The Homosexual Debate, 03/06/06 Options

[ABLAT Staff]

March 6, 2006
Conservative Jews to Consider Ending a Ban on Same-Sex Unions and Gay Rabbis
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
In a closed-door meeting this week in an undisclosed site near Baltimore, a committee of Jewish legal experts who set policy for Conservative Judaism will consider whether to lift their movement's ban on gay rabbis and same-sex unions.

In 1992, this same group, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, declared that Jewish law clearly prohibited commitment ceremonies for same-sex couples and the admission of openly gay people to rabbinical or cantorial schools. The vote was 19 to 3, with one abstention.

Since then, Conservative Jewish leaders say, they have watched as relatives, congregation members and even fellow rabbis publicly revealed their homosexuality. Students at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City, the movement's flagship, began wearing buttons saying "Ordination Regardless of Orientation." Rabbis performed same-sex commitment ceremonies despite the ban.

The direction taken by Conservative Jews, who occupy the centrist position in Judaism between the more liberal Reform and the more strict Orthodox, will be closely watched at a time when many Christian denominations are torn over the same issue. Conservative Judaism claims to distinguish itself by adhering to Jewish law and tradition, or halacha, while bending to accommodate modern conditions.

"This is a very difficult moment for the movement," said Rabbi Joel H. Meyers, a nonvoting member of the law committee and executive vice president of the Rabbinical Assembly, which represents the movement's 1,600 rabbis worldwide.

"There are those who are saying, don't change the halacha because the paradigm model of the heterosexual family has to be maintained," said Rabbi Meyers, a stance he said he shared. "On the other hand is a group within the movement who say, look, we will lose thoughtful younger people if we don't make this change, and the movement will look stodgy and behind the times."

Several members of the law committee said in interviews that while anything could happen at their meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday, there were more than enough votes to pass a legal opinion (a teshuvah in Hebrew) that would support opening the door to gay clergy members and same-sex unions. The law committee has 25 members, but only six votes are required to validate a legal opinion.

Committee members who oppose a change may try to argue that the decision is so momentous that it falls into a different category and requires many more than six votes to pass, even as many as 20, the members said. Other members may argue that no vote should be taken because the committee and the movement are too divided.

The committee may even adopt conflicting opinions, a move that some members say would simply acknowledge the diversity in Conservative Judaism. The committee's decisions are not binding on rabbis but do set direction for the movement.

"I don't think it is either feasible or desirable for a movement like ours to have one approach to Jewish law," said Rabbi Gordon Tucker of Temple Israel Center, in White Plains, a committee member who has collaborated with three others on a legal opinion advocating lifting the prohibition on homosexuality.

Even if the five Conservative rabbinical schools — in New York, Los Angeles, Jerusalem, Buenos Aires and Budapest — adopted different approaches, Rabbi Tucker said, "I don't think that would necessarily do violence to the movement."

The Conservative movement was long the dominant one in American Judaism, but from 1990 to 2000 its share of the nation's Jews shrank to 33 percent from 43 percent, according to the National Jewish Population Survey. In that same period, the Reform movement's share jumped to 39 percent, from 35, making it the largest, while Orthodox grew to 21 percent, from 16 percent. Estimates are difficult, but there are five to six million Jews in the United States.

Jonathan D. Sarna, a professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University and author of "American Judaism: A History," said, "In the 1950's when Americans believed everybody should be in the middle, the Conservative movement was deeply in sync with a culture that privileged the center. What happens as American society divides on a liberal-conservative axis is that the middle is a very difficult place to be."

Rabbi Meyers, vice president of the Rabbinical Assembly, said he worried that any decision on homosexuality could cause Conservative Jews to migrate to either Reform, which accepts homosexuality, or Orthodoxy, which condemns it. But Dr. Sarna said some studies suggested that many Jews who were more traditional began abandoning the Conservative movement more than 20 years ago, when it began ordaining women.

Few congregants are as preoccupied about homosexuality as are their leaders, said Rabbi Burton L. Visotzky, a professor of Talmud and interreligious studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary, who spends weekends at synagogues around the country as a visiting scholar.

"There are so many laws in the Torah about sexual behavior that we choose to ignore, so when we zero in on this one, I have to wonder what's really behind it," Rabbi Visotzky said.

The ban on homosexuality is based on Leviticus 18:22, which says, "Do not lie with a male as one lies with a woman; it is an abomination," and a similar verse in Leviticus 20:13.

The law committee now has four legal opinions on the table. Although the reasoning in each is different and complex, two opinions essentially oppose any change to the current law disapproving of homosexuality, and one advocates overturning the law.

A fourth, authored by Rabbi Elliot N. Dorff, rector and a professor of philosophy at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, argues that the passages in Leviticus refer only to a prohibition on anal sex and that homosexual relationships, rabbis and marriage ceremonies are permissible.

"What we're really trying to do is to maintain the authority of halacha, but also enable gays and lesbians to have a love life sanctioned by Jewish law and guided by Jewish law," said Rabbi Dorff, vice chairman of the law committee.

A change in the ban on homosexuality has been staunchly opposed by the longtime chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, Rabbi Ismar Schorsch. But Rabbi Schorsch is retiring in June after 20 years, and his successor could greatly affect the policy. Rabbi Schorsch declined to be interviewed for this article. Several Conservative officials said that while Rabbi Schorsch is not a member of the law committee, he is very involved in its deliberations on this issue.

If the law committee does not vote to change the prohibition, some rabbis said, the issue could resurface at the Rabbinical Assembly's convention March 19-23 in Mexico City.

Many students at the seminary say they find the gay ban offensive and would welcome a change, said Daniel Klein, a rabbinical student who helps lead Keshet, a gay rights group on campus. "It's part of the tradition to change, so we're entirely within tradition," he said. Mr. Klein said that even if the law committee did not lift the ban this week, change would come eventually.

"Imagine what will happen 10 years from now when some of my colleagues are on the law committee, when people from my generation are on the law committee," he said. "It's not going to be a close vote."


http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/06/national...agewanted=print

[ABLAT Staff]

Thursday, March 9, 2006



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CALIFORNIA SCHEMIN'
'Mom,' 'dad' to be axed from school textbooks?
Zelda's revenge: Gender-neutralizing bill
could also jeopardize prom kings, queens

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Posted: March 9, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern




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© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
A traditional-values organization in California is warning the state's residents that a bill pending in the Legislature, if approved, could remove all references to gender in public schools – threatening even references to "mom" or "dad" in textbooks.

If the bill, SB 1437, were to become law, warns the Capitol Resource Institute, "it could potentially require gender-neutral bathrooms in our schools and all references to 'husband' and 'wife' or 'mom and dad' removed from school textbooks as the norm."





Sponsored by Democratic Sen. Sheila Kuehl – a lesbian actress best known for playing Zelda in "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis" in the '60s – the legislation would add "gender" (actual or perceived) and "sexual orientation" to the law that prohibits California public schools from having textbooks, teaching materials, instruction or "school-sponsored activities" that reflect adversely upon people based on characteristics like race, creed and handicap.


Sen. Sheila Kuehl

States Capitol Resource Institute on its website: "The reason this is such an outrageous bill is because it is the most extreme effort thus far to transform our public schools into institutions that disregard all notions of the traditional family unit. SB 1437 seeks to eliminate all 'stereotypes' of the traditional family so that young children are brainwashed into believing that families with moms and dads are irrelevant.

"The social experiment pro-homosexual activists have envisioned for our young children is mind-boggling!"

The organization notes the bill also applies to school activities, which include cheerleadering, sports and events like the prom.

"Under SB 1437, school districts would likely be prohibited from having a 'prom king and queen' because that would show bias based on gender and sexual orientation," said CRI. The measure also could affect issues like gender-specific sports teams.

Earlier this week, about 500 homosexual students gathered at the State Capitol in Sacramento to celebrate "Queer Youth Advocacy Day."

According to the Sacramento Bee, demonstrators voiced support for Kuehl's bill and AB 606, authored by Democrat Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, which addresses harassment and discrimination in schools.

"I refuse to settle for anything less than respect and equality in education," 16-year-old Garrett Rubin stated at the event. "I shouldn't have to be working so hard to get an education like everybody else."

The Bee reported participants also spoke out against AB 2311, authored by GOP Assemblyman Dennis Mountjoy, a bill that would prohibit the "promotion of homosexuality in public education."


The young protesters chanted: "Hey hey, ho ho, homophobia's got to go."

Traditional values group Campaign for Children and Families decried AB 606, which has passed the Assembly and likely will be approved in the state Senate.

"AB 606 would give inappropriate, draconian power to the California State Superintendent of Public Instruction to unilaterally withhold state funds from California school districts that don't promote transsexuality, bisexuality, and homosexuality according to his arbitrary 'standards,'" stated an e-mail from the group. "This horrible bill essentially mandates the trans-bi-homosexual agenda in curriculum, textbooks, presentations and more. And because two-thirds of a school districts' funds come from the state, AB 606 would interrupt and destroy the academic learning of millions of California schoolchildren if schools 'don't comply.'"

Campaign for Children and Families is urging Californians to urge Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to veto the bill should it reach his desk.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/printer-...RTICLE_ID=49171

[ABLAT Staff]

Families Sue to Opt Their Kids Out of School-Mandated Pro-Homosexual Seminar

A federal judge has prohibited students from opting out of mandatory pro-homosexual diversity training in one Kentucky school system. District Judge David Bunning says students in Boyd County Schools have no religious or free-speech right to opt out of a yearly seminar aimed at preventing anti-homosexual harassment.

The diversity training for staff members and middle school and high school students is the result of a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of a Gay-Straight Alliance Club that is now permitted to meet on campus. Kevin Theriot with the Alliance Defense Fund is representing three families that have filed a lawsuit challenging the mandatory diversity training.

Although Judge Bunning's ruling is distressing, Theriot says, he notes that his clients have won half of the concessions they sought through the lawsuit. "They had a policy before we filed the lawsuit that said that a student couldn't tell another student that homosexual behavior is wrong," he explains. "After we filed the lawsuit, they changed the policy."

The attorney says that policy that initially barred students from telling classmates that homosexuality is morally wrong "actually was part of the training that was given to students in the Boyd County Schools-mandated seminar."

Also, Theriot maintains, school officials "were trying to convince students that homosexual behavior is something that can't be controlled, and that it's something you're born with, and it's just like having a handicap," or "just like being born of a different race." Of course, the ADF-affiliated lawyer adds, these notions are "completely contrary to the religious beliefs of our clients."

The required pro-homosexual diversity training ends next year, but for now, the federal court ruling in place gives Boyd County Schools staff, middle school and high school students disagreeing with its content no option to sit out. Theriot is currently considering whether to appeal Judge Bunning's decision to the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/2/282006e.asp

[ABLAT Staff]

Do you know what your children are reading?

Parents across the nation are taking action against both school districts and libraries that feature books, some of them required reading, that include sexual issues and obscenity many believe are inappropriate for school children.

