% of homophobic incidents in Northern Ireland are not reported. 21% of the 1,124 respondents said they had experienced problems with the Police Service of Northern Ireland. The Police Service of Northern Ireland paid for the survey. ( article ) I also remembered reading an article last year about Ireland having a problem with Catholic Priest in a sex-abuse scandal. But there was a difference in Ireland. Many of the abused were female. ( article ) But this issue isn’t geographically based, it’s a worldwide issue with one common denominator; The Catholic Church ( article ) Medicine has side affects. However, in most cas...

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican's permanent observer to the UN, read out a statement after a meeting of the UN human rights council in Geneva. He said: "Of all priests involved in the abuses, 80 to 90 per cent belong to this sexual orientation minority which is sexually engaged with adolescent boys between the ages of 11 and 17." Tomasi added that it would be "more correct" to refer to ephebophilia, a homosexual attraction to adolescent males, than paedophilia. The statement also attacked other religions, with Tomasi saying that most US churches embroiled in abuse scandals were Protestant, adding that the problem was also common in Jewish communities. Mr. Tomasi, the men were catholic priests and that is the issue. Trying to point the finger in other directions does not change this fact. Let us also remember the catholic church doesn’t allow female priests, it’s an “all male club”. Since the catholic church seems to be confused let clarify som...

1/23/2009 - 1 hr GayTalk at 9 AM (PST). Call in during the live show (347) 237-5246 otherwise call voicemail at (360) 283-5052 or send me email tom@2015Place.com . Today I'll talk about the Academy Awards, Obama axing Dybul, polygamy in Canada, Catholic taxes in San Francisco, gays in Iran and more. Click here to listen. I have started a new project to create a dedicated LGBT Channel/Station. To hear more about this, click here . Donations and or sponsors are welcome. Please click here to donate. All the best to you and yours.

1/15/2009 - 1 hr 30 min GayTalk at 9 AM (PST). Call in (347) 237-5246. 1996 Obama supported gay marriage. Scientologists Targeting HIV-Positive Protesters. Atlanta protest Rick Warren. ACLU sues Health and Human Services. Dallas County overturns condom ban. Click here to listen.

By Duke Helfand and Catherine Saillant, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers A week ago, Father Geoffrey Farrow stood before his Roman Catholic parishioners in Fresno and delivered a sermon that placed him squarely at odds with his church over gay marriage. With Proposition 8 on the November ballot, and his own bishop urging Central Valley priests to support its definition of traditional marriage, Farrow told congregants he felt obligated to break "a numbing silence" about church prejudice against homosexuals. On Thursday, Fresno Bishop John T. Steinbock removed Farrow, 50, as pastor of the St. Paul Newman Center, which primarily serves students and faculty at Cal State Fresno. "Your statement contradicted the teaching of the Catholic Church and has brought scandal to your parish community as well as the whole Church," Steinbock wrote in a disciplinary letter that also admonished Farrow against "using the Internet as a means of continuing your conflict with the Chur...

Richard Owen in Rome The Times Online UK Angelino Alfano, the Italian Minister of Justice, yesterday Thursday said he had refused a request by the public prosecutor in Rome for permission to charge the comedienne and satirist Sabina Guzzanti with insulting Pope Benedict XVI. Mr Alfano said he had decided not to proceed with a prosecution "knowing the depth of the Pope's capacity for forgiveness". Speaking at the Catholic University in Milan the minister said that as a Roman Catholic himself he had been "saddened and shamed" by Ms Guzzanti's remarks. However she had accepted full responsibility for them, and he saw "no point in adding further fire to the flames". BACKSTORY full article

Richard Owen in Rome, The Times Online UK An Italian comedienne who said that Pope Benedict XVI would go to Hell and be tormented by homosexual demons is facing a prison term of up to five years. Addressing a Rome rally in July, Sabrina Guzzanti warmed up with a few gags about Silvio Berlusconi — her favourite target for her biting impressions — before moving on to some unrepeatable jokes about Mara Carfagna, the Equal Opportunities Minister and one-time topless model. But then she got religion, and after warning everyone that within 20 years Italian teachers would be vetted and chosen by the Vatican, she got to the punchline: "But then, within 20 years the Pope will be where he ought to be — in Hell, tormented by great big poofter devils, and very active ones, not passive ones." Giovanni Ferrara, the Rome prosecutor, is invoking the 1929 Lateran Treaty between Italy and the Vatican, which stipulates that an insult to the Pope carries the same penalty as an insult to the Ital...

