Today's Cultural Warfare Update
Jul. 18th, 2005 01:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solarbirdProtestant evangelical fundamentalist adoption agency: Catholics, even ones whose "Pro-Life" license plates help fund them, can fuck right off;
The father of "Zach," the 16-year-old blogger forced into an anti-gay re-education camp, speaks up on CBN, thus settling questions about whether Zach was real;
Moslem lesbian woman challenging radical imams in London;
Pope Benedict may be ready to ban celibate gay men from seminaries, despite previous church acceptance of the idea of homosexuality as immutable;
Focus on the Family newsbrief mocking the latest attempt at a California marriage-rights law - talks about Voter's Right to Protect Marriage Initiative, an attempt to amend the California constitution against marriage;
Today's Family News in Focus;
Concerned Women for America article supporting an anti-gay pastor is interesting mostly because it was written by a Christian Reconstructionist and regular at the Chalcedon Institute, founded by Rev. Rushdoony to promote Christian Reconstructionism;
LA Times article linked to by CWA - finding more reasons to object to a Gonzales nomination for Supreme Court;
CWA links to Greenville [South Carolina] News article - upstate South Carolina has become the destination state for the Christian Exodus movement;
Family Research Council sends out action alert (ACTION ITEM) against embryonic stem-cell research.
----- 1 -----
Adoption firm: No Catholics
Catholicism "does not agree" with statement of faith, agency says
By Jean Gordon
jmgordon@clarionledger.com
http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050715/NEWS01/507150380/1002
A local Christian adoption agency that receives funds from the sale of Mississippi's Choose Life specialty car tags will not consider Catholics as adoptive parents.
"It has been our understanding that Catholicism does not agree with our Statement of Faith," wrote Bethany Christian Services director Karen Stewart in a July 8 letter to Sandy and Robert Stedman, a Catholic couple in Jackson seeking to adopt. "Our practice to not accept applications from Catholics was an effort to be good stewards of an adoptive applicant's time, money and emotional energy."
A private adoption agency, Bethany Christian Services has locations in 75 U.S. cities, including Jackson, Hattiesburg and Columbus.
The agency is one of 24 adoption and pregnancy counseling centers in the state that receives money from the sale of Choose Life car tags, which advocate against abortion.
Motorists pay an additional fee for the specialized license plate.
[More at URL]
----- 2 -----
Memphis Group under Fire for Trying to Transform Gays
By David Brody
Capitol Hill Correspondent
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/news/050713a.asp
CBN.com – Can parents help children struggling with same-sex attractions turn away from the homosexual lifetsyle? One Memphis father says they can – and the city's gay community is none too happy about it.
Joe Stark did what he believed any responsible Christian parent would do. In late May, Joe’s 16-year-old son, Zach, told his parents he was gay. The Starks, devout Christians, enlisted the help of “Love in Action International,” a Memphis-based ministry that provides prevention and treatment for behaviors like homosexuality and drug addiction.
But little did the Starks know that their actions would create a firestorm among local homosexuals. In an exclusive interview with CBN News, Joe talked about his decision to enroll Zach in the “Love in Action” program, and the controversy that has followed.
“We felt very good about Zach coming here because… to let him see for himself the destructive lifestyle, what he has to face in the future, and to give him some options that society doesn't give him today,” Stark said. “Knowing that your son... statistics say that by the age of 30 he could either have AIDS or be dead.”
The Starks' story took on a life of its own when Zach began posting his thoughts on an Internet blog.
"My mother, father, and I had a very long 'talk'" he wrote, "…where they let me know I am to apply for a fundamentalist Christian program for gays… I’m a big screw up to them, who isn't on the path God wants me to be on. So I'm sitting here in tears."
“Zack has got a mind of his own, and that's a God-given gift,” Joe said. “And Zack will have to make those choices when he is an adult as to what exactly he is going to do with his life. But until he turns 18 and he's an adult in the state of Tennessee, I'm responsible for him. And I’m going to see to it that he has all options available to him.”
It wasn't long after Zach's blog appeared online that protestors began lining the streets outside “Love in Action.” They said that homosexuality is not a choice but something that comes naturally – and that Zach is being deceived by his parents and “Love in Action.”
[...]
“A lot of things that Zach spent a lot of his time doing were taken away,” Stark said. “And I can see why they do it now. It's because, if you're not doing those things, then what are you doing? Sometime or other, you have to communicate with your family. And that's a big thing that has happened in our family – Zach is communicating a lot more with us.”
But critics say “Love in Action” doesn't work for everyone. According to one former client, the program actually helped him to embrace his homosexuality. He calls the program "unrealistic."
“Rarely in life will you ever live that closed off from the world,” Brandon Tidwell, a former client of “Love in Action,” said. “It's very, I think, deceiving, or misleading, or creates a false hope for people, to help them to create change in that very isolated environment, and then move out into the real world and try to continue to…understand themselves in a whole different way.”
Smid points out that all of “Love in Action's” clients, including Tidwell, have grown closer to their parents as a result of the program. Many came away with a better understanding of Jesus Christ as well. As for Zach, the jury is still out. But his father remains steadfast that he made the right decision for his son.
