Tag Archives: Topic: Homosexual Agenda

Christian Institute: The Daily Mail has said rulings against two Christians in Europe yesterday add to warnings that Churches could be sued for refusing to conduct same-sex marriages if they’re made legal. The paper says in its editorial, “how depressingly predictable that the court found the rights of a sexual minority trumped those of Christians.

KMVT.com (includes video): The Twin Falls City council approved an addition to its anti-discrimination policy for city staff members. One of the council members said this is a step forward for the city because they were behind in the time.

KLEWTV.COM: The Lewiston City Council voted on a policy change that prohibits discrimination against hiring a particular group of citizens. It’s a topic that’s often avoided due to its controversial nature. Members of the Lewiston City Council went back and forth Monday evening, discussing whether or not to add sexual orientation language to the city’s non-discrimination hiring clause.

USA Today: Chuck Hagel, President Barack Obama’s pick for Defense secretary, supports equal benefits for same-sex military couples. He made the pledge in a Monday letter to Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. . . .

The Republic: Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller said Friday he plans to defend the state’s ban on gay marriage with a pair of briefs that will be filed in the coming Supreme Court battle.

Providence Journal: The committee voted at the start of the meeting to hold the bill for further study. A vote to send it to the House floor could happen next week at the earliest, said House spokesman Larry Berman.

Star Tribune: Minnesota’s divisive fight over same-sex marriage is moving to a Capitol showdown. Supporters of legalization are preparing to roll out House and Senate proposals as early as next month. Legislative leaders who shied away from the issue earlier now are not ruling out a vote on the measure this spring.

LifeSiteNews: A prominent Toronto psychiatrist has severely criticized the assumptions underlying what has been dubbed by critics as the Canadian federal government’s “bathroom bill,” that is, Bill C-279, a private member’s bill that would afford special protection to so-called “transgender” men and women.

Ed Stetzer at Baptist Press: Louie Giglio withdrew from the program at President Obama’s inauguration in the face of criticism over a 15-year-old sermon referencing homosexuality as a sin. Many will want to debate and desire to nuance the specific wording he used in the sermon, but his points are largely mainstream evangelical beliefs.

AP: Elton John and David Furnish say they have become parents for a second time. The couple say they are “overwhelmed with happiness” at the birth of Elijah Joseph Daniel Furnish-John.

Washington Post (AP): The Vatican is pressing its opposition to gay marriage, insisting Saturday that children should grow up with a father and a mother after Italy’s high court upheld a lower court ruling and granted custody of a child to his gay mother.

Matthew J. Franck at National Review: Far be it from me to suggest that the Supreme Court look to foreign sources or opinions to guide its deliberations in the two cases now pending on same-sex marriage. But the shape of things in the current French debate over this issue is instructive indeed.

Catholic Culture: In “Queering Schools, GSAs and the Law: Taking on God”–an excerpt from the book The Gay Agenda: Claiming Space, Identity & Justice–a law professor at the University of Manitoba calls for changes in “state-issued law and policy approaches” to ensure that Canadian schools, including Catholic schools, become “queered.”

USA Today: A movement in the South is sending same-sex couples in to offices to be married – even though they are not legally entitled to be wed.

ACLU press release: The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Utah have filed a lawsuit against the Davis School District after elementary schools in the district were instructed to remove a children’s book about a family with same-sex parents from library shelves . . . Status: Victory! The Davis School District has agreed to return In Our Mothers’ House to its library shelves.

Oregonian: She brought her partner, Aimee Wilson, to stand beside her as she was sworn in as speaker — thereby making national publicity as the first openly lesbian to serve in that position in the nation.

Jackson Hole Daily: For the first time in his career, Jackson Republican Rep. Keith Gingery is backing a gay marriage bill. After eight years in the Legislature, Gingery has signed on as a co-sponsor of two measures sanctioning same-sex unions.

Washington Post: Virginia’s General Assembly appears poised to put an openly gay judge on the bench Tuesday, reversing itself on one of the most contentious issues of last year’s session.

Washington Post: Regulators in Oregon and California have quietly directed some health insurance companies to stop denying coverage for transgender patients because of their gender identity.

TIME: Until late last week one of Europe’s most progressive nations had one of the continent’s most repressive policies on transgender people. Swedish law had required all transgender people to undergo sterilization if they want to legally change their sex.