In Overland Park, Kan., parents have organized to protest the inclusion of obscene books on children's assigned reading lists in the Blue Valley School District. The parents took action after a few of them researched the books kids were being asked to read.

"My son is a 14-year-old freshman boy, and the book had references to oral sex and homosexuality. … I thought it was a mistake!" Janet Harmon, one of the Blue Valley parents, told activist group Concerned Women for America.

The Kansas parents eventually started a website, Classkc.org, designed to inform parents about the contents of their children's reading material and about how to get involved to make changes.

The site includes pages with explicit examples of narrative bestiality and oral sex, citing the school board-approved books from which the excerpts come.

Says Classkc.org: "The state should not have open season on when, where and how to indoctrinate and form children's sexual attitudes, but rather … the parents should have the primary role in values education and overall worldview, particularly in the area of sexual values, for their own children."

The site lists books on the high-school reading list along with their level of reading score as determined by the Lexile grade-level system.

Books assigned to 11th and 12th grade Blue Valley students, such as "Song of Solomon" (not the biblical book) and "Beloved," are given fifth and sixth grade levels of difficulty by the Lexile system.

"The books, therefore, are not only vulgar but provide little intellectual challenge for high-school students," Concerned Women for America points out.

"Beloved," by Toni Morrison, was assigned to 12th-graders but has a sixth-grade reading level.

"'Beloved' contains oral sex, incest, rape, pedophilia, graphic sex, extreme violence, sexual abuse, physical/emotional abuse, infanticide, and an extensive amount of profanity," states the classkc.org website. "The first two chapters contain five references to sex with cows in addition to other types of sex."

The Kansas parents wonder why classics such as Charles Dickens' "David Copperfield" and Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" don't top the reading list.

Elsewhere, parents have battled public libraries, which are increasingly stocking so-called young-adult novels that include vulgarity and overt sexuality.

Said a Texas homeschooling grandmother who contacted WND: "The 'Young Adult Novel' is a growing genre in 'literature.' The problem is, the books are foul and vile, filled with sexuality, homosexuality, terrible profanity and various other kinds of perversity. And the American Library Association works hard at keeping them available to our children. Any attempt to remove any of these books is labeled censorship by the ALA. They fight tooth and nail."

A website sponsored by Parents Against Bad Books in School includes an extensive list of typical young-adult novels along with obscene excerpts from each one.

Stated PABBIS in a recent statement about the American Library Association: "The un-American ALA has taken the American constitutional right of freedom of speech and has perverted it into their right to push graphic and explicit smut on children. ALA and ALA affiliate brown boot bullies are constantly working to implement their weird social Marxist agenda. What started, purportedly, as a professional union-like organization for librarians has morphed into a powerful, dangerous, leftist, extremist organization."

"The ALA believes 'anything goes at any age' and that there is no difference between children and adults," continued PABBIS. "ALA and ALA affiliates decide what books your children should read. They push smut in both public and school libraries. They decide what is read in English class. Their vision of what is best for your child doesn't include traditional classic literature. Smut-filled, 'culturally diverse,' easy-reading books are being pushed instead."

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article....RTICLE_ID=49264

[ABLAT Staff]

Tuesday, April 11, 2006



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Google hosts 'boy love' site
Family counselor presses Web giant to dump it

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Posted: April 11, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern




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© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com



A marriage and family therapist is trying to convince Google to drop a website from its popular, free blog host that promotes "boy love," sexual relationships between men and adolescents.

Stacy L. Harp of Orange, Calif., told WorldNetDaily one of the readers of her weblog pointed out the site, called "Paiderastia: The Boy Love Revival."


At the top of its homepage, the site explains it's all about "erotic/mentor/spiritual love between adolescents and adults."

Harp said, however, that not long after she exposed it yesterday morning, the "Paiderastia" site removed its most recent posts, including one dated April 9.

Also removed, according to Harp, was a podcast – a file with a radio-style report – that mocked the FBI. It was created through the podcast provider Liberated Syndication.

The site now begins with a Feb. 15 post that outlines the "Boylove Code of Ethics," which includes this rule: "Intimacy with a boy should never develop into a sexual relationship without the boy fully consenting and understanding the social, legal, and health implications of the relationship."

Harp, who also has a company called Active Christian Media, said that as "somebody who has recovered from child sexual abuse and has been working for four years as a therapist" she got "ticked off" when she saw the "boy love" website.

Harp spoke with a secretary at Google's headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., but was told she must go to the company's help-desk page online and fill out a complaint.

Harp had done that before with another complaint – when homosexual activists slandered her online – and got no response.

Google's Mountain View, Calif., office has not responded to WND's request for comment.

U.S. officials hunting child predators have considered websites like "Paiderastia" low priority because they are not explicit. But Harp fears such sites could lure children.

"It plays into the normalization of it," she said. "The more you have it out there the more it's available for children to see. Children are easily influenced."

As WND reported in 2003, Amazon.com sold subscriptions to the North American Man/Boy Love Association's official magazine, a periodical entered as evidence in a lawsuit involving the murder of a 10-year-old boy. The online book-seller later dropped the magazine.

The publication figured prominently in a $200-million federal lawsuit alleging NAMBLA incites members to "rape male children" and "serves as a conduit for an underground network of pedophiles in the U.S." The group was defended by the American Civil Liberties Union.

In 1999, in response to an organized protest, the company dropped a book published by NAMBLA called "Varieties of Man/Boy Love." However, it continues to sell a similar title, "Understanding Loved Boys and Boylovers," by David L. Riegel, a retiree who operates a chat forum for pedophiles.


Amazon.com sells "boy lovers" book.

Amazon has stated it does not endorse "Understanding Boys and Boylovers," but insists "people have the right to choose their own reading material."

The bookseller says, "Our goal is to support freedom of expression and to provide customers with the broadest selection possible so they can find, discover, and buy any title they might be seeking."

Nevertheless, Amazon decided to drop a book called "Varieties of Man/Boy Love," pointing out it had an image on the cover that bordered on "kiddie porn." The bookseller argued further that Riegel's book, in contrast, is not a "how to."

The previous month, a WorldNetDaily inquiry into Wal-Mart's sale of NAMBLA's "Varieties of Man/Boy Love," on its website prompted the retail giant to drop the title and others of a similar nature. WalMart.com spokeswoman Cynthia Lin said the book slipped through the company's screening process, noting it sells more than 500,000 books.

As WorldNetDaily reported in 2002, Riegel's book says men who become involved in sexual relationships with boys "are sincere, concerned, loving human beings who simply have – and were probably born with – a sexual orientation that is neither understood nor accepted by most others."

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/printer-frie...RTICLE_ID=49680

[ABLAT Staff]

Tuesday, May 16, 2006



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Gay 'rights' – who is harassing whom?

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Posted: May 16, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern



By David Limbaugh



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© 2006 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

I suppose it's a matter of one's perspective, but it sure seems to me that if there is any special-interest group aggressively pushing its agenda on society, it's the radical homosexual lobby. I don't assert this as some earth-shattering revelation or to prove my superior powers of observation. But it is amazing how many people have swallowed the homosexual activists' propaganda that it is heterosexual conservatives who are picking on them rather than the other way around.

A month or so ago, I wrote a column about the incredible story of a librarian at Ohio State University at Mansfield who was met with a sexual harassment claim from three professors for suggesting that a number of conservative books be included on a recommended reading list for incoming freshmen. Since then, in my routine daily scanning of the news, I have come across stories almost every other day – without particularly looking for them – involving controversy over homosexual-related issues. Could this be an accident?


From April 27 through May 11, I ran across the following headlines: "Anti-Homosexual Bullying 'Endemic' in Schools, Study Says," "Parents' Suit Challenges Gay-Themed Book," "Christian Students Considering Lawsuit Over Suspensions," "California's 'Gay History' Bill Advances," "Gays Fight Citizens in Court," "Gay Ice Skaters Settle Hand-holding Harassment Case" and "Supreme Court Lets Lesbian Partner Be 'De Facto Parent.'"

The first story reports that 64 percent of homosexual students "reported feeling unsafe at school because of their sexual orientation," according to the fourth biennial National School Climate Survey conducted by GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network). Activists are reportedly lobbying state and federal legislators to pass laws forbidding "harassment" based on sexual orientation or gender expression. If indeed these statistics are accurate, why won't ordinary school policies against harassment apply? Some believe the survey, which is apparently based on subjective impressions, is a tool for homosexual activists to normalize their lifestyle and suppress the expression of those who disagree.

The next story reports that two Lexington, Mass., couples have filed a federal lawsuit against school officials because elementary school teachers were giving out and reading storybooks with gay themes without advance notification to parents. Where are the zealots who always demand a pristine wall of separation between church and state? Are the schools not endorsing values driven by a particular worldview? This story illustrates the significance of the ruling of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court that laws forbidding same-sex marriage are unconstitutional. Opponents say the ruling has emboldened Massachusetts gay-rights advocates to push their agenda in schools and has chilled the rights of those with an opposing viewpoint.

The next item involves a group of 13 high-school students in Roseville, Calif., who threatened to sue the school district for suspending them when they refused to remove shirts containing the message "Homosexuality is sin. Jesus can set you free." The students were counter-protesting GLSEN's "Day of Silence" project, which calls attention to anti-gay harassment. Whether or not you think the message is harsh, should its expression not be protected like all other speech?

The next story is nothing short of amazing. It reports that a committee of the California Senate has approved a bill requiring "gay history" to be included in public-school textbooks. One provision of the bill would require all social studies textbooks to "study the role and contributions of ... people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender ... with particular emphasis on portraying the role of these groups in contemporary society."

The next item tells of a judicial challenge by Massachusetts homosexual-rights activists to a proposed constitutional amendment to end same-sex "marriage." According to GLAD (Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders) the state constitution doesn't permit citizen-initiated amendments to reverse judicial rulings. Now that's a novel approach: A judicially created provision of the constitution is stronger than its original provisions and its legally adopted amendments. How could anyone present this argument with a straight face?

The next story reports that a company sued by a pair of gay skaters who claimed they were harassed for holding hands "has agreed to hold monthly gay-straight skate nights, to sign an anti-discrimination pledge and to contribute $5,000 to two gay groups." The company will also post placards saying it is promoting diversity and will require its workers to undergo sensitivity training.

In the final story, we learn that the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to review a ruling of the Washington Supreme Court granting parental rights to a lesbian in a child custody suit. The U.S. Supreme Court probably declined, justifiably, because these issues are usually matters of state law. But as we can see, the relentless march goes on – and not just in the state of California.

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=50227

[ABLAT Staff]

Thursday, May 11, 2006



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BRAVE NEW SCHOOLS
Bill barring 'mom,' 'dad' from texts passes
California Senate approves, state Assembly expected to OK

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Posted: May 11, 2006
3:49 p.m. Eastern




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© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
The California state Senate today passed a bill that removes sex-specific terms such as "mom" and "dad" from textbooks and requires students to learn about the contributions homosexuals have made to society.

The bill, approved 22-15, would prevent textbooks, teaching materials, instruction and "school-sponsored activities" from reflecting adversely on anyone based on sexual orientation or actual or perceived gender.