“To me it's not what's right and what's left, it's what's right and what's wrong,” Joe said. “My wife and I will stand by that 'till the day we die, as far as homosexuality is not in God's plan – it's wrong."
[Full story at URL]
----- 3 -----
The lipstick lesbian daring to confront radical imams
The Sunday Times of London
July 17, 2005
Irshad Manji has already been dubbed ‘Osama’s worst nightmare’ for her criticisms of Islam. Now she wants Britain’s Muslims to stand more firmly on the side of freedom
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-1696968_1,00.html
No wonder Irshad Manji has received death threats since appearing on British television: she is a lipstick lesbian, a Muslim and scourge of Islamic leaders, whom she accuses of making excuses about the terror attacks on London. Oh, and she tells ordinary Muslims to “crawl out of their narcissistic shell”. Ouch.
Manji is a glamorous Canadian television presenter whose book, The Trouble with Islam, has made her so famous in America that she won something called the Oprah Winfrey Chutzpah award. Even at a conference in Oxford last week she felt unsafe — despite extra security — with police sifting through “disgusting e-mails” and threats after her appearance on Newsnight.
Doesn’t the violent Muslim minority show Islam is flawed? “I ask myself the same question,” she grimaces. Far from regarding Muslims as oppressed they have a “supremacy complex — and that’s dangerous”. This, she contends, is true even among moderates. “Literalists” who consider the Koran the “perfect manifesto of God” have taken over the mainstream; and far from misreading Islam, as Tony Blair and the Muslim Council of Britain insist, terrorists can find encouragement for murder in the Koran.
The underlying problem with Islam, observes Manji, is that far from spiritualising Arabia, it has been infected with the reactionary prejudices of the Middle East: “Colonialism is not the preserve of people with pink skin. What about Islamic imperialism? Eighty per cent of Muslims live outside the Arab world yet all Muslims must bow to Mecca.” Fresh thinking, she contends, is suppressed by ignorant imams; you can see why she has been dubbed “Osama’s worst nightmare ”.
“The good news,” she insists, “is it doesn’t have to be like this.” She wants a reformation in Islam, returning it to its clever, fun-loving roots. “The world’s first ‘feminist’ was an 11th-century Muslim man. Baghdad had one of the first universities in the 9th century; the Spanish ‘Ole!’ comes from ‘Allah’; Islam even gave us the guitar.”
But now it gives us the suicide bomber: why? She does not rule out alienation and all those Muslims-as-victims explanations, but thinks the Muslim Council of Britain is negligent for “not even acknowledging religion might also have played a role”. Richard Chartres, the Bishop of London, said terrorists could not be Muslims but Manji hits back: “The jury is out on what Islam is.”
[More at URL]
----- 4 -----
Is the Purge Imminent?
Andrew Sullivan
http://www.andrewsullivan.com/index.php?dish_inc=archives/2005_07_10_dish_archive.html#112153424371437438
IS THE PURGE IMMINENT? The usually reliable Catholic Reporter's John Allen reports that a long-awaited (and long-feared) document is now in Pope Benedict's hands. The document would put the Vatican's full authority behind banning all gay men from seminaries and the priesthood, regardless of their commitment to celibacy or faithfulness to Church teachings. Their very existence as involuntary homosexuals would make them ineligible for the priesthood. Money quote:
[T]he document will reject a solution that some seminaries, religious communities and bishops have tended to adopt in recent years - that it doesn't matter if a candidate is gay, as long as he's capable of remaining celibate. "I suspect some people, in good will, have gravitated to this idea," one bishop said. "But that's not what the church is saying, and this document will make that clear." To date, there's been no indication of what the pope intends to do.
Just ponder what this might mean. The Church concedes that gay people are involuntarily gay; the Church asks them to commit to a life without sex or physical or emotional intimacy; if they are priests, the conundrum is resolved anyway: celibacy is mandatory for gays and straights alike, and, so the very distinction becomes moot.
THE TURN TOWARD BIGOTRY: But now the policy could become something much, much different: even if gay priests live up to all their responsibilities, even if they embrace celibacy wholly, even if they faithfully serve the Church, they would still be deemed beneath being priests, serving God, or entering seminaries. Why? Because, in pope Benedict's own words, they are "objectively disordered," indelibly morally sick in some undefined way, and so unfit, regardless of their actions, to serve God or His people. It is no longer a matter of what they do or not do that qualifies or disqualifies them for the priesthood; it is who they are.
[More at URL]
----- 5 -----
Something 'Fishy' About California Gay Marriage Bill
Focus on the Family
Newsbriefs
July 15, 2005
[Received in email; no URL]
Using the "gut and amend" tactic, California Assemblyman
Mark Leno has managed to place language in support of gay
marriage into a fisheries research bill, The Christian
Post reported.
In 2000, voters passed Proposition 22 to ban gay marriage.
Leno argues Prop 22 only applies to marriages from other
states.