National Journal: Which statement comes closest to your political views on gay marriage?
REPUBLICANS (99 VOTES)
My party should support it: 27%
My party should oppose it: 11%
My party should avoid the issue: 48%
Other: 14%

Think Progress: It seems conservatives will not be holding back in their assault on the rights of same-sex couples, as demonstrated by the testimony Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Kellie Fiedorek will offer at today’s meeting: FIEDOREK: Religious freedom belongs to everyone, not just a handful of people. The government cannot limit constitutionally protected religious liberties in a way that’s foreign to our Constitution. This bill fails to ensure that those liberties of every Rhode Island citizen will be respected. The First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom for all Americans is not limited to the four walls of a church.

One News Now: ADF attorney Kellie Fiedorek is taking a role in testifying today before the Rhode Island House Committee on Judiciary. “Religious freedom belongs to everyone, not just a handful of people,” she offers in a statement provided to OneNewsNow. “The government cannot limit constitutionally protected religious liberties in a way that’s foreign to our Constitution. This bill fails to ensure that those liberties of every Rhode Island citizen will be respected. The First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom for all Americans is not limited to the four walls of a church.”

AP: Supporters of same-sex marriage rights plan to assemble at the Rhode Island Statehouse to urge lawmakers to make the smallest state the 10th to allow gay and lesbian couples to wed – and the last to do so in New England.

Catholic Culture: More than 1,000 Catholic priests have signed an open letter warning that legal acceptance of same-sex marriage could prompt a revival of persecution against Catholics in Britain.

Washington Times: The decision by leaders of the Washington National Cathedral to perform same-sex weddings is getting a mixed reception, with supporters calling it consistent with the church’s path for more than a decade and critics warning of further division on an issue that has roiled religious denominations across the country.

Chicago Tribune: Dozens of Illinois business leaders and several companies publicly endorsed gay marriage Sunday in an attempt to reignite the issue after a proposed bill failed to get traction in Springfield this month.

South China Morning Post: Religious groups say their freedom of speech is threatened by move to protect the rights of sexual minorities.

Todd Starnes at Fox News: An American pastor is facing a federal lawsuit filed by a George Soros-funded organization alleging that the pastor’s messages on homosexuality are a “crime against humanity” – a lawsuit that some Christians fear might have far-reaching consequences for church mission groups.

Alliance Defending Freedom Litigation Counsel Kellie Fiedorek will testify Tuesday on the lack of safeguards for religious freedom in a Rhode Island bill (H 5015) that proposes to redefine marriage.

Bloomberg: Protests against French President Francois Hollande’s proposal to allow same-sex marriage drew hundreds of thousands of people into the streets in Paris. “There are many people who are worried about this law,” Laurent Wauquiez, a minister under former President Nicolas Sarkozy, said today on Europe 1 radio. “Do we have to destroy the family and the place of children in it? We must pay attention to the place of children.” Wauquiez joined the demonstration.

Ryan T. Anderson at Public Discourse: Unlikely characters, including gay men, are leading the French people in protest against redefining marriage. A repeating refrain is “the rights of children trump the right to children.” Americans should follow their example of mobilizing across party lines.

The New Republic: Much less is known, however, about old friendship between Olson and their opponent in this case, Charles Cooper, one of the many lawyers who helped Olson on Bush v. Gore. Cooper and Olson are both part of Washington’s tiny tribe of top-flight conservative litigators.

Religion Clause Blog: AP reported yesterday that the Marine Corps Staff Judge Advocate has advised its legal officers that spouses clubs operating on Marine bases must admit same-sex spouses.

NY Times: If the gay-rights movement today seems to revolve around same-sex marriage, this generation is seeking something more radical: an upending of gender roles beyond the binary of male/female. The core question isn’t whom they love, but who they are — that is, identity as distinct from sexual orientation . . . The emerging rubric is “L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.,” which stands for different things, depending on whom you ask.
“Q” can mean “questioning” or “queer,” an umbrella term itself, formerly derogatory before it was appropriated by gay activists in the 1990s. “I” is for “intersex,” someone whose anatomy is not exclusively male or female. And “A” stands for “ally” (a friend of the cause) or “asexual,” characterized by the absence of sexual attraction.

Family Research Council: Shuns of Anarchy
As he learned yesterday, liberals are no longer satisfied by the church’s silence on homosexuality. They will accept nothing less than the active embrace and celebration of what the Bible calls sin–or use totalitarian tactics to get it.

Albert Mohler: The Giglio Imbroglio — The Public Inauguration of a New Moral McCarthyism

Jordan Lorence at Speak Up Movement: Leftist bloggers successfully convinced officials for President Obama’s Inauguration to pressure Pastor Louie Giglio of Passion City Church in Atlanta to withdraw from praying the benediction at the ceremony January 21.