A companion bill has yet to go through the legislative process in the state Assembly, but observers believe it likely will pass. It's unclear whether or not Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger would sign the measure if it reaches his desk.

Responding to an argument of the bill's defenders, Randy Thomasson, president of Campaign for Children and Families, charged it isn't "about 'safety' or 'discrimination,' it's about leading children into sexual confusion and destroying their respect for the natural family."

Another opponent, Karen England of the Capitol Resource Institute, says the legislation "seeks to indoctrinate innocent children caught in the tug-of-war between traditional families and the outrageous homosexual agenda."

"The state Senate is so far out of touch with California families that it is beyond alarming," said England. "The traditional family is under attack and this is a latest – and most outrageous – attempt to corrupt the minds of our children."

England said school districts also would likely have to do away with dress codes and "accommodate transsexuals on girl-specific or boy- specific sports teams."




Sponsored by Democratic Sen. Sheila Kuehl – a lesbian actress best known for playing Zelda in "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis" in the 1960s – the legislation would add "gender" (actual or perceived) and "sexual orientation" to the law that prohibits California public schools from having textbooks, teaching materials, instruction or "school-sponsored activities" that reflect adversely upon people based on characteristics like race, creed and handicap.


Sen. Sheila Kuehl

"We've been working since 1995 to try to improve the climate in schools for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender kids, as well as those kids who are just thought to be gay, because there is an enormous amount of harassment and discrimination at stake," Kuehl explained. "Teaching materials mostly contain negative or adverse views of us, and that's when they mention us at all."

"In textbooks, it's as if there's no gay people in California at all, so forget about it," she added.

http://www.wnd.com/news/printer-friendly.a...RTICLE_ID=50162

[Theps]

Court: J'lem discriminated against gays



Capital's district court says city municipality guilty of 'discriminatory criteria for granting budget,' says 'gay community is part of city's embroidery'
Neta Sela



The Jerusalem Open House for Pride and Tolerance has once again defeated the Jerusalem Municipality: The capital's District Court instructed the municipality to transfer a fund of NIS 375,000 to the organization, which represents the gay community in the city.


The ruling comes after a petition submitted by the organization over discrimination. The Open House will also receive NIS 25,000 to cover legal costs.



The petition was submitted following the refusal of the Jerusalem Municipality to allocate funds out of its culture budget for the organization, for years. In the last three years, payments were stopped to the Open House altogether.



Judge Yehudit Tzur ruled that the criteria set by the municipality are discriminatory.



"The way the municipality conducted itself in relation to the Open House's request creates reasonable suspicion for discrimination,"


Judge Tzur wrote.



"Even if clerks in the municipality have a hard time accepting the gay community, and believe this is an unwanted phenomenon, the municipality cannot swerve from fundamental principles and ignore this community. It must treat this community with equality, out of recognition of the supreme value of equality, and out of respect for the values of tolerance and pluralism, which exist in the heart of democratic society," the judge wrote in the ruling.



(05.29.06, 11:01)

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3256306,00.html

[ABLAT Staff]

Liberal Clergy's Opposition to Marriage Amendment No Surprise, Say Conservatives

Clergy opposed to a constitutional ban on same-sex "marriage" say religious conservatives who support the proposed federal marriage amendment are bigots. But those conservatives don't appear to be overly concerned about the left-leaning clergy's lobbying efforts to derail the proposed constitutional amendment.

Several dozen Christian and Jewish leaders held a news conference on Capitol Hill, where they are lobbying senators to reject the amendment when it comes up for a vote about two weeks from now. Involved in that coalition were United Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Lutherans, United Church of Christ, Reformed Jews, and others.

The proposed amendment that protects marriage as defined in the Bible, as the union of a man and a woman, is supported by Roman Catholic bishops and the Southern Baptist Convention. But Rev. Paul Simmons, a Baptist minister and University of Louisville professor, said the amendment "has the smell and feel of Salem," comparing its supporters to the colonial Puritans who burned witches.

Simmons says he and many other clergy oppose a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. "There is a broad and profound opposition to the proposed amendment among religious people," he noted. "The thunder of the Religious Right should be resisted as misguided and prejudicial."

And Rev. Kenneth Samuel, a United Church of Christ pastor and NAACP chapter president in Georgia, said black pastors who oppose homosexual marriage have turned their backs on civil rights. "A lot of what goes on is also tied on to the faith-based initiative money," Pastor Samuel said, "and I am sorry to say that many of our African-American clergy have been bought out."

Gary Bauer of the Campaign for Working Families is not concerned about the coalition of religious leaders who are lobbying against the marriage amendment. "I believe they're way out of step with church-going Americans who, every study shows, overwhelmingly support keeping marriage as the union of one man and one woman," he says. Every state that has considered a marriage amendment to its constitution has seen decisive majorities of voters -- as high as 70 and 80 percent -- approve the measure.

And Rob Schenck of the National Clergy Council says he is not surprised to see these groups and other liberal denominations speaking out against defining marriage as it is taught in the Bible. "This is completely predictable for this bunch," says Schenck. "Every time anyone anywhere asserts traditional moral values or traditional biblical positions on anything -- and most especially marriage and human sexuality -- you can predict that this same group will parade out and oppose it."

Schenck says these groups are not only on the wrong side of Christian doctrine and the wrong side of what he calls "the moral divide," but also on the wrong side of history. He believes that is why such groups are losing members. "While it's lamentable, while it's predictable, in the end it only makes them even more irrelevant than they are," he states.

Meanwhile, the president of The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty says churches and Christian schools that oppose same-sex marriage will face government pressure if it is legalized. Anthony Picarello says they could be barred from firing employees with same-sex spouses, forced to give them marital benefits, or lose charitable and property tax exemptions if they refuse.

Picarello and other legal experts took part in a recent panel discussion at the Heritage Foundation. Maggie Gallagher, a columnist who heads the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, offered grim predictions about people and churches who oppose same-sex unions, should they be legalized.

"Once a court goes to rule gay marriage is a civil right, people who have an older, conjugal vision of marriage as inherently the union of husband and wife are going to be treated like racists in the public square," she offered.

And as for churches that believe homosexual marriage is immoral? "The temptation will be ... to simply mute your marriage theology," said Gallagher, opining that many people will find it hard to resist that temptation. "If you are just quieter about it ... as long as you're not too loud about this and keep your nose clean, you'll stay out of trouble."

She believes recent events have shown why a federal marriage amendment is needed. "Leaving it to the states right now is leaving it to state judges, not to the people in states," she noted. "We've already had judges in two states overturn state marriage amendments that were passed by more than 70 percent of the people."

In essence, said Gallagher, unless the U.S. Constitution is amended to protect traditional marriage, judges will probably force states to legalize homosexual marriage.



http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/5/232006a.asp

[ABLAT Staff]

Evangelicals need to be "converted" to see bible supports homosexual partnerships, says bishop

One of the country's most senior bishops has reignited the Church of England row over homosexuality by claiming that same-sex partnerships are supported by the Bible.

The Rt Rev Richard Harries, the Bishop of Oxford, said that traditionalists in the Church needed to be "converted" to see that homosexual unions are confirmed by the scriptures.

He reaffirmed his controversial belief that an openly gay man should be allowed to be appointed a bishop.

His remarks have angered traditionalists and are set to rekindle the debate on homosexual "marriages" that has left the Church's House of Bishops deeply divided following the introduction of the Civil Partnerships Act last year.

Bishop Harries said that the Church of England faced a split if the liberal and conservative factions did not come to an agreement on how to be more inclusive towards homosexuals. In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Bishop Harries, who retires this week, expressed his regret that Canon Jeffrey John, now Dean of St Albans, had been forced to withdraw as Bishop of Reading after it emerged that he was in a long-term homosexual -relationship.

His decision to promote Canon John to bishop caused an outcry in 2003. But last night Bishop Harries stood by his action.

"I'd still like him to become a bishop," he said. "He has all the gifts to be a bishop, but there is still a process of discernment going on. For there to be change, evangelicals have to be convinced that a permanent, faithful same-sex partnership is congruous with biblical truth."

America became the first province of the worldwide Anglican Communion to promote an openly gay man to bishop, when Canon Gene Robinson was elected in New Hampshire in 2003, plunging the worldwide Church into a crisis that still engulfs it.

Bishop Harries said: "It's difficult to have gay partnerships fully accepted by the Church, a Church in which evangelicals are a valued part, if they are so strongly opposed to it. There has to be a conversion to a new way to see that gay partnerships are not contrary to biblical truth. They are congruous with the deepest biblical truths, about faithfulness and stability."

The House of Bishops last year issued pastoral advice on the Civil Partnerships Act, allowing clergy to enter into relationships on the condition that they assured their bishop that they would abstain from sex.

However, the Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, has denounced the guidelines as "unbiblical" and unworkable. The bishop, who is a potential successor to Bishop Harries, said the policy had undermined Church teaching and unity.

Gay clergy have already defied the bishops' statement by saying that they will not give assurances that they will be celibate. A number have registered their partnerships and had the relationship blessed in Church despite guidelines recommending that they not be offered formal services.

Reform, an influential evangelical group that represents more than 1,000 parishes, has written to bishops urging them to reconsider the guidelines.

Its chairman, the Rev David Banting, expressed dismay at Bishop Harries's comments, arguing that the bishop was wrong to want them to be "converted" to his position.

"He thinks that he has the weight of culture and the weight of the majority of the Church in the West behind him, which convinces him that he's right," said Mr Banting.

"Same-sex partnerships are not congruous with the Bible," he said, adding: "Sexual relations outside of heterosexual marriage are not blessed by God.

"We need to be pastorally supportive of those who struggle in this area, but we shouldn't be trying to change the teaching of the Church. No amount of calling black white will make black white."

As the House of Bishops prepares to discuss the Anglican homosexual crisis at its meeting next week, liberals in the Church will be encouraged by the comments from so respected a figure.

The Rev Dr Giles Fraser, the chairman of Inclusive Church, a liberal group, said: "His comments will be received with joy by the majority of ordinary churchgoers. It is absolutely clear that the Church needs to have a more welcoming and loving attitude to gays."

Bishop Harries, who was made a life peer last week, said that the Jeffrey John affair had made people think about the issue in way that they never had before.

"I knew that it would be divisive within the diocese of Oxford, but I thought that that could be contained within two years. I hadn't realised the effect on the Anglican Communion and the pressure put on the archbishop as a result of that."

Dr John, 53, is still in a relationship with another cleric, the Rev Grant Holmes, which he says is celibate. Dr John is the author of the controversial book Permanent, Faithful, Stable, which argues for overturning the Church's ban on the ordination of practising homosexual clergy.



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml...8/nchurch28.xml

[ABLAT Staff]

Gov't Agrees to Mandatory Homosexual Curriculum with No Opt-Out for Students or Parents

By Terry Vanderheyden and John-Henry Westen

VANCOUVER, June 1, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A homosexual teacher and his same-sex partner who launched a human rights complaint with the British Columbia government have settled with the Government of British Columbia. According to the homosexual activist who launched a human rights suit, homosexual issues will soon be a mandatory part of school curricula taught in classrooms throughout the province, without the ability of students or parents to opt out.