Karen England of Capitol Resource Institute said Leno's
attempt is nothing more than trickery.
"We are appalled that the majority of committee members
decided to ignore the will of the people they represent,"
England said. "Assemblyman Mark Leno has engaged in some
legislative maneuvering to keep the gay marriage bill
alive."
If approved, Leno's bill would change the states
definition of marriage from "a man and a woman" to "two
persons."
Conservatives have formed the Voter's Right to Protect
Marriage Initiative and intend to place a constitutional
ban on same-sex marriage on the next statewide ballot.
----- 6 -----
Family News in Focus
Focus on the Family
Monday, July 18, 2005
Terry Philips
http://www.oneplace.com/Ministries/Family_News_in_Focus/
* Is full-on media blitz swirling around White House insider Karl Rove feeding off of itself, or substance?
1. "Did he or didn't he evade the law?" "Circus coverage... an attempt by liberals to discredit the man described by the President as his campaign architect." American Values take Gary Bauer: "an overall strategy to discredit the Bush administration," not actually at all about Karl Rove or the law. "The corruption theme." "Unfortunately, they're using very minour things... in order to make this corruption case." "This is not a national security scandal... and the law... requires you to site an individual's name..." "The media will continue to cover them, whether they are true or not."
* Wisconsin Supreme Court rules hospital that allowed pre-mature baby to die, was legally obligated to provide care under Federal law
2. Shannon Preston delivered premature baby - "slightly under 24 weeks." Alliance Defense Fund fought the case; hospital refuses treatment in cases before 24 weeks. "The hospital basically killed baby Brendon with red tape." National Right to Life: "I think that the message is that you better treat - at least do the minimal standard of care... to determine how much help the baby can have."
* Government web site that helps parents communicate with their kids about sensitive issue of sexuality, is under fire from liberal Congressman
5. California's Henry Waxman says 4parents.gov (?) is inaccurate. National Physician's Center for Family Research (?!) built the site. Site is an abstinence-only site. Claims again that studies showing condom use is effective again attacked as not actual science.
* Senate Banking Committee is looking at critical problem of money flowing to terrorists groups from charities within US
7. "Concerned about money laundered through US banks and Islamic charities to fund terrorism." Shelby: "It's the committee's concern that some of these transactions involve... known terrorist groups." "The process of designating individuals and groups... for asset freeze and bans on travel."
* Parents Television Council has accused ABC of violating federal decency standards for failing to keep profanity off recent Live 8 concert broadcasts
6. Claims broadcasters, advertisers, etc, "share responsibility with parents" over what children see on home televisions. [Ed. Note: Not mentioned: the issue in question is the lyrics to The Who's song, "Who Are You?" over the line, "Who th' fuck are you?"]
* Florida Family Association is asking Sam Goody video and music stores to stop selling Playboy magazine
4. Other large media outlets have already stopped selling.
* City of San Francisco is saying it doesn't want battleship-sized gift from US Navy as long as Navy won't allow openly gay sailors into their ranks
3. USS Iowa to be converted into museum and tourist attraction; San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted 8-3 against _something_ (unstated what) that caused the battleship to be diverted to Stockton, California.
----- 7 -----
Rally 'Round the Word
Concerned Women for America
7/18/2005
By Lee Duigon
[Ed. Note: Lee Duigon is a regular writer for the Christian Reconstructionist movement which has historically wanted to enact Old Testament law as national law. Recently, they have moved away from that _de jure_, tho' they still push for it _de facto_, and are still defining the boundaries of the most hard-line of the fundamentalist wing of evangelical thought. The author's affiliation with the CR movement is noted indirectly at the bottom of the CWA article, where they note he is a regular writer at chalcedon.edu - the Reconstructionist foundation founded by Rev. Rushdoony. Taking him onboard is a disturbing move on the part of the CWA.]
A South Dakota pastor crusades to save the Reformed Church.
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/8552/CWA/family/index.htm
As mainline Protestant churches continue "falling away" [see 2 Thessalonians 2:3], affirming homosexual behavior and rejecting Scripture, one man in South Dakota wages a lonely crusade to keep his denomination from plunging over the brink after the others.
John Thornton, part-time visitation pastor at Community Reformed Church of Sioux Falls, which is affiliated with the Reformed Church in America (RCA), is trying to contact all of the RCA's 900 churches in a campaign to rally the clergy to hold to God's Word. At last count, Thornton had e-mailed 400 churches.
"I have gotten 32 positive responses," he told Concerned Women for America (CWA). "Less than 10 percent--but there is hope! And I've gotten three hostile responses, and one threat to report me to the denomination for spamming."
The immediate inspiration for Thornton's e-mail crusade is the release of a new book by Dr. David Myers, What God Has Joined Together? A Christian Case for Gay Marriage. Myers is a professor of psychology at RCA-affiliated Hope College in Holland, Michigan.
"There is no 'Christian case for gay marriage,'" Thornton said. "Jesus defined marriage as between one man and one woman [Matthew 19: 3-9; Mark 10: 1-9]. He condemned sexual acts outside of marriage as sin, either fornication or adultery. Therefore Jesus did condemn homosexual acts. But this only applies if people take God's Word seriously."