Washington Post: A conservative megachurch pastor was wiped from the inaugural program Thursday after a strongly anti-homosexuality sermon he gave in the 1990s surfaced, evidence of how fast Americans’ views on gays and lesbians are shifting and the political pitfalls for a liberal president attempting to reach out to religious conservatives.

George Neumayr at American Spectator: One of the items on Obama’s second term agenda is to root out traditionally Christian chaplains from the military. He sees them as bigots unworthy of conscience protections. Like Chick-fil-A, they don’t uphold Obama’s “values.”

NY Post: Mark Krolikowski claims he was branded as “worse than gay” and relieved of his responsibilities after he admitted to school officials two years ago that he was transgender, according to a new lawsuit.

Catholic News Agency: The petition reveals an “underlying agenda,” which is not simply to prevent violent crimes, but to “stigmatize any disapproval of homosexuality at all and essentially to silence us,” said Peter Sprigg, senior fellow for policy studies at the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C.

Christian Post: On Jan. 1, the campaign group “Speak Up,” run by Alliance Defending Freedom, posted a letter to America’s pastors in anticipation of the Supreme Court reconvening, urging them to pray, stay informed and be prepared for “oppression and censorship of religious freedom,” if any of the cases go against traditional marriage supporters. “Now is not the time to be alarmist. The Church’s voice must be heard as our country wrestles with this issue. We must pray for the justices who will decide these cases and for the lawyers who will argue the cause of righteousness. And we must be prepared for any outcome,” ADF warns.

AP: The nation’s leading university for the deaf and hard of hearing has reinstated its chief diversity officer, who was suspended for three months after signing a petition circulated by opponents of gay marriage in Maryland.

AP: Lively’s lawyer, Horatio Mihet, called the case an attack on the U.S. Constitution and his client’s First Amendment right to free speech. Plaintiff’s attorney Pam Spees, from the Center for Constitutional Rights, said Lively conspired with others in Uganda to persecute gays.

ACLU: Former service members who are part of a class action lawsuit challenging a Defense Department policy that cuts in half the separation pay of those who have been honorably discharged for “homosexuality” will receive their full pay after a settlement announced today.

Washington Post: Italian Premier Mario Monti, who is being backed by the Vatican in his bid for re-election, says gay rights issues — including gay marriage —should be decided by Parliament, not his government if he wins.

Casa Grand Dispatch: No legislature in the middle of the country has approved gay marriage. Of the nine states that allow it, Iowa is the only one not located on the nation’s coasts, and it adopted same-sex unions through the courts, not the Legislature.

TheRICatholic.com: The proposal to legalize “same-sex marriage” in the State of Rhode Island is immoral and unnecessary. Despite enormous political pressure, the General Assembly should stand firm, resist the current fashionable trend, and continue to uphold its longstanding commitment to marriage as traditionally defined.

San Francisco Chronicle: Facing a tidal shift among voters embracing same-sex marriage, gay Republicans are offering their party a graceful retreat. But religious conservatives warn that retreat will doom the GOP.

Alan Sears at Townhall: When a society’s laws recognizing marriage as the union of one man and one woman are changed to honor the unions of same-sex couples, it’s not just the law that changes—it’s also the society itself that changes. A top-down metamorphosis begins in which every aspect of public law changes to match the new definition of marriage.

Oregon Live: . Oregon voters passed the gay-marriage ban by nearly 57 percent, putting Oregon near the front of the state-by-state movement to formally seal off marriage from gay people. Today, Oregon is one of 31 states with constitutional bans.

One News Now: In offering benefits to same-sex partners of employees, a Texas family values spokesman says a local school district is flagrantly violating the state’s constitution . . . Texas Values and the Alliance Defending Freedom are asking Attorney General Greg Abbott to rule this new policy unconstitutional.

Liberty Counsel: Today, Liberty Counsel will represent Rev. Scott Lively, an evangelical pastor who was sued by the foreign group called Sexual Minorities of Uganda (SMUG). The suit heard by the U.S. District Court in Springfield, Massachusetts, alleges that Rev. Lively committed “crimes against humanity” in violation of “international law,” simply by sharing his Biblical views on homosexuality during a 2009 visit to Uganda.

William M. Briggs: The story informs us the birth mother is named Maude, while her live-in companion is called Delphine. The ex-fetus, miraculously made a human being at birth, is christened Sacha.

SCOTUS Blog: The Supreme Court on Monday released the schedule of oral arguments for the sitting that begins March 18, showing that the two cases on same-sex marriage will be heard — one on each day — on Tuesday, March 26, and Wednesday, March 27.