BC's Ministry of Education and Ministry of the Attorney-General agreed to review the province's curricula to ensure that the issue of homosexuality is included in all so-called 'social justice' discussions - such as those involving racial inequality and women's rights. The decision was the result of a settlement reached with Murray and Peter Corren, who launched their formal human rights complaint in 1999, which alleged "systemic sexual discrimination" in the classroom.

However, a key element in the Corren complaint was the attempt to ensure that the courses teaching positively about homosexuality are mandatory, and that neither students nor parents are able to opt-out. Speaking at the time of the launch of the human rights action, last July, the activists' legal council, Tim Timberg, said, "The second issue is there's an opting-out provision in the curriculum that where a subject is deemed to be sensitive, the school teachers are under an obligation to in advance advise parents that they'll be raising a sensitive issue in the classroom."

Coquitlam teacher Murray Corren told the Vancouver Sun today that the settlement will also make it more difficult for students and parents to opt out of lessons dealing with sexual orientation.

Attorney-General Wally Oppal said Wednesday that the province was indeed shaping a new 'social justice' course that will incorporate the homosexual issues. "I think it's a fair settlement," he claimed. "We listened to their [the Correns'] complaints and we decided there was some merit in what they were suggesting." Oppal added that he hoped British Columbians were a "mature enough society" to accept "that there is an understanding that there is a place for this in our curriculum."

A press release from the BC Government notes that in addition to revamping the provinces educational curriculum to ensure it "reflects inclusion" for the homosexual lifestyle, the province is commencing immediately to offer an elective grade 12 course on "justice and equality" which will address "sexual orientation.

Corinna Filion, spokesman for the Ministry of Education told LifeSiteNews.com that the agreement included provisions to bar some parents and students who had been opting for home education or other arrangements on topics of sexuality. While the province will still allow parents and students those alternative options when it comes to sex education (health and career courses), students will be forced to remain in classes dealing with sexual orientation outside of sexual education in spite of any objections students or their parents my have.

"For example in social studies if they are reading a book about same sex families . . . the policy (of allowing for alternative arrangements) would not apply," explained Filion.

A copy of the agreement was not available to reporters by press time.

http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/jun/06060101.html

[ABLAT Staff]

Insemination rights for lesbians
From correspondents in Copenhagen

June 02, 2006

DENMARK'S parliament on Friday passed a controversial law allowing lesbian couples and single women the right to free artificial insemination at public hospitals.

Most members of Denmark's centre-right government opposed the bill, which was proposed by the opposition, but several members of the governing Liberal party defied Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, ensuring its passage.

Mr Rasmussen, who voted against the proposal, supported a competing watered-down version that would have legalised artificial insemination for lesbians and singles at private clinics but made patients responsible for picking up the costs.

"As Prime Minister I have supported the Government's proposal and am therefore disappointed that our bill was not passed," Rasmussen told Danish media.

"But it was important to reach a decision. The issue has been discussed for many years and we wouldn't have gained anything from delaying a vote."

Gay and lesbian groups hailed the outcome of the vote and said adoption rights, still denied same-sex couples in Denmark, were next on their political agenda.

"It is a great victory," Mikael Boe Larsen, chairman of the Danish National Association for Gays and Lesbians said.

"After nine years of struggle people are almost euphoric, people are crying, and especially the lesbians are extremely happy since it is a governmental approval of their family form," he said.

Members of the Conservative junior coalition party and the government's political ally, the anti-immigrant Danish People's Party, deplored the outcome, saying every child has the right to a father.

In 1989, Denmark passed a law allowing homosexuals to enter a registered partnership, giving them the same housing, pension and immigration rights as married, heterosexual couples. The country has about 3,000 registered same-sex couples.

http://couriermail.news.com.au/story/0%2C2....html?from=rss#

[ABLAT Staff]

The TimesMay 17, 2006


Gays flee as religious militias sentence them all to death
From Daniel McGrory in Baghdad



THE death threat was delivered to Karazan's father early in the morning by a
masked man wearing a police uniform.
The scribbled note was brief. Karazan had to die because he was gay. In the
new Baghdad, his sexuality warranted execution by the religious militias.


The father was told that if he did not hand his son over, other family
members would be killed.
What scares the city's residents is how the fanatics' list of enemies is
growing. It includes girls who refuse to cover their hair, boys who wear
theirs too long, booksellers, liberal professors and prostitutes. Three
shops known to sell alcohol were bombed yesterday in the Karrada shopping
district.
In this atmosphere of intolerance and intimidation, the militias have made
no secret of their hatred of homosexuals.
The man who threatened Karazan said that he was a member of the Taib (Wolf)
Brigade, a commando group reportedly infiltrated by the armed wing of the
hardline Shia party the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Its
orders come from fundamentalist clerics.
With his skin-tight clothes and long blonde hair, Karazan, a 23-year-old
arts student, stood out in the Shia neighbourhood of al-Dura. He told The
Times: "A number of my gay friends have been murdered, so I took this
warning seriously." The family fled this month to a suburb north of the city
centre.
Karazan cut his hair short and dyed it black, but he is still too frightened
to venture out. His partner is in the Iraqi Army. With little money and no
valid passport, he does not know how he can flee abroad.
Ali Hili, who ran a gay nightclub in Baghdad but fled to Britain this year
after receiving death threats, says that he knows of more than 40 men
murdered in recent months. "Badr militants used chatrooms to lure them to a
rendezvous and then kill them," he said.
He described a co-ordinated attack on one couple: 38-year-old Karim survived
a hand- grenade attack on his home in al-Jameha, but his partner, Ali, was
shot dead when he tried to flee his house near by.
Haydar Faiek, 40, a transsexual, was beaten and burnt to death last
September in Karrada's main street. Ammar, 27, was abducted and shot in the
head in January.
Meanwhile, a 34-year-old theatre actor, who would only give his name as
Bashar, has gone into hiding after a death threat. Two close members of his
family have been murdered by militants, who say they will carry on killing
his relatives until he turns himself in.
The Interior Ministry says that it is investigating a claim by gay activists
that a 14-year-old male prostitute was killed in al-Dura last month by men
in police uniforms. The gunmen told the boy's father that he was executed
for "corrupting the community".
A ministry spokesman said that the Government did not condone vigilante
groups. However, Nouri al-Malaki, the Prime Minister-designate, has conceded
that the Iraqi security forces have been infiltrated by militia extremists.
Mr Hili claims that Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most revered
spiritual figure in Iraq, provoked the murders by saying on his website in
April last year that homosexuals should be killed in the "worst, most severe
way".




http://www.wnd.com/redir/r.asp?http://www....2183948,00.html

[ABLAT Staff]

Posted by David Virtue on 2006/6/14 22:40:00 (4911 reads)
"An Impossible Moment"

By Hans Zeiger and Auburn Traycik
www.VirtueOnline.org

COLUMBUS, OH, 6/14/06--The breadth of the chasm over homosexuality in the U.S. Episcopal Church (ECUSA) was on full display here Wednesday evening, at a General Convention legislative committee hearing that filled a 1,500-seat hotel ballroom and overflowed into the hall outside.

During a two-and-a-half hour meeting that heard comments from nearly 70 bishops, deputies and others - including the Archbishop of York, a guest at the convention - it became painfully clear how difficult it will be for the convention to find agreement on legislation that could determine whether ECUSA remains part of the "official" Anglican fold.

"I think we've reached an impossible moment in holding it together," said Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan, Moderator of the conservative Anglican Communion Network. Duncan cited Dr. N.T. Wright, the Church of England's Bishop of Durham, who called on ECUSA in an essay published Wednesday to repent or face the alienation of the Anglican Communion. Wright was a member of the panel that produced the 2004 Windsor Report, which recommended steps for ECUSA to take help repair damage to Anglican relationships caused by its 2003 approval of actively gay bishop V. Gene Robinson and same-sex blessings.

Robinson himself told the hearing, "It seems to me that this debate is about one thing: do we recognize the mark of Christ and the Creator in the faces of the people of this communion?...Do we see Christ and are we courageous enough to acknowledge Christ in the lives and relationships of our gay and lesbian neighbors?...

"Our homosexual agenda is Jesus Christ. By the living Christ who has acted in my life I am convinced that I am not an abomination in the eyes of God...Let us say our prayers and stand up for right."

AT SPECIFIC ISSUE in the hearing held by the Special Committee on the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion were four proposed resolutions that will form key parts of ECUSA's response to the global church, and particularly to the 2004 Windsor Report; it called (among other things) for ECUSA to make a certain statement of regret for its 2003 actions and implement moratoria on the consecration or public blessing of same-sex unions. The resolutions under consideration were:

*A160, which would have the convention express its "deep regret for the pain that others have experienced" over the 2003 General Convention decision to approve Robinson's consecration and same-sex blessings, and offer "repentance for having breached bonds of affection" in the Communion "by any failure to consult adequately with our Anglican partners before taking these actions";

*A161, which urges the exercise of "very considerable caution" in electing and consecrating bishops "whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church";

*A162, which would eschew the authorization of public rites of blessing for same-sex unions but maintain "a breadth of private responses to situations of individual pastoral care" for homosexuals in the church; and

*A163, which backs the House of Bishops' DEPO (Delegated Episcopal pastoral Oversight) plan for use "when necessary" for those unable "to receive appropriate pastoral care" from their own bishops.

The opening prayer of the hearing was led by committee member Rev. Sandye Wilson. In repudiation of the Augustinian separation between the City of God and the City of Man, Wilson petitioned for a church "affirming the beauty of diversity...denying the separation between secular and sacred, the world and church."

Among "witnesses" was the Rev. Susan Russell, president of the Episcopal gay group Integrity. She asked the committee "to remember in their deliberations that [the Windsor Report] was created without consultation with, contribution by or participation in by a single openly gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender person -- and that the 30-year promise to listen to the witness of gay and lesbian persons continues to go unfulfilled. There is much to regret in our Anglican family -- and the continued silencing of gay and lesbian voices in the wider communion dialogue must be on the list...Let us reject the implication that we are at a 'Deal or No Deal' moment in the Anglican Communion." tonight.

Many in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion viewed the actions of the 2003 convention as arbitrary and preemptive. But the Rev. Peter Cook of Louisiana compared ECUSA's pre-emptive actions to those of the U.S. in its invasion of Iraq, which the church has condemned.

Perhaps the most forcible and symbolic words of the night came from the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, the second-ranking Archbishop in Anglicanism.

He said, "It is a broken friendship which needs to be healed. Will it actually be sufficient to repair our friendships? I am doubtful."

The Archbishop explained that the Anglican way of Scripture, Tradition, and Reason must form the foundation for friendship. But, asked the Archbishop, "Do our friendships meet that particular norm?" Furthermore, "Do these resolutions show us the Christ who bears the marks of crucifixion?"

"Truth and unity are not separable," concluded the Archbishop. "Windsor wanted space to be created, and I am not sure your resolutions will create space for our communion to be together."