Linda Schauer, CWA’s South Dakota director, said, “The Church was silent and passive when abortion was legalized. The Church must rise up and get involved before a clearly unbiblical practice overwhelms it. I applaud Rev. Thornton for his bold crusade to alert his Church to the camel that is getting his nose under the tent. God bless Rev. Thornton for his diligence and courage in upholding the truth of God’s Word.”
[...]
Despite such instances of open acceptance of homosexuality, RCA leadership continues to insist that it holds to traditional Bible teaching.
"Our stance [on homosexuality] is very clear," said Paul Boice, the RCA's director of communications. "We did reaffirm traditional marriage at our last general synod, and we did vote very strongly to find Norman Kansfield guilty and remove him from his post."
Kansfield may be out, but his seminary will co-sponsor and host "a conference on theology and sexuality" October 16 through18, featuring eight prominent advocates of homosexual "marriage" (including David Myers).
[...]
Lee Duigon is a Christian free-lance writer whose work can be seen regularly at chaldecon.edu. He writes periodically for CWA.
[More at URL]
----- 8 -----
Justice Gonzales? Conservatives See Recusal Problem
Activists object anew to a possible nomination, saying he wouldn't be able to hear key cases.
Los Angeles Times
By Maura Reynolds, Times Staff Writer
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gonzales15jul15,1,7100085.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
WASHINGTON — As the White House weighs its pick to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court, some conservatives have raised a new objection to the idea of nominating Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales: As a justice, he might have to recuse himself on cases he handled in the White House or at the Justice Department.
That's a problem, conservatives say, because it raises the likelihood that the court would deadlock 4 to 4 on the issues they care most about.
"Gonzales may well be required to recuse himself from the three most important cases already on the court's docket for next term," said M. Edward Whelan, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, who has been arguing the point on the weblog of the conservative magazine National Review.
The cases, he said, "involve parental notification for abortion, physician-assisted suicide, and the clash between universities and military recruiters over the military's policy on homosexuals."
Some conservatives had expressed objections to Gonzales, saying they did not believe the former Texas jurist would be as reliable a conservative vote as they would like to see on the court. That criticism prompted a rebuke from President Bush, who considers Gonzales a close friend.
"I don't like it when a friend gets criticized," Bush said. "I'm loyal to my friends."
Since then, conservative groups have been careful to keep any concerns about Gonzales private. "My organization will support the president's nominee, including Alberto Gonzales," said Sean Rushton, executive director of the Committee for Justice, a conservative advocacy group.
Conservative groups insisted they were not raising the recusal issue as a more polite way to oppose Gonzales.
[More at URL]
----- 9 -----
'Christian Exodus' sees Upstate as promised land
Group plans national gathering here, hopes thousands move in to reshape state based on its religious values
The Greenville News
By Ron Barnett
STAFF WRITER
Posted Tuesday, July 12, 2005 - 6:00 am
http://greenvilleonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050712/NEWS01/507120311/1004
The Exodus has begun.
It began quietly, in a house with white vinyl siding and a trampoline out back, in a subdivision between Greer and Simpsonville.
That's where Frank Janoski, his wife Tammy, and their four children have come. They left Bethlehem, Pa., to be a part of the Christian Exodus.
South Carolina may not be flowing with milk and honey, but it looks like the promised land to the leaders of this group, which hopes to relocate thousands of conservative Christian families like the Janoskis from across America to the Palmetto State.
Their aim: to tip the political scales, which they see as already weighted heavily to the right, further in that direction.
Secession "is a valid option," said Janoski, a "state coordinator" for the organization -- but he hopes it doesn't come to that.
"If it's going to be ugly and bloody, nobody wants that," he said.
The group is recruiting more pioneers for this journey of faith through its Web site and plans to hold a national conference in Greenville in October, which will include information booths of local real estate agents, employers and private schools -- all the nuts and bolts needed for relocation.
[More at URL]
----- 10 -----
Tell your Senators to Oppose Funding Embryonic Stem Cell Research
July 14, 2005 - Thursday
Forward to a Friend!
http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=AL05G05&f=AL05G08
In the next week or two, the Senate will probably vote on a House passed bill, sponsored by Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE), H.R. 810, that will federally fund research that requires the destruction of human embryos. H.R. 810 will fund research on human embryos that supposedly are "leftover" from in vitro fertilization. Instead of promoting the adoption of these human embryos, this bill would require their death.
President Bush is the first president to federally fund human embryonic stem cell research. He determined that such research could be funded so long as the cells had been obtained from embryos on or prior to August 9, 2001. Since then, the government has funded research on over 22 stem cell lines. However, the President's policy does not encourage the further destruction of human embryos.
Just as abortion is currently legal, destroying human embryos is completely legal. The debate is about taxpayer support. Though legal we don't federally fund abortion. Likewise, we should not force US taxpayers to fund research that requires the killing of human embryos. However, H.R. 810 would overturn the Bush policy and create a direct incentive to create and kill human embryos for research with your money.