RT.com: Only recently has the Pentagon been willing to let lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans openly serve in the military, but it seems the Defense Department still isn’t too keen on the LGBT community. AmericaBlog, a self-described progressive journal of news and opinion, has published an article discussing how the US Department of Defense has blocked internal computers from accessing a number of websites that are categorizes as “LGBT.”

Religion Clause Blog: The Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty, an organization of chaplain endorsers, responded with a press release which said in part . . .

The HIll: “I don’t often write to express my position on issues before the Grand Assembly. But as a citizen of this Land of Lincoln, I want to be clearly on record in regard to an issue of historic importance,” Durbin writes in the letter sent Thursday. “I believe those whom God has brought to this Earth with a different sexual orientation and who seek a loving relationship in the eyes of the law should be given that opportunity.

The HIll: Outgoing Rep. Barney Frank has asked to be appointed as an interim senator to replace Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.).

Jeremy Tedesco at Townhall: Alliance Defending Freedom recently settled a lawsuit brought on behalf of Julea Ward, a former graduate student at Eastern Michigan University who was expelled from her counseling program after refusing to violate her religious beliefs. Media reports have unfortunately suggested that Julea’s lawsuit involved her refusal to counsel a client because he identified as gay: this is untrue.

Matthew J. Frank at Public Discourse: Yet it struck me that if denying same-sex couples the “right to marry” was such an obvious and gross injustice as to merit such energetic claims today, why had it never occurred to either of these august scholars decades ago, at the beginning or the middle of their careers?

Washington Post (AP): With a vote to legalize same-sex marriage in Illinois looking less likely to happen in the next few days, supporters of marriage equality are looking ahead to the following legislative session as their next best hope.

The Hill: “I do not expect the Supreme Court to find in the near term that there is a constitutional right to same-sex marriage,” Frank said. “And that’s not what the LGBT groups are asking for. We’re asking for a recognition by the federal government of state marriages.”

AP: The rules would allow the House to continue to intervene on behalf of the Defense of Marriage Act, which forbids same-sex marriage. The Supreme Court has agreed to take a potentially historic look at the law, planning to hear two cases that challenge the government’s different treatment of gay Americans.

LifeSiteNews: A Catholic archbishop in Cameroon preached, “Marriage of persons of the same sex is a serious crime against humanity” in his homily at Christmas Day Mass.

The Topeka Capitol Journal: The state agency seeking child support payments from a Topeka man who donated sperm to a lesbian couple says one of the women “clearly deceived” the department.

Chicago Tribune: If anyone thought gay marriage legislation would pass easily in Illinois, the initial hiccup Wednesday in the state Senate illustrated how hard-fought the issue is likely to be every step of the way. A bill to allow same-sex marriage did not attract enough support to get a first hearing as Senate Republicans blocked an effort to allow the measure to be considered by a committee.

he Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty, an organization of chaplain endorsers, is calling on President Obama and senior Department of Defense leaders to honor religious liberty protections for chaplains passed by Congress despite an Obama statement that calls the protections “ill-advised.”

WPRI.com: Rhode Island House Speaker Gordon Fox has started the 2013 legislative session with a commitment to hold a vote on gay marriage before the end of the month.

KARE11.com: The Minnesota state senator who will take the lead in that chamber on a bill to legalize gay marriage says backers will wait at least a month or two into the upcoming legislative session before they start to push it hard.

Our Sunday Visitor: Professor co-authors book on what the implications of redefining marriage could be on families, society

Speak Up Movement Blog: If same-sex “marriage” becomes the law of the land, then we are only fooling ourselves to believe our schools will remain enclaves of neutrality where the issue is not addressed. On the contrary, schools will undoubtedly be required to affirm such “marriages” in their health and family curriculum. Students who oppose such “marriages” on religious grounds will be labeled “intolerant” and forced to undergo “re-education” to help reform their “outdated” way of thinking to the new “normal.” This is already happening across our country.

Speak Up Movement: It is important that you as a pastor have the right information to convey to your church members about this issue. Alliance Defending Freedom has been at the forefront of these battles in courtrooms across the country and we want to ensure that you know what is happening in these significant cases so that you can take appropriate action.

Liberty Counsel: Today, Liberty Counsel filed its Opening Brief at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals against the California ban on change therapy (SB 1172), which would ban any counseling to minors seeking to diminish or eliminate unwanted same-sex sexual attractions, behavior or identity. On December 21, 2012, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Pickup v. Brown granted Liberty Counsel’s Emergency Motion to temporarily block the law from going into effect on January 1, 2013, as previously scheduled.

CinemaBlend: Star Wars: The Old Republic will soon allow gamers to pursue gay and lesbian romances. The new romance options will be included in the upcoming Rise of the Hutt Cartel expansion pack for the MMORPG