Meanwhile, another voice from England cheered on efforts of liberals in ECUSA. The Rev. Colin Coward, a homosexual activist in the Church of England, told the Special Committee, "ECUSA has worked diligently at the listening process and the rest of the communion has done almost nothing." Coward labeled the global Lambeth Convention of 1998, which declared homosexuality incompatible with the Bible, "dysfunctional."

Conservative witnesses echoed the Archbishop of York. "Where is the clarity; where is the honesty? For some reason [the retired Special Commission that drafted the resolutions didn't] take the language of the Windsor report seriously enough to include it in these resolutions," said Canon Dr. Kendall Harmon, a deputy from South Carolina. ECUSA had been asked to implement moratoria on gay bishops, but the "language we get" calls for "very considerable caution'...This is a marriage that is in danger, and it is a marriage headed for divorce."

"Repentance" was a word bandied by both sides at the hearings Wednesday night. Judy Mayer, a deputy from Fort. Worth, opposed Resolution A162.

"I do think recognizing regret is the first step in the state of repentance," Mayer said. "Genuine repentance starts with regret and doesn't end there."

Repentance was urged on the other side by Ernesto Medina of Los Angeles, a member of the Standing Committee on Liturgy and Music, who affirmed those who join "in the spirit of Holy Scripture that says no one is unacceptable who accepts God...We do however repent of the institutional prejudice perpetrated against" a variety of minority groups. Medina concluded, "We are called to speak now lest anyone else suffers while we remain silent."

While moderates supported the resolutions for their compromise in affirming homosexuality while expressing regret for the 2003 General Convention actions, liberals suggested that regret was in order for "our complacency as a church" over slavery and racism, as one speaker put it, and for oppression of homosexuals, as several others indicated.

Left-wing clergy and laymen took to the floor to proclaim the need for public and pastoral recognition of homosexual unions. One priest said, "These blessings are not officially authorized, however they are not private or hidden or veiled." A homosexual wedding ceremony, he added, is "not just a pastoral act but an evangelical act and a beautiful act."

"I urge the Committee to resolve a fuller compliance with the Windsor requests of The Episcopal Church. The Lambeth Commission on Communion was asked to address a very specific question: how to repair a "tear in the fabric of the Anglican Communion" - a tear that had already occurred," said John W. Howe, Bishop of Central Florida. "The Commission was composed of persons with viewpoints that spanned the Anglican theological spectrum, and yet it was unanimous in the recommendations it produced. In effect it said, "This is what must happen if what has been broken is to be repaired." Neither the Commission, nor the Primates, who endorsed its Report, invited The Episcopal Church to propose a lesser alternative," he said.

"I never dreamed that I would find myself [contending with this issue] again," said the Rt. Rev. William Skilton, Assisting Bishop of South Carolina. In 2003, Skilton warned that "the damage would be irreparable." Today, he says, "The church is damaged, hurt in this country and beyond...What I plead for is that this church affirm completely the Windsor Report, so that this church can come together and find a way. At this rate," he concluded, "we can't do it."

END
http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules...hp?storyid=4231

[ABLAT Staff]

Thursday, August 4, 2005



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BRAVE NEW SCHOOLS
Father faces trial over school's 'pro-gay' book
Arrested after objecting to kindergartner's reading material

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Posted: August 4, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern




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© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com


David Parker, parent of kindergartner, stands before Judge Robert McKenna in Concord District Court April 28 after spending the night in jail (Photo: Article 8 Alliance)
A Massachusetts man faces a court trial over a dispute about the teaching of homosexuality in his son's kindergarten class.

David Parker, of Lexington, spent a night in jail and was charged with criminal trespassing after refusing to leave a scheduled meeting with school officials April 27, unless they gave him the option of pulling his child out of certain classes.

Parker says the officials had indicated they would agree to a notification policy then suddenly refused. He insists he has done nothing wrong and is willing to contest the charge rather than plea-bargain.

At a hearing Tuesday, Parker's trial date was set for Sept. 21.

The Lexington School Board contends Parker deliberately set out to be arrested and make national headlines.

Parker's attorney, Jeffrey Denner, rejected that claim as supporters picketed outside the courthouse.


David Parker's son brought home the book 'Who's in a Family?' in school's 'Diversity Book Bag' (Image: Article 8 Alliance)

"That is simply untrue. I don't speak for the school, but that is simply untrue," he said. "He was invited to come in, he came in, there was a dialogue going back and forth, there were faxes sent back and forth, from the school to the school committee. His intent was absolutely not to be arrested. His intent was to establish a dialogue to protect his own children and other children as well."

The dispute began last spring when Parker's then-5-year-old son brought home a book to be shared with his parents titled, "Who's in a Family?" The optional reading material, which came in a "Diversity Book Bag," depicted at least two households led by homosexual partners.


"There's a larger issue here locally and nationally and internationally about the role of family and what kind of encroachments government can make into children's and people's lives," Denner told reporters.

The illustrated book, according to the local non-profit group Article 8 Alliance, says, "A family can be made up in many different ways" and includes this text:


"Laura and Kyle live with their two moms, Joyce and Emily, and a poodle named Daisy. It takes all four of them to give Daisy her bath."
Another illustrated page says:


"Robin's family is made up of her dad, Clifford, her dad's partner, Henry, and Robin's cat, Sassy. Clifford and Henry take turns making dinner for their family."
Article 8, an opponent of the state's same-sex marriage law, says the book "uses subtle but powerful emotions to normalize homosexual relationships in the minds of the young children."

A backer of the Lexington School District, Laura Tully, argued, according to WCVB-TV in Boston, "A 5-year-old who is coming to the classroom with two moms deserves to be in a classroom that includes books that show his family."

Denner said he is negotiating with school officials to prevent the trial, but he also indicated that Parker likely will file a civil suit in federal court by this fall against the town of Lexington, the school system and its officials.


http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=45594

[ABLAT Staff]

The Washington Times
www.washingtontimes.com

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Presbyterian Church lets locals decide on gay clergy
By Richard N. Ostling
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published June 21, 2006

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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- A Presbyterian Church (USA) national assembly voted yesterday to let local bodies that wish to have homosexuals serve as clergy and lay officers do so, despite a denominational ban on homosexual ministers.
A measure approved 298-221 by a Presbyterian national assembly keeps in place a 1997 church law that says clergy and lay elders and deacons must limit sexual relations to marriage.
But the new legislation says local congregations and regional presbyteries can exercise some flexibility when choosing clergy and lay officers of local congregations if sexual orientation or other issues arise.
The decision concluded a hard-fought struggle lasting years between liberals and conservatives in the 2.3-million-member denomination. Ten conservative caucuses allied to fight any change but lost two last-ditch efforts to kill or delay the measure.
Thirteen evangelical caucuses issued a joint statement that the assembly's actions "throw our denomination into crisis." They said this "marks a profound deviation from biblical requirements, and we cannot accept, support, or tolerate it. We will take the steps necessary to be faithful to God," the groups said.
The Presbyterian establishment, including all seminary presidents and many officials, promoted the local autonomy plan, which was devised by a special task force. The idea is to grant modest change to liberals but mollify conservatives by keeping the sexual law on the books.
It's not clear whether that will work.
"We have been painfully aware that in some ways our greatest challenge was not preparing for this assembly but preparing for what happens after this assembly," the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, chief executive at denominational headquarters, told delegates after the votes.
The Rev. Blair Monie of Dallas, who chaired the committee dealing with the issue, said, "This is not an 'anything goes' proposal. In fact, it will make the examination of officers more rigorous."
But a series of conservative delegates disputed that.
"When the constitution is set aside and something mandatory is reduced to something optional, it destroys the constitution," said Robert Gagnon, a New Testament professor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and author of a book opposing homosexual relationships.
Mr. Gagnon said the denomination had reached "a transition point" that broke from Jesus' teaching on man-woman monogamy.
Pro-homosexual youth delegate Jamie Moon of Oregon said she found the assembly debate disheartening. She said she became Presbyterian because "Jesus Christ was love. Jesus Christ was acceptance. He said come to me and be my disciple.
"He wants us to love everybody. Raise your hand if you're not a sinner," she told the assembly.
In 1997, the Presbyterian Church (USA) passed a measure that said ministers must practice fidelity if married and chastity if single, which was supposed to exclude active homosexuals from the ministry. But the measure divided the church and several congregations have defied it, usually resulting in formal complaints to regional bodies that sometimes lead to discipline.
For example, Raymond Bagnuolo was ordained in November at South Presbyterian Church in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., and is serving as pastor of the Palisades Presbyterian Church. But when Mr. Bagnuolo, an open homosexual, was asked during his ordination ceremony whether he would abide by church laws, he said yes, except for the fidelity and chastity measure.

http://www.washtimes.com/functions/print.p...21-124248-4549r

[ABLAT Staff]

Rabbis Sit With Sheikhs to Deplore Gay Parade in Jerusalem
14:01 Jun 21, '06 / 25 Sivan 5766
by Hillel Fendel


Stopping the Gay Pride Parade: Rabbis and Sheikhs held a joint press conference, and Jerusalem City Councilwoman Mina Fenton gathered hundreds of signatures at the World Zionist Congress session.


Fenton, of the National Religious Party faction, has also gathered the signatures of 25city council members on a petition opposing the holding of the week-long World Pride events in Jerusalem. Six councilmen, members of the Shinui and Meretz parties, did not sign.

The Gay Pride event actually includes a "Youth Day" at the Knesset. The World Pride internet site bills it as "Bringing Order to the Knesset: National and International Summit Meeting for Youth." To be held on Monday, Aug. 7, its promotional literature states,
"Youth on the map! After this day, it will be impossible to ignore us. Everyone will understand and remember for a long, long time that the proud [Hebrew gaieh] youth has what to be proud of... Ages 15-25 - boys, girls, lesbians, homos, trans, bi, those who are hesitating, and friends, come to take part in this exciting youth day, a joint production of the Open House and the Israeli Gay Youth Organization, which will be held in the Knesset... Two-way transportation from all over the country... We will meet lots of pals from all over Israel and the world, and we'll sit together to work out important subject that are very relevant to our daily lives as students, soldiers... youth with ideals and values. After lunch, we will meet with elected representatives of all stripes, and we will present them with our 'I Believe' about the life of gaieh youth in Israel. And at the end of the day: 'Good Jerusalem Children' -- the greatest youth party in Israel..."

Rabbi Yehuda Levin, of the Brooklyn-based Jews for Morality organization, is now in Israel for the express purpose of trying to stop the parade from happening. He led a press conference on Monday, together with Israeli-Arab MK Sheikh Tzartzur, Rabbi Menachem Fruman and others, calling for a "hudna" [ceasefire] in the current Israeli-PA conflict in order to fight a common battle for traditional values.

Though several international news agencies showed up, Rabbi Levin expressed great disappointment that Al-Jazeera and others were not among them. "It's important for us to get this message out to the Moslem world," he said, "for several reasons. Their enthusiastic cooperation in this matter can be very helpful in convincing the police that there is a security risk involved in allowing the parade to be held." Rabbis from Italy, Russia and Venezuela also participated, as did Sheikhs Tamimi and Hamed Bitawi by phone.