Contact your Senators and let them know that you strongly oppose H.R. 810 (and its Senate version, S. 471).
The father of "Zach," the 16-year-old blogger forced into an anti-gay re-education camp, speaks up on CBN, thus settling questions about whether Zach was real;
Moslem lesbian woman challenging radical imams in London;
Pope Benedict may be ready to ban celibate gay men from seminaries, despite previous church acceptance of the idea of homosexuality as immutable;
Focus on the Family newsbrief mocking the latest attempt at a California marriage-rights law - talks about Voter's Right to Protect Marriage Initiative, an attempt to amend the California constitution against marriage;
Today's Family News in Focus;
Concerned Women for America article supporting an anti-gay pastor is interesting mostly because it was written by a Christian Reconstructionist and regular at the Chalcedon Institute, founded by Rev. Rushdoony to promote Christian Reconstructionism;
LA Times article linked to by CWA - finding more reasons to object to a Gonzales nomination for Supreme Court;
CWA links to Greenville [South Carolina] News article - upstate South Carolina has become the destination state for the Christian Exodus movement;
Family Research Council sends out action alert (ACTION ITEM) against embryonic stem-cell research.
----- 1 -----
Adoption firm: No Catholics
Catholicism "does not agree" with statement of faith, agency says
By Jean Gordon
jmgordon@clarionledger.com
http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050715/NEWS01/507150380/1002
A local Christian adoption agency that receives funds from the sale of Mississippi's Choose Life specialty car tags will not consider Catholics as adoptive parents.
"It has been our understanding that Catholicism does not agree with our Statement of Faith," wrote Bethany Christian Services director Karen Stewart in a July 8 letter to Sandy and Robert Stedman, a Catholic couple in Jackson seeking to adopt. "Our practice to not accept applications from Catholics was an effort to be good stewards of an adoptive applicant's time, money and emotional energy."
A private adoption agency, Bethany Christian Services has locations in 75 U.S. cities, including Jackson, Hattiesburg and Columbus.
The agency is one of 24 adoption and pregnancy counseling centers in the state that receives money from the sale of Choose Life car tags, which advocate against abortion.
Motorists pay an additional fee for the specialized license plate.
[More at URL]
----- 2 -----
Memphis Group under Fire for Trying to Transform Gays
By David Brody
Capitol Hill Correspondent
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/news/050713a.asp
CBN.com – Can parents help children struggling with same-sex attractions turn away from the homosexual lifetsyle? One Memphis father says they can – and the city's gay community is none too happy about it.
Joe Stark did what he believed any responsible Christian parent would do. In late May, Joe’s 16-year-old son, Zach, told his parents he was gay. The Starks, devout Christians, enlisted the help of “Love in Action International,” a Memphis-based ministry that provides prevention and treatment for behaviors like homosexuality and drug addiction.
But little did the Starks know that their actions would create a firestorm among local homosexuals. In an exclusive interview with CBN News, Joe talked about his decision to enroll Zach in the “Love in Action” program, and the controversy that has followed.
“We felt very good about Zach coming here because… to let him see for himself the destructive lifestyle, what he has to face in the future, and to give him some options that society doesn't give him today,” Stark said. “Knowing that your son... statistics say that by the age of 30 he could either have AIDS or be dead.”
The Starks' story took on a life of its own when Zach began posting his thoughts on an Internet blog.
"My mother, father, and I had a very long 'talk'" he wrote, "…where they let me know I am to apply for a fundamentalist Christian program for gays… I’m a big screw up to them, who isn't on the path God wants me to be on. So I'm sitting here in tears."
“Zack has got a mind of his own, and that's a God-given gift,” Joe said. “And Zack will have to make those choices when he is an adult as to what exactly he is going to do with his life. But until he turns 18 and he's an adult in the state of Tennessee, I'm responsible for him. And I’m going to see to it that he has all options available to him.”
It wasn't long after Zach's blog appeared online that protestors began lining the streets outside “Love in Action.” They said that homosexuality is not a choice but something that comes naturally – and that Zach is being deceived by his parents and “Love in Action.”
[...]
“A lot of things that Zach spent a lot of his time doing were taken away,” Stark said. “And I can see why they do it now. It's because, if you're not doing those things, then what are you doing? Sometime or other, you have to communicate with your family. And that's a big thing that has happened in our family – Zach is communicating a lot more with us.”
But critics say “Love in Action” doesn't work for everyone. According to one former client, the program actually helped him to embrace his homosexuality. He calls the program "unrealistic."
“Rarely in life will you ever live that closed off from the world,” Brandon Tidwell, a former client of “Love in Action,” said. “It's very, I think, deceiving, or misleading, or creates a false hope for people, to help them to create change in that very isolated environment, and then move out into the real world and try to continue to…understand themselves in a whole different way.”
Smid points out that all of “Love in Action's” clients, including Tidwell, have grown closer to their parents as a result of the program. Many came away with a better understanding of Jesus Christ as well. As for Zach, the jury is still out. But his father remains steadfast that he made the right decision for his son.