UK Gay News LONDON, September 9, 2008 – Justice Secretary, Jack Straw MP, is being urged by Peter Tatchell to rescind the license granted to the Roman Catholic Church for the exhumation and reburial of Cardinal John Henry Newman, on the grounds that it is “certainly unethical and probably illegal”. “It is morally wrong and arguably unlawful for the Ministry of Justice to grant a reburial license that violates Newman’s instructions to his executors and that gives a non-relative third party control over his remains,” Mr. Tatchell said this morning. “The Justice Secretary has caved in to Vatican demands and given the Catholic Church disposal rights over Newman’s body. “It not only plans to move his remains to a church tomb, it also intends to break up his body and distribute his bones as holy relics. full article

By Robert Verkaik, The Independant, UK The Catholic Church is under growing pressure to abandon the "homophobic" exhumation and reburial of the body of one its most famous cardinals, in defiance of his wish to lie for eternity next to the man he loved. Gay rights campaigners have accused the Vatican – which has ordered the disinterment in the first step towards beatification – of attempting to cover up the sexuality of Cardinal John Henry Newman, who died in 1890. Opposition to the reburial among some British Roman Catholics has been bolstered by a new poll organised by The Church Times which shows that a majority of Anglicans are now against the separation of Cardinal Newman, a former Anglican clergyman, and Father Ambrose St John who lived together as "husband and wife" for most of their late adult lives. Yesterday, the gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell told The Independent: "The Vatican's decision to move Cardinal Newman's body from its resting pl...

The Sydney Morning Herald Cardinal George Pell's determination to deny compensation to an abuse victim was uncompromising, writes Erik Jensen. The cardinal was not budging. Anthony Jones, a religion teacher at a Catholic high school in Sydney's south when he claimed he was the victim of attempted rape by a Catholic priest 26 years ago, would be offered no church compensation. Not a cent. First, some background. Jones was 29 in January 1982 when he was fondled by a local priest, Terence Goodall, who then attempted to have sex with him. Jones claims he reported the incident to the church within a month and, 20 years later, when nothing had been done, he again wrote a formal complaint to the church. That sparked an internal church investigation of Goodall. A second complaint against Goodall, received from a victim who cannot be named because he was a minor at the time of the offence, was included in the investigation. Contrary to his investigator's advice, Pell wrote to Jones ...

By GayNZ.com News Staff A statement issued this week to guide Catholics in the upcoming general election says children need the attention of both a mother and father, because "each contributes differently to their development", and suggests voters identify which "political views on same-sex couples conflict with this wisdom". Auckland couple Liz and Di Harding have been together 18 years and are the proud parents of 11-year-old boy-girl twins. Liz, believes current evidence clearly shows no difference in the outcome of children raised by same-sex as opposed to heterosexual parents – "so I am surprised by the Bishops' announcement," she tells GayNZ.com. "Maybe the Catholic Church are basing this statement on studies other than those found in mainstream research.It seems to me that they have some odd ideas from time to time anyway, such as not using condoms or birth control. I don't take much notice of such statements, nor do many people I know....

by Stuart MacDonald UK Times Online Sir Ian McKellen and Simon Callow accuse leading Catholic of homophobia Sir Ian McKellen and Simon Callow, Britain’s most prominent gay film actors, have launched an outspoken attack on Bishop Joseph Devine, the second most senior figure in the Scottish Catholic church, accusing him of preaching “homophobia” from the pulpit. McKellen and Callow strongly criticised a speech made by Devine earlier this year, in which he singled out the decision to award McKellen an honour from the Queen as an example of the dangers of the increasing power of the gay lobby. During his speech at St Aloysius college in Glasgow, Devine said: “In this new year’s honours list, actor Ian McKellen was honoured for his work on behalf of homosexuals. A century ago Oscar Wilde was locked up and put in jail.” Callow said senior religious figures could not accept the changing attitudes in society towards gay relationships. “The bishop is in my view a profoundly ignorant and stupid...

By VICTORIA WELDON scotsman.com A RENT boy tormented a gay Catholic priest for more than two years by threatening to expose his sexuality, a court heard yesterday. John Gallagher forced the 61-year-old to pay £3,000 for his silence and regularly visited the chapel house in Glasgow to demand cash. The pair met in Kelvingrove Park in the city's West End, where the cleric often went to use the services of male prostitutes. Gallagher, 30, found out that his client was a priest and began extorting money from him, threatening to go to the press if he didn't pay up. The cleric carried on giving Gallagher cash when he saw him at the park, until July last year, when Gallagher followed him and found out where he lived. He showed up at the chapel house the next day and demanded money. Local police received information that a priest in the area was being blackmailed. Officers visited the priest, who told them what had been going on. Gallagher was later traced and arrested at his home addre...

krqe.com BOSTON (AP) - An activist group hoping to pressure the Roman Catholic church into dropping its long-standing prohibition on women in the priesthood is planning an ordination ceremony for three women in Boston. The group known as Roman Catholic Womenpriests says it will hold the ceremony at a Protestant Church in Boston on Sunday. The group said the three women - Gloria Carpeneto of Baltimore, Judy Lee of Fort Myers, Fla., and Gabriella Velardi Ward of New York City - are responding to a call to serve the church. The Vatican has warned that women taking part in ordination ceremonies will be excommunicated. full article