Rabbi Fruman - a resident of the Yesha community of Tekoa - later explained to Arutz-7 that allowing the parade in Jerusalem would increase Moslem hatred for the "Jewish infidels who allow the Holy Land to be polluted in this manner. I have long felt that the conflict between us is a religious one... A prominent Sheikh just spoke last week very strongly against homosexuals - the Al-Alwatim, they call them, in the name of the Biblical Lot, even though Lot actually tried to prevent a homosexual attack... I feel very strongly that having the parade could increase the risk of Arab attacks against Israel - possibly on the day of the parade itself, and possibly afterwards."

City Council members say that their signatures against the Pride March "are merely to create public pressure" but have no concrete value. Councilwoman Fenton told Arutz-7, "We, as a city, have no authority to cancel the march. The only ones who can do it are the Supreme Court and the police. If the police feel that the parade is too big of a security risk, they can call it off."

City Councilman Yair Gabbai, also of the NRP faction, agrees: "We can make decisions, but the Supreme Court in the past has nullified them on the grounds of freedom of speech."

Less than a month ago, District Court Judge Yehudit Tzur ruled that the city had set discriminatory standards in its cultural funding practices, and ordered it to pay the Open House for Pride and Tolerance - a homosexual center - 350,000 shekels in back payments. The ruling was viewed as providing impetus for the gay pride event scheduled for this summer.

Shifra Hoffman, head of the Victims of Arab Terror organization, is another activist who opposes the parade, "To flaunt something as obscene as this in our Holy City is something we cannot afford in our relationship with G-d," she said this week. "What we hope to do is to put pressure on rabbis and leaders - even though they should be pressuring us. We have to threaten to lie in the streets if this parade happens. It has to be clear that thousands of people will bodily block this march."

A grassroots group of women (click here for article) who are active in trying to cancel the parade/march notes that its correct email address for information and showing solidarity is now
"yes2familyvalues@gmail.com".

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=105747

[ABLAT Staff]

COLUMBUS, OH: Gay Eucharist attracts 1,000+

By Hans Zeiger
VirtueOnline Correspondent
www.virtueonline.org

COLUMBUS, OHIO (6/16/06)-Over 1,000 homosexual and pro-homosexual clergy, bishops, and laymen of the Episcopal Church celebrated Eucharist Friday evening at Trinity Episcopal Church, just blocks from the site of the 75th Episcopal General Convention.

"This is a small taste of what heaven must be like," said the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Bishop of New Hampshire, as he began his sermon to the prolonged cheers of the adoring congregation. Then Robinson was brought to tears as he thanked his homosexual partner Mark, three years after the Episcopal Convention at which Robinson's election as bishop was affirmed.

Sponsored by the homosexual pressure group Integrity, the gay-themed Eucharist stretched on for about two hours and 20 pages in the Eucharist program. The service began with a prelude on the church's massive pipe organ and concluded with a resounding rendition of "Amazing Grace" by the congregation. Around 600 communicants took places in the pews, while hundreds more sat in folding chairs, packed into the balconies, and flowed into the basement, the foyer, and out the doors.

Bishop Robinson said that he was primarily addressing the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender members of the Episcopal Church who were gathered there, adding, "I do invite those of you who are, shall we say, 'homosexually challenged,' to listen it."

Robinson described his talk as part "pep rally," exhorting his audience to increase their efforts toward homosexual inclusion in the Episcopal Church. Robinson clearly countered the international Anglican Communion's Windsor Report, which calls the Episcopal Church to repent of its hasty homosexual advances three years ago, declaring, "No matter how much is being asked of us by this convention, God asks of us even more."

"The Spirit of God is that part of God which refuses to be contained...God won't just stay put, and God won't let you and me stay put, content to believe the things we've always believed," said Robinson. "Remember how we used to think of ourselves, that we believed the church when we were told we were abominations."

"And then," said Robinson-his audience rapt in the Gothic church, a shiny-baldheaded priest with earring seated beside a skinny goateed man, an elderly hippie couple here, a rather austere looking man in clerical collar there, a row of women with colorful clothing and activist buttons, all heeding the call-"the Spirit of God went through us like wind...and we were saved, quite literally born again."

Robinson read a passage from a book that he said was the "secret that makes Gene Robinson tick," John Fortunato's Embracing the Exile (Harper, 1982). Fortunato described in the passage his coming-out experience, and his satisfaction with being gay. "What the hell are you asking me to do?" Fortunato asked God in his book.

Robinson called on homosexuals to have "compassion for our enemies...We do have enemies," and to "understand their fear that causes them to reject us."

The strongest rejection of homosexuality in the Anglican Communion has come from provinces outside of the Episcopal Church. Only a minority of Anglican provinces have supported the Episcopal Church's drift toward homosexuality. Present at the service was the most powerful Anglican official on the continent of South America, The Most Rev. Orlando Santos de Oliviera, primate of the Episcopal Church of Brazil.

At least two candidates for presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church also attended: the Rt. Rev. Stacy Sauls, Bishop of Lexington, and the Rt. Rev. Edwin "Ted" Gulick, Bishop of Kentucky. The presiding bishop election will be held at the convention on Sunday. Other diocesan bishops who joined in the Eucharist included the Rt. Rev. Michael Curry, Bishop of North Carolina; the Rt. Rev. Ken Price of Southern Ohio; and Robinson of New Hampshire.

Bishop Robinson was presented with the Louie Crew Award by Rev. Russell on behalf of Integrity for his notable accomplishment as the first gay bishop.

Virtue Online spoke with Dr. Crew after the Homosexual Eucharist on Friday evening. Louie Crew founded Integrity in 1974 as a caucus for "full inclusion of LGBT persons in the Episcopal Church and our equal access to its rites." Asked how the movement he founded had become so successful, Crew replied, "I only listen to the Holy Spirit. It's much bigger than I am, and I knew that right at the beginning."

Crew suggested that inclusion is not the issue in the Episcopal Church today, and that the new frontier of the gay ministry is to expand its own movement within the church. "It's never been a movement to get into the church. It's already done that. It's a movement to bring others to it."

In essence, homosexuals are now using their place in the Episcopal Church as a witness in order to convert others to homosexuality. Including bisexuals means they are next.

The program for the Friday evening service included a Scripture passage from Acts 11:1-18: "What God has made clean, you must not call profane," and a Gospel reading from Luke 12:1-12: "Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees, that is, their hypocrisy."

The Rev. Michael Hopkins, a former president of Integrity, led the congregation in the "Prayers of the People:"

"We give thanks for all the blessings of this life, [silence] especially for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons you have called to witness openly to the fullness of their creation in your image. We give thanks for those who have found grace to live together in loving and faithful partnership, awaiting in hope the day when their unions will be recognized on earth as they are before you. May we each become ever more thankful for the gifts you have given us."

The service became a fundraiser for Integrity when current president Rev. Susan Russell announced a freewill offering before the sharing of the Sacrament. "Empty all of your wallets and purses, and we'll have ushers standing outside telling you where the nearest ATMs are," Russell joked.

And there was plenty of cash for the homosexual church lobby by the time the plates had passed through. Declining though the Episcopal Church may be in attendance and outreach, its homosexual lobby is expanding rapidly.

It is a new day in the Episcopal Church, according to Crew. The homosexual movement, he said, is "going to work this out by wiring the circuits." Citing an example from the Gospel, Crew paraphrased the words of Christ as they relate to the homosexual cause: "I'm talking about being given a new spirit."

And indeed a very different spirit was on show at Trinity Episcopal Church on Friday than the one recognizable to the founders of that church nearly 190 years ago.

Trinity Episcopal Church was founded in 1817 by the Rev. Philander Chase, a frontier missionary and Ohio's first Episcopal bishop. Chase founded two religious colleges, served as presiding bishop over the Episcopal Church of the United States, and was the first Protestant to preach in the city of New Orleans.

Old Philander Chase was born during the American Revolution. His was the classical Anglican faith of the Founding Fathers.

In a Good Friday Sermon about Isaiah 53 that Philander Chase preached as a young man, he criticized those who disregarded the truth of the Bible in his day. "If the mere assertions, (of people, who talk much but read little, and think still less,) are to be the grounds of our exploding truths, and of giving up our belief in matters of the highest importance, which have been examined and credited by the wisest of men, Where shall we end?"

Bishop Chase, if he were to return to his old Trinity Church for Eucharist this evening, would find there the answer to his question. For there the Episcopal Church may have had its end.

http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules...hp?storyid=4264

[ABLAT Staff]

Will it become illegal to teach children precepts laid down in the Bible?

Would anyone ever have imagined that one day it would become illegal in Britain to teach children to follow precepts laid down in the Bible?

Or that a priest, a rabbi or an imam might fall foul of the law by refusing to bless a sexual union between same-sex couples?

Yet that appears to be precisely what may happen as a result of new regulations soon to be introduced by the Government - and all under the rubric, would you believe, of producing a more tolerant and free society.

The Government has just finished consulting on new draft regulations under the Equality Act that would make it illegal to refuse to provide goods or services to anyone on the grounds of sexual orientation. The ostensible aim of these provisions is to end discrimination against gays, lesbians and bisexuals. No one should support irrational and bigoted prejudice against these or any other minorities.

But one of the unforeseen side-effects of anti-discrimination laws is the way they have turned our very understanding of prejudice and discrimination inside-out. Starting with the entirely laudable objective of eradicating discrimination against minorities, they have been transformed instead into a weapon promoting discrimination against both majority and minority religious faiths.

It should go without saying that gay people and other sexual minorities should be free to practise their sexuality without being picked on in any way. What they do in private should be of concern to no one else. But equally, others must be free to voice disapproval of their lifestyles, particularly where this is a key element of religious faith. For like it or not (and this is, of course, an issue which is currently tearing the Church of England apart) the belief that homosexual behaviour is wrong is a tenet that is fundamental to Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

The new regulations, however, would make it impossible for Christians, Jews and Muslims to continue to live according to this belief.

This is because, although religious faiths gained an exemption under the Equality Act itself, which otherwise would have threatened to outlaw the promotion of religion altogether, no such exemption has been granted over the issue of sexual orientation - which also covers sexual behaviour.

So church schools, for example, are protesting that they will no longer be permitted to teach in sex education or RE lessons that homosexuality is at odds with the teachings of the Bible. They might have to comply with parental demands that there should be lessons promoting gay issues - for example, by taking part in the recent 'Lesbian, Bi-sexual Gay and Transsexual History Month'.

Remember the epic battle over Clause 28, the law which forbade the promotion of homosexuality in schools and which was eventually repealed, in a notable triumph for the gay rights lobby? Well, these new regulations would be a Clause 28 in reverse. They would compel the promotion of homosexuality in schools - and forbid the promotion of Christian or other religious beliefs on the matter.