“To me it's not what's right and what's left, it's what's right and what's wrong,” Joe said. “My wife and I will stand by that 'till the day we die, as far as homosexuality is not in God's plan – it's wrong."
[Full story at URL]
----- 3 -----
The lipstick lesbian daring to confront radical imams
The Sunday Times of London
July 17, 2005
Irshad Manji has already been dubbed ‘Osama’s worst nightmare’ for her criticisms of Islam. Now she wants Britain’s Muslims to stand more firmly on the side of freedom
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-1696968_1,00.html
No wonder Irshad Manji has received death threats since appearing on British television: she is a lipstick lesbian, a Muslim and scourge of Islamic leaders, whom she accuses of making excuses about the terror attacks on London. Oh, and she tells ordinary Muslims to “crawl out of their narcissistic shell”. Ouch.
Manji is a glamorous Canadian television presenter whose book, The Trouble with Islam, has made her so famous in America that she won something called the Oprah Winfrey Chutzpah award. Even at a conference in Oxford last week she felt unsafe — despite extra security — with police sifting through “disgusting e-mails” and threats after her appearance on Newsnight.
Doesn’t the violent Muslim minority show Islam is flawed? “I ask myself the same question,” she grimaces. Far from regarding Muslims as oppressed they have a “supremacy complex — and that’s dangerous”. This, she contends, is true even among moderates. “Literalists” who consider the Koran the “perfect manifesto of God” have taken over the mainstream; and far from misreading Islam, as Tony Blair and the Muslim Council of Britain insist, terrorists can find encouragement for murder in the Koran.
The underlying problem with Islam, observes Manji, is that far from spiritualising Arabia, it has been infected with the reactionary prejudices of the Middle East: “Colonialism is not the preserve of people with pink skin. What about Islamic imperialism? Eighty per cent of Muslims live outside the Arab world yet all Muslims must bow to Mecca.” Fresh thinking, she contends, is suppressed by ignorant imams; you can see why she has been dubbed “Osama’s worst nightmare ”.
“The good news,” she insists, “is it doesn’t have to be like this.” She wants a reformation in Islam, returning it to its clever, fun-loving roots. “The world’s first ‘feminist’ was an 11th-century Muslim man. Baghdad had one of the first universities in the 9th century; the Spanish ‘Ole!’ comes from ‘Allah’; Islam even gave us the guitar.”
But now it gives us the suicide bomber: why? She does not rule out alienation and all those Muslims-as-victims explanations, but thinks the Muslim Council of Britain is negligent for “not even acknowledging religion might also have played a role”. Richard Chartres, the Bishop of London, said terrorists could not be Muslims but Manji hits back: “The jury is out on what Islam is.”
[More at URL]
----- 4 -----
Is the Purge Imminent?
Andrew Sullivan
http://www.andrewsullivan.com/index.php?dish_inc=archives/2005_07_10_dish_archive.html#112153424371437438
IS THE PURGE IMMINENT? The usually reliable Catholic Reporter's John Allen reports that a long-awaited (and long-feared) document is now in Pope Benedict's hands. The document would put the Vatican's full authority behind banning all gay men from seminaries and the priesthood, regardless of their commitment to celibacy or faithfulness to Church teachings. Their very existence as involuntary homosexuals would make them ineligible for the priesthood. Money quote:
[T]he document will reject a solution that some seminaries, religious communities and bishops have tended to adopt in recent years - that it doesn't matter if a candidate is gay, as long as he's capable of remaining celibate. "I suspect some people, in good will, have gravitated to this idea," one bishop said. "But that's not what the church is saying, and this document will make that clear." To date, there's been no indication of what the pope intends to do.
Just ponder what this might mean. The Church concedes that gay people are involuntarily gay; the Church asks them to commit to a life without sex or physical or emotional intimacy; if they are priests, the conundrum is resolved anyway: celibacy is mandatory for gays and straights alike, and, so the very distinction becomes moot.
THE TURN TOWARD BIGOTRY: But now the policy could become something much, much different: even if gay priests live up to all their responsibilities, even if they embrace celibacy wholly, even if they faithfully serve the Church, they would still be deemed beneath being priests, serving God, or entering seminaries. Why? Because, in pope Benedict's own words, they are "objectively disordered," indelibly morally sick in some undefined way, and so unfit, regardless of their actions, to serve God or His people. It is no longer a matter of what they do or not do that qualifies or disqualifies them for the priesthood; it is who they are.
[More at URL]
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Something 'Fishy' About California Gay Marriage Bill
Focus on the Family
Newsbriefs
July 15, 2005
[Received in email; no URL]
Using the "gut and amend" tactic, California Assemblyman
Mark Leno has managed to place language in support of gay
marriage into a fisheries research bill, The Christian
Post reported.
In 2000, voters passed Proposition 22 to ban gay marriage.
Leno argues Prop 22 only applies to marriages from other
states.
Karen England of Capitol Resource Institute said Leno's
attempt is nothing more than trickery.