Lawyers say that the regulations would mean churches, mosques or synagogues would be breaking the law if they refused to hire out their halls for gay civil partnership ceremonies. Clergymen would be compelled to bless 'gay marriages' on pain of breaking the law. It might even become illegal for a priest to refuse to give communion to someone on the grounds that they were a practising gay or lesbian.

In other words, it would become an act of illegality to put into practice a cardinal tenet of religious faith, including the Christianity that is the established faith of this country and which underpins its values and lies at the very core of its identity.

We have therefore exchanged one deep intolerance for another. Behaviour that was once considered socially unacceptable and even illegal must now be promoted as an acceptable lifestyle choice, and anyone who disagrees is to fall foul of the law instead.

Yes, gays and other sexual minorities should have full equality before the law. But that means they should not be treated aggressively or unfairly by being singled out for different treatment in areas of life where they are playing the same part as everyone else.

But the equality argument breaks down when it insists that everyone is entitled to receive precisely the same treatment despite the fact that their lifestyles may be radically different. This is not equality, but what might be called 'identicality', or the enforcement of sameness even where circumstances are not the same at all.

Far from being fair, this is both fundamentally unfair and socially destructive. By insisting that sexual minorities are treated in an identical fashion to the majority, mainstream values are knocked off their perch.

That is why the antidiscrimination agenda is actually a weapon aimed squarely at the bedrock values of this society.

That is the problem with the gay rights programme. It does not preach tolerance for gays; instead, it stands for the destruction of the very notion that heterosexuality is the norm.

That is why 'gay marriage' or civil union represents such a threat to our society. Under the attractive guise of promoting equality, it actually represents an attempt to undermine the special status in our society of a permanent, faithful sexual union between a man and a woman.

And that is why David Cameron's reported views are so disappointing. In a speech this week, Mr Cameron - who once again wrapped himself in the mantle of family man yesterday and spoke of finding new ways to support family life - is expected to say he would give gay couples the same rights as heterosexuals, including the same tax perks for civil partnerships as there are for marriage.

Mr Cameron wants to convey the message that the Tories are no longer prejudiced against gay people. Nor should they be. But is supporting a policy that undermines family life the best way to go about this? Is he really saying that gay partnerships are the same in value as heterosexual marriage? Is he really saying that two gay men raising children is equivalent in value to a mother and father raising their own?

What would he say, for example, about the former chairman of the South Yorkshire Family Panel, who resigned because he was told he had to approve the same-sex adoption of children? He sought a compromise under which he would adjudicate only on cases of heterosexual adoption, but was refused.

He is now suing the Lord Chancellor's department, arguing that his right to act on his conscience and his religious beliefs have been infringed.

His case perfectly illustrates the grotesque situation we are now in, where under the guise of preventing discrimination, the state is actually enforcing discrimination against someone who merely wants to provide children with the healthiest environment in which to grow up.

The equality agenda is presented as ushering in a new era of tolerance and equality. But this is not so. Instead, it has elevated the rights of sexual minorities above the rights of religious believers.

This is because it is a specific attempt to secularise our society. Religious belief is thus relabelled as prejudice and duly outlawed.

But religious freedom and freedom of conscience are crucial to a liberal society. Once, religious wars took them away. Now they are being stamped out by secular law - and with them goes the bedrock of our liberty.

http://www.religionnewsblog.com/14999/A-la...ce-into-tyranny

[ABLAT Staff]

Sunday, June 25, 2006



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Arnold hammered for 'gay' fund-raiser
California governor slated to speak for 1st time to homosexual audience

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Posted: June 25, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern




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© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com


Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (Courtesy Sacramento Bee)

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is getting heat from pro-family activists for his plan to speak for the first time at a homosexual event, a Hollywood fund-raiser this week for the Log Cabin Republicans.

Though Schwarzenegger vetoed a same-sex marriage bill in September, he has otherwise signed every piece of pro-homosexual legislation to reach his desk.

The homosexual Log Cabin Republicans – which publicly parted company with President Bush after he supported a federal marriage-protection measure – have stood by Schwarzenegger, the Associated Press reported.


California-based Campaign for Children and Families yesterday blasted Schwarzenegger over his appearance at the event.

"No Republican governor in California history has promoted transsexuality, bisexuality and homosexuality like Arnold Schwarzenegger has," said the organization's president, Randy Thomasson, in a statement. "In the last three years, Schwarzenegger has delighted homosexual activists by signing most of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) bills that the Democrat-controlled Legislature has placed on his desk. This spring, Schwarzenegger signed an official proclamation celebrating the 'success of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Celebrations.'"

Continued Thomasson: "Now, in an unprecedented act honoring transsexual-bisexual-homosexual 'pride' (which is parading through cities nationwide this month), Schwarzenegger has done the unthinkable: He's agreed to be the top fund-raising speaker for homosexual activists."

Though AP reported the Thursday event costs $250 a plate, Campaign for Children and Families says attendees can get their photo taken with the governor for a $5,000 contribution.

Thomasson asserts the Log Cabin Republicans want to "transform the California Republican Party into the party that supports homosexual 'marriage' and the entire transsexual, bisexual and homosexual legislative agenda."

Last month, Schwarzenegger broke a policy of not commenting on pending bills, indicating through a spokesman he will veto SB 1437, a measure passed by the Senate and pending in the Assembly that would remove "sex-specific" terms such as "mom" and "dad" from textbooks and would require students to learn about the contributions homosexuals have made to society.

SB 1437 passed the Senate May 11 with a 22-15 vote.

"The governor believes that school curriculum should include all important historical figures, regardless of orientation," said Schwarzenegger's director of communications, Adam Mendelsohn, according to the Sacramento Bee. "However, he does not support the Legislature micromanaging curriculum."

Thomasson believes the veto threat was issued out of "fear of pro-family voters" just before this month's primary election. Schwarzenegger faces voters in November's general election.

Meanwhile, a GOP governor on the other side of the country, Gov. Robert Ehrlich of Maryland, has appointed an openly homosexual judge just a week after firing a transportation board member after he stated on a local cable TV show that "sexual deviancy" should not receive "a special place of entitlement."

Robert J. Smith, Ehrlich's appointee to the Washington, D.C.-area Metro transit authority board, was fired by the governor after a homosexual member of the board complained about the comment.

Erlich appointed 47-year-old Christopher Panos as a special master in the city Circuit Court family division to a fill a court vacancy, AP reported, adding that Panos and his "partner" are raising a daughter together.

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/printer-frie...RTICLE_ID=50782

[ABLAT Staff]

Virginia churches plan diocese exit
By Julia Duin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
June 29, 2006


Two of Northern Virginia's largest and most historic Episcopal churches -- Truro and the Falls Church -- informed Virginia Bishop Peter J. Lee yesterday that they plan to leave the diocese and that as many as two dozen other parishes may follow suit.
And the Rev. Martyn Minns, rector of Truro Church, was elected a bishop yesterday by the Anglican province of Nigeria with the mandate to oversee a cluster of U.S. parishes that minister to expatriate Nigerians.
Mr. Minns was driving north on Interstate 95 from Richmond when he got the news on his cell phone from Anglican Archbishop Peter J. Akinola. The archbishop then put him on a speaker phone to address a gathering of Anglicans in Abuja, the country's capital.
"I said I was honored by their willingness to place their trust in me," said Mr. Minns, 63, who earlier this year had announced plans to retire.
Instead he will oversee the Convocation for Anglicans in North America, which includes more than 20 Anglican churches that cater to Nigerian immigrants in the U.S. but could be enlarged to include Episcopal congregations fleeing the 2.2-million-member denomination.
"We have deliberately held back from this action," Archbishop Akinola said in a statement, in the hope that the Episcopal Church would turn back from its 2003 consecration of Canon V. Gene Robinson as the world's first openly homosexual bishop. But the actions of last week's Episcopal General Convention "make it clear that far from turning back, they are even more committed to pursuing their unbiblical revisionist agenda."
Diocese of Virginia officials were surprised by the news.
"The fact of Martyn's election raises a host of issues that will be addressed in due course," spokesman Patrick Getlein said.
Truro and the Falls Church have a combined $27 million in assets. Situated on some of Northern Virginia's most valuable real estate, both churches are having 40-day "discernment" periods of prayer, fasting and debate, starting in September and ending just before Thanksgiving, before announcing a final decision.
Officially, the 40-day period has "no predetermined outcome," said the Rev. John W. Yates, rector of the Falls Church, but it's clear that "the growing crisis and dysfunction in the Episcopal Church" is pushing the orthodox toward the exit doors.
"It's certainly a step no church -- especially one with a history we've had -- takes without the greatest humility," he said in an interview at the parish where George Washington once worshipped. "But so many Episcopalians in the pews are so irate over what's happened, and it's harder and harder to call on people to wait."
The Falls Church and Truro Church presented their plan in Fairfax on Saturday to a meeting of officials representing 20 to 30 Episcopal churches around Virginia. Thirteen to 14 churches already have agreed to have their own 40-day period, he said.

Rectors of two other large Northern Virginia parishes also told The Washington Times yesterday, on condition of anonymity, that they, too, may be leaving. One is involved in secret negotiations with the diocese over property issues; another says his vestry, or governing board, approved the 40-day idea Tuesday night, but his parish needs to vote on it Sunday.
Before he received the phone call from Nigeria, Mr. Minns met Bishop Lee early yesterday to inform him of the 40-day plan.
"He's still saddened by the whole development," Mr. Minns said. "But he understood what we're doing."
In two previous interviews with The Times, Bishop Lee has said he will sue any church that tries to leave the 90,000-member diocese, the country's largest. However, two mission congregations who left the diocese several months ago have not landed in court.
Episcopal canon law mandates that departing churches turn over all their assets to the diocese, and Mr. Yates is part of a six-person team of negotiators trying to figure out how conservatives can depart without bankrupting themselves or the diocese through lawsuits.
"We've been trying to find a way through this crisis peacefully and keep our property," he said. Although the negotiators -- who include three conservatives and three church liberals -- have come to trust each other, "it's been acknowledged that just as two churches have left the diocese, others may also leave."
Although the General Convention last week agreed on an indefinite moratorium on homosexual prelates, the Episcopal Diocese of Newark announced yesterday a homosexual man -- Canon Michael Barlowe, the development officer for the Diocese of California -- as being among the four candidates for its Sept. 23 election for a new bishop.
Also yesterday, the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh standing committee voted to join the Diocese of Fort Worth in rejecting the leadership of Presiding Bishop-elect Katharine Jefferts Schori. They will ask Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to provide them with a more conservative leader to oversee a new province that will be separate from the Episcopal Church.


http://www.washtimes.com/national/20060629-123142-1999r.htm

[ABLAT Staff]

Pentagon Revises Document Listing Homosexuality as Mental Disorder

Wednesday, June 28, 2006




WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is revising a document that calls homosexuality a mental disorder, officials said Wednesday.

Lawmakers, medical professionals and others had pressed for the change in a document outlining procedures for dealing with disabled service members.

"Homosexuality should not have been characterized as a mental disorder in an appendix of a procedural instruction," Lt. Col. Jeremy Martin, a Defense Department spokesman, said Wednesday. "A clarification will be issued over the next few days."