"We are appalled that the majority of committee members
decided to ignore the will of the people they represent,"
England said. "Assemblyman Mark Leno has engaged in some
legislative maneuvering to keep the gay marriage bill
alive."
If approved, Leno's bill would change the states
definition of marriage from "a man and a woman" to "two
persons."
Conservatives have formed the Voter's Right to Protect
Marriage Initiative and intend to place a constitutional
ban on same-sex marriage on the next statewide ballot.
----- 6 -----
Family News in Focus
Focus on the Family
Monday, July 18, 2005
Terry Philips
http://www.oneplace.com/Ministries/Family_News_in_Focus/
* Is full-on media blitz swirling around White House insider Karl Rove feeding off of itself, or substance?
1. "Did he or didn't he evade the law?" "Circus coverage... an attempt by liberals to discredit the man described by the President as his campaign architect." American Values take Gary Bauer: "an overall strategy to discredit the Bush administration," not actually at all about Karl Rove or the law. "The corruption theme." "Unfortunately, they're using very minour things... in order to make this corruption case." "This is not a national security scandal... and the law... requires you to site an individual's name..." "The media will continue to cover them, whether they are true or not."
* Wisconsin Supreme Court rules hospital that allowed pre-mature baby to die, was legally obligated to provide care under Federal law
2. Shannon Preston delivered premature baby - "slightly under 24 weeks." Alliance Defense Fund fought the case; hospital refuses treatment in cases before 24 weeks. "The hospital basically killed baby Brendon with red tape." National Right to Life: "I think that the message is that you better treat - at least do the minimal standard of care... to determine how much help the baby can have."
* Government web site that helps parents communicate with their kids about sensitive issue of sexuality, is under fire from liberal Congressman
5. California's Henry Waxman says 4parents.gov (?) is inaccurate. National Physician's Center for Family Research (?!) built the site. Site is an abstinence-only site. Claims again that studies showing condom use is effective again attacked as not actual science.
* Senate Banking Committee is looking at critical problem of money flowing to terrorists groups from charities within US
7. "Concerned about money laundered through US banks and Islamic charities to fund terrorism." Shelby: "It's the committee's concern that some of these transactions involve... known terrorist groups." "The process of designating individuals and groups... for asset freeze and bans on travel."
* Parents Television Council has accused ABC of violating federal decency standards for failing to keep profanity off recent Live 8 concert broadcasts
6. Claims broadcasters, advertisers, etc, "share responsibility with parents" over what children see on home televisions. [Ed. Note: Not mentioned: the issue in question is the lyrics to The Who's song, "Who Are You?" over the line, "Who th' fuck are you?"]
* Florida Family Association is asking Sam Goody video and music stores to stop selling Playboy magazine
4. Other large media outlets have already stopped selling.
* City of San Francisco is saying it doesn't want battleship-sized gift from US Navy as long as Navy won't allow openly gay sailors into their ranks
3. USS Iowa to be converted into museum and tourist attraction; San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted 8-3 against _something_ (unstated what) that caused the battleship to be diverted to Stockton, California.
----- 7 -----
Rally 'Round the Word
Concerned Women for America
7/18/2005
By Lee Duigon
[Ed. Note: Lee Duigon is a regular writer for the Christian Reconstructionist movement which has historically wanted to enact Old Testament law as national law. Recently, they have moved away from that _de jure_, tho' they still push for it _de facto_, and are still defining the boundaries of the most hard-line of the fundamentalist wing of evangelical thought. The author's affiliation with the CR movement is noted indirectly at the bottom of the CWA article, where they note he is a regular writer at chalcedon.edu - the Reconstructionist foundation founded by Rev. Rushdoony. Taking him onboard is a disturbing move on the part of the CWA.]
A South Dakota pastor crusades to save the Reformed Church.
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/8552/CWA/family/index.htm
As mainline Protestant churches continue "falling away" [see 2 Thessalonians 2:3], affirming homosexual behavior and rejecting Scripture, one man in South Dakota wages a lonely crusade to keep his denomination from plunging over the brink after the others.
John Thornton, part-time visitation pastor at Community Reformed Church of Sioux Falls, which is affiliated with the Reformed Church in America (RCA), is trying to contact all of the RCA's 900 churches in a campaign to rally the clergy to hold to God's Word. At last count, Thornton had e-mailed 400 churches.
"I have gotten 32 positive responses," he told Concerned Women for America (CWA). "Less than 10 percent--but there is hope! And I've gotten three hostile responses, and one threat to report me to the denomination for spamming."
The immediate inspiration for Thornton's e-mail crusade is the release of a new book by Dr. David Myers, What God Has Joined Together? A Christian Case for Gay Marriage. Myers is a professor of psychology at RCA-affiliated Hope College in Holland, Michigan.
"There is no 'Christian case for gay marriage,'" Thornton said. "Jesus defined marriage as between one man and one woman [Matthew 19: 3-9; Mark 10: 1-9]. He condemned sexual acts outside of marriage as sin, either fornication or adultery. Therefore Jesus did condemn homosexual acts. But this only applies if people take God's Word seriously."
Linda Schauer, CWA’s South Dakota director, said, “The Church was silent and passive when abortion was legalized. The Church must rise up and get involved before a clearly unbiblical practice overwhelms it. I applaud Rev. Thornton for his bold crusade to alert his Church to the camel that is getting his nose under the tent. God bless Rev. Thornton for his diligence and courage in upholding the truth of God’s Word.”
[...]
Despite such instances of open acceptance of homosexuality, RCA leadership continues to insist that it holds to traditional Bible teaching.
"Our stance [on homosexuality] is very clear," said Paul Boice, the RCA's director of communications. "We did reaffirm traditional marriage at our last general synod, and we did vote very strongly to find Norman Kansfield guilty and remove him from his post."
Kansfield may be out, but his seminary will co-sponsor and host "a conference on theology and sexuality" October 16 through18, featuring eight prominent advocates of homosexual "marriage" (including David Myers).
[...]
Lee Duigon is a Christian free-lance writer whose work can be seen regularly at chaldecon.edu. He writes periodically for CWA.
[More at URL]
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Justice Gonzales? Conservatives See Recusal Problem
Activists object anew to a possible nomination, saying he wouldn't be able to hear key cases.
Los Angeles Times
By Maura Reynolds, Times Staff Writer
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gonzales15jul15,1,7100085.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
WASHINGTON — As the White House weighs its pick to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court, some conservatives have raised a new objection to the idea of nominating Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales: As a justice, he might have to recuse himself on cases he handled in the White House or at the Justice Department.
That's a problem, conservatives say, because it raises the likelihood that the court would deadlock 4 to 4 on the issues they care most about.
"Gonzales may well be required to recuse himself from the three most important cases already on the court's docket for next term," said M. Edward Whelan, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, who has been arguing the point on the weblog of the conservative magazine National Review.
The cases, he said, "involve parental notification for abortion, physician-assisted suicide, and the clash between universities and military recruiters over the military's policy on homosexuals."
Some conservatives had expressed objections to Gonzales, saying they did not believe the former Texas jurist would be as reliable a conservative vote as they would like to see on the court. That criticism prompted a rebuke from President Bush, who considers Gonzales a close friend.
"I don't like it when a friend gets criticized," Bush said. "I'm loyal to my friends."
Since then, conservative groups have been careful to keep any concerns about Gonzales private. "My organization will support the president's nominee, including Alberto Gonzales," said Sean Rushton, executive director of the Committee for Justice, a conservative advocacy group.
Conservative groups insisted they were not raising the recusal issue as a more polite way to oppose Gonzales.
[More at URL]
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'Christian Exodus' sees Upstate as promised land
Group plans national gathering here, hopes thousands move in to reshape state based on its religious values
The Greenville News
By Ron Barnett
STAFF WRITER
Posted Tuesday, July 12, 2005 - 6:00 am
http://greenvilleonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050712/NEWS01/507120311/1004
The Exodus has begun.
It began quietly, in a house with white vinyl siding and a trampoline out back, in a subdivision between Greer and Simpsonville.
That's where Frank Janoski, his wife Tammy, and their four children have come. They left Bethlehem, Pa., to be a part of the Christian Exodus.
South Carolina may not be flowing with milk and honey, but it looks like the promised land to the leaders of this group, which hopes to relocate thousands of conservative Christian families like the Janoskis from across America to the Palmetto State.
Their aim: to tip the political scales, which they see as already weighted heavily to the right, further in that direction.
Secession "is a valid option," said Janoski, a "state coordinator" for the organization -- but he hopes it doesn't come to that.
"If it's going to be ugly and bloody, nobody wants that," he said.
The group is recruiting more pioneers for this journey of faith through its Web site and plans to hold a national conference in Greenville in October, which will include information booths of local real estate agents, employers and private schools -- all the nuts and bolts needed for relocation.
[More at URL]
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Tell your Senators to Oppose Funding Embryonic Stem Cell Research
July 14, 2005 - Thursday
Forward to a Friend!
http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=AL05G05&f=AL05G08
In the next week or two, the Senate will probably vote on a House passed bill, sponsored by Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE), H.R. 810, that will federally fund research that requires the destruction of human embryos. H.R. 810 will fund research on human embryos that supposedly are "leftover" from in vitro fertilization. Instead of promoting the adoption of these human embryos, this bill would require their death.
President Bush is the first president to federally fund human embryonic stem cell research. He determined that such research could be funded so long as the cells had been obtained from embryos on or prior to August 9, 2001. Since then, the government has funded research on over 22 stem cell lines. However, the President's policy does not encourage the further destruction of human embryos.
Just as abortion is currently legal, destroying human embryos is completely legal. The debate is about taxpayer support. Though legal we don't federally fund abortion. Likewise, we should not force US taxpayers to fund research that requires the killing of human embryos. However, H.R. 810 would overturn the Bush policy and create a direct incentive to create and kill human embryos for research with your money.
Contact your Senators and let them know that you strongly oppose H.R. 810 (and its Senate version, S. 471).