• Learn more in the Gay and Lesbian Issues Center.

"Notwithstanding its inclusion, we find no practical impact since that appendix simply listed factors that do not constitute a physical disability, and homosexuality of course does not," he said in a statement.

Called a Defense Department Instruction, the document outlines retirement or other discharge policies for service members with physical disabilities, and in a section on defects lists homosexuality alongside mental retardation and personality disorders.

The Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military, at the University of California at Santa Barbara, uncovered the document and pointed to it as further proof that the military deserves failing grades for its treatment of gays.

The Pentagon has a "don't ask, don't tell" policy that prohibits the military from inquiring about the sex lives of service members but requires discharges of those who openly acknowledge being gay. There were 726 military members discharged under the policy during the budget year that ended Sept. 30.

The document, was condemned by medical professionals, members of Congress and other experts, including the American Psychiatric Association, which said it declassified homosexuality as a disorder more than 30 years ago.

Members of Congress noted that other Pentagon regulations dealing with mental health do not include homosexuality on any list of psychological disorders. And in a letter to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld earlier this month, nine lawmakers asked for a full review of all documents and policies to ensure they reflect that standard.

http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_st...,201441,00.html

[ABLAT Staff]

Arkansas court backs gay foster parents
Judges rebuke state’s claim that homosexuals make bad parents
The Associated Press


Updated: 10:54 a.m. MT June 29, 2006
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Arkansas cannot ban homosexuals from becoming foster parents because there is no link between their sexual orientation and a child’s well-being, the state’s high court ruled Thursday.

The court agreed with a lower court judge that the state’s child welfare board had improperly tried to regulate public morality. The ban also violated the separation of powers doctrine, the justices said.

The board instituted the ban in 1999, saying children should be in traditional two-parent homes because they would be more likely to thrive.

Four residents sued, claiming discrimination and privacy violations against homosexuals who otherwise qualified as foster parents.

The justices agreed Thursday, saying the ban was “an attempt to legislate for the General Assembly with respect to public morality.”

“There is no correlation between the health, welfare and safety of foster children and the blanket exclusion of any individual who is a homosexual or who resides in a household with a homosexual,” Associate Justice Donald Corbin wrote in the opinion.

Court rebuke’s state agency
In addition, the court said, the testimony of a Child Welfare Agency Review Board member demonstrated that “the driving force between adoption of the regulations was not to promote the health, safety and welfare of foster children but rather based upon the board’s views of morality and its bias against homosexuals.”

The court also said that being raised by homosexuals doesn’t cause academic problems or gender identity problems, as the state had argued.

The ban had not been used since the lower court ruling in 2004, state Health and Human Services spokeswoman Julie Munsell said. She said the plaintiffs have not sought foster-parent status since then.

The department didn’t know if any homosexuals have applied, she said.

Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union represented the plaintiffs in the case. Rita Sklar, executive director of the ACLU in Arkansas, said she was pleased by Thursday’s decision.


URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13615947/


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© 2006 MSNBC.com

[ABLAT Staff]

Police weigh banning J'lem gay parade


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Etgar Lefkovits, THE JERUSALEM POST Jul. 2, 2006

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Jerusalem police are expected to decide this week
whether to allow a controversial international gay
pride parade to take place in the city this summer amidst growing international opposition to the event by an unusual coalition of religious Christians, Jews, and Muslims around the world.

The super-sensitive police decision, which will be
taken by Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter in
consultation with Jerusalem police chief Ilan Franco, comes after months of simmering tension over the planned August event, with concerns growing of a violent showdown between extremist opponents of the parade and its participants if it goes ahead as scheduled.

The planned week-long international gay festival,
which was originally scheduled to take place last year but was postponed until August due to last summer's concomitant Gaza pullout, has been widely criticized by a coterie of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religious leaders in Jerusalem and around the world as a deliberate provocation and affront to millions of believers around the world.

Supporters of the event counter that freedom of speech enables them to hold the event in Jerusalem, as a symbol of tolerance, pluralism, and love for all humanity.

In the latest move against the parade, Israeli and
American Rabbinical leaders, who have been cooperating closely with Muslim religious leaders on the issue, have written to the Pope, asking him to issue a public condemnation against the event, in the hopes of increasing Christian opposition to the move.

"We ask your Excellency to issue an emotional, strong, and unequivocal call against this horrible phenomenon, in the hope that the amalgamation of protests being voiced by religious leaders... will prevent the willful wrongdoers to damage and corrupt the ways of
humanity," Chief Rabbi Shlomo Moshe Amar wrote Pope Benedict XVI in a letter this week.

"If we have any chance of preventing this blasphemy, it is only if the leaders and practitioners of the other faiths speak loudly, unequivocally and often as to the absolutely outrageous provocation that this anti-God convention constitutes," New York Rabbi Yehuda Levin, of the Orthodox 'Rabbinical Alliance of
America' and the 'Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the US and Canada' wrote in a separate letter to the Pontiff.

Levin, who has been at the forefront of the public
campaign in Israel against the event for the past two and half years, said that he has discussed the
possibility of religious leaders announcing that they would lie down in the streets of Jerusalem as part of a non-violent protest to arouse worldwide opposition to the planned event.

"This is not the homo-land, this is the Holy Land," he said, decrying the planned "spiritual
rape of Jerusalem."

The American Rabbi said that he has accumulated the signatures of at least 40 Knesset Members - including both religious and secular parliamentarians - in a petition against the event.

The Knesset will take up the issue Tuesday during a special meeting of the Interior Committee devoted to the issue.

In a rare sign of interfaith cooperation, Israeli Arab parliamentarians have joined haredi and Christian leaders in issuing calls against the event, as have Islamic religious leaders, including the chief Palestinian Islamic cleric Taisser Tamimi.

The prerogative for issuing permits for such public events rests with police, who could ban the move due to concerns over public safety.

Both opponents and supporters of the event have
inundated police with letters and faxes on the issue, officials said.

Meanwhile, organizers of the event, who have the
support of scores of non-Orthodox Jewish religious
leaders, reiterated Sunday that they are determined to hold the international event in Jerusalem next month.

"The World pride event will take place in Jerusalem because we believe Jerusalem should be a center of tolerance, pluralism, and humanity. Unfortunately, there are those who prefer Jerusalem to be fanatical, dark, pursuing strife and hatred," said Noa Sattath, chairperson of Jerusalem's Gay and Lesbian Center which is hosting the event.

She ruled out any change of venue for the event, as some Knesset members have suggested as part of a compromise solution.

In a largely conservative city, with a strong
religious and traditional makeup, the idea of holding such an international parade in Jerusalem is seen by many city residents -- even outside of religious circles -- as out of touch with both the spiritual character of the city as well as the sensitivities of its observant residents.

A public opinion poll released last year found that three-quarters of Jerusalem residents were opposed to holding the international gay event in the city, while only a quarter supported it.

The last international gay parade, which took place in Rome in 2000 despite the wrath of the Vatican, attracted about half a million participants, while local organizers expect tens of thousands of revelers for the Jerusalem event this summer.

The six-day event is slated to include street parties, workshops, and a gay film festival.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid...Article/Printer

[ABLAT Staff]

Arab MK: No gays in Muslim society

Tumultuous meeting in Knesset committee. Gay community reps: We didn’t come to have sex in streets or run around in pink underwear. Opponents respond: We won't let you desecrate Jerusalem. Survey: 63 percent of secular, 100 percent of Orthodox oppose march
Ilan Marciano

It has been a long time since the Knesset Internal Affairs Committee meeting was as stormy as the one Tuesday morning, which discussed the upcoming World Pride Parade to be held in Jerusalem this summer.

A ripple of laughter went through the meeting when MK Ibrahim Sarsur (United Arab List-Ta’al) said, “I have never had to participate in such a discussion, because in Muslim society we don’t have this problem.”

MK Ibrahim Sarsur, left, and MK Yitzhak Levi (Photo: Dudi Vaknin)

Sarsur told participants, including members of the gay community, “I respect all those present here, despite significant disagreements. As Muslims, we are obligated to religious law and it (homosexuality) is an unacceptable and condemned phenomenon, which should not be given any opportunities. Every person has the right to do as he wishes as long as he does it in his own home.”

Dozens of invitees attended the Internal Affairs Committee meeting, which was initiated by Orthodox MKs, including senior staff at the Jerusalem municipality, an ambassador from the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada, representatives of the Jerusalem Open House, the Coptic and Greek Patriarchates, heads of various Jerusalem churches, students, senior staff of the Internal Security Ministry and the Vatican’s ambassador to Israel.

Stormy session

The heated debate started in the hallways, even before participants entered the meeting hall.

“Jerusalem is not yours. I will do anything I want in my house. We didn’t come to have sex in the streets or run around the streets of Jerusalem in pink underwear. We are having the march so people know we have equal rights,” a representative of the parade said. Opponents of the march hurled at him: “You won’t desecrate Jerusalem.”

MK Yitzhak Levy opened the discussion by presenting a public opinion poll he commissioned last week, which revealed the following data: Among secular Jews, 63 percent oppose the parade; 81 percent of conservative Jews are opposed, 99 percent of National Religious are opposed; 100 percent of Orthodox are opposed; and 92 percent of Arab Muslims and Christians are opposed.

According the MK Levy, “The residents’ stand on the issue is clear. Don’t harm Jerusalem, don’t seek a quarrel. I am addressing you in good nature: Know that this place doesn’t want you.”

‘The majority never needs to march’

MK Zahava Gal-On (Meretz) responded, “A dangerous religious coalition has been created here, that wants to forcefully prevent a group of people from using their rights to protest. This is the beginning of dangerous path, that ends in you asking to make them illegal.”

MK Shelly Yechimovich (Labor) said that the poll just proves the parade needs to take place in Jerusalem. “Majorities never need to hold protest marches, the Israeli elites don’t need to march in protest. But women, Arabs, Orthodox, and disadvantaged populations do need to march. This community’s struggle isn’t about sexual orientation. It is a political struggle for legitimization,” Yechimovich said.

Muslim representative in the Ministry of the Interior, Ahmed Qadan, warned that if the parade is held in the capital, “God will do as he did in Sodom. Have the march anywhere in the country, but I ask of you personally, leave Jerusalem alone.”

Chairman of the Jerusalem Open House, Noa Sattath, said, “We are Jerusalem residents just like anyone else. This is a week of events, not just a march. It is unwarranted hatred instead of love, and we are happy we united all religions. This discussion was meant to undercut our confidence – but it won’t succeed.”

In response to the Knesset discussion on the pride parade, the Israel Religious Action Center said that contrary to popular perceptions, many religious communities believe in all people’s right to equality and freedom of expression, and protection against discrimination due to their sexual orientation. The pride parade is an expression of tolerance of acceptance of the other, and that is the reason it is scary and frightening all those who preach hatred. Reform Judaism call law enforcement authorities to ensure the right of the gay and lesbian community and those who wish to join them in celebrating the event in Israel’s capital, and not allow violent provocations and threats that have no place in democratic society.”

http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLa...3271025,00.html