Excerpted from Police Say Men Were Targets of Rape Spree, by Cindy Horswell, published Dec 16, 2006, by Houston Chronicle:

The serial rapist-robber began his attacks in east Harris County in April and his assaults have occurred every 30 to 60 days.

But what makes this case so unusual is that women are not the target. So far the five victims have all been young, white males in their late teens or early 20s, mostly students still living at their parents’ homes…

They believe he carefully selects, then stalks each victim.

“He does his homework and has everything well planned out,” Clifford said. “Most of the time victims are totally unaware that this guy was anywhere around.”

…About 3 percent of American men have been victims of sexual assault or an attempted sexual assault, according to a 1998 study cited on the National Sexual Assault Hotline Web site. One in 10 rape victims are male, according to the Web site, citing the National Crime Victimization study of 2003.

Continue reading in Houston Chronicle…

Excerpted from a press release entitled Lambda Legal Files Lawsuit on Behalf of Woman Whose Job Offer Was Revoked Because She is Transgender, published Dec 18, 2006, by the pro-homosexuality legal advocacy organization Lambda Legal:

Today, Lambda Legal has filed papers in federal court in the Southern District of Texas on behalf of a transgender woman whose employment offer was rescinded because she is transgender…

Lambda Legal filed Lopez v. River Oaks in the Southern District of Texas in the Fifth Circuit of the federal court system. The lawsuit charges that River Oaks violated Lopez’s rights under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in employment…

Lopez v. River Oaks is Lambda Legal’s latest lawsuit in its Blow the Whistle campaign to end discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people and those with HIV in the workplace. At Lambda Legal’s Blow the Whistle campaign website visitors can learn how to share their own stories of workplace discrimination or become an ally to others in the Blow the Whistle campaign. Employers, unions, coworkers, customers and clients can all serve as important allies for fairness in the workplace.

Continue reading at Lambda Legal…

Excerpted from Transgender Woman Sues Would-Be Employer, by Cindy George, published Dec 19, 2006, by Houston Chronicle:

A man who lives as a woman sued a would-be employer Monday for allegedly revoking a job offer after realizing she is transgender.

Izza Lopez, 26, filed the lawsuit in federal court against Houston-based River Oaks Imaging and Diagnostic. She alleges employment discrimination.

She is seeking damages for lost pay and benefits, and for emotional distress, pain and suffering.

The suit says company officials told Lopez she misrepresented herself as a woman. Lopez had been hired to manage appointments, it says…

You might recall that Tyrone Hanley was on the “sex worker” panel at the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force 2006 Creating Change conference.

From the pro-transexuality Gender Public Advocacy Coalition on Dec 17, 2006:

The Gender Public Advocacy Coalition (GenderPAC) today announced a grant of $125,000 from the Ford Foundation to develop new partnerships with community youth groups combating the crisis of masculinity among young men of color.

…The new effort, named “Community Partners,” is an expansion of GenderPAC’s GenderYOUTH Network, which empowers youth leaders to ensure classrooms and communities are safe for everyone – whether or not they fit stereotypes for masculinity or femininity. The Network currently supports student leaders on 55 campuses in 27 states.

Said Tyrone Hanley (pictured right), GenderYOUTH Coordinator, “These funds will enable us to better reach off-campus youth in local communities. They will also enable us to better address intersections of race and gender and the strong pressures many youth of color face when it comes to codes of masculinity and femininity.”

As an initial step in this new work, the GenderYOUTH spring campaign HIP-HOP: Beyond Beats & Rhymes, will focus on issues of misogyny, homophobia, and violent codes of masculinity in hip-hop culture and the larger American society. It is designed to help GenderYOUTH chapters hold mainstream culture accountable for perpetuating gender stereotypes, particularly among youth of color.

The campaign is part of a national effort also named HIP-HOP: Beyond Beats & Rhymes, after the groundbreaking documentary of the same name by filmmaker Byron Hurt. The documentary examines representations of manhood, sexism, and homophobia in hip-hop culture and will premiere February 20, 2007 on PBS. (For more information: www.itvs.org/outreach/hiphop).

A new GenderPAC human rights report documents an under-reported epidemic of murderous violence that has claimed the lives of more than 50 youth and young adults since 1995 because of their gender identity or expression – 92% of the victims were Black or Latina, and most were killed by young men their own age.

“These deaths are about young using murderous aggression to enforce standards of masculinity on other youth, and this grant will enable us to focus on underlying attitudes that foster such violence,” said Riki Wilchins, Executive Director of GenderPAC. “We thank the Ford Foundation for this amazing opportunity.”

Continue reading at GenderPAC…

Excerpted from Gay Activists Ask Canada to Lower Age of Consent for Anal Sex, National Post Agrees, by John-Henry Westen, published Feb 14, 2006, by LifeSite News:

…Canada’s most prominent homosexual activist group has now demanded the lowering the age of consent for anal sex to 16 from 18. Surprisingly, Canada’s National Post, regarded by some as a ‘conservative’ paper has come out in favour of the proposal.

Reacting to the Conservative Government’s plan to raise the age of consent for normal sex from 14 to 16, EGALE (Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere) has commenced a campaign to have the age of consent for anal sex lowered to 16 from 18. Laurie Arron, the director of advocacy for EGALE remarked to the Ottawa Citizen, “There’s no reason to treat anal sex differently than other sexual acts except to stigmatize gay and bisexual men.”

However, that statement is categorically false, speaking strictly from a medical standpoint. Even those who support homosexual sex acts warn nonetheless that anal sex is a dangerous activity, regardless of genders involved. The sex info site of the University of California at Santa Barbara, which can in no way be described as opposed to homosexual activity, nonetheless points out that anal sex is a dangerous practice.

• …Anal sex is the most dangerous behaviour for transmission of HIV/AIDS and all other STDs since the anus is not designed for sexual activity…
• …The practice also leads to fecal incontinence – loss of normal control of the sphincter muscles which leads to stool leaking from the rectum at unexpected times… See the website http://www.soc.ucsb.edu/sexinfo/?article=faq&refid=125. WARNING: graphic sketches used to illustrate.

Nevertheless, the National Post backed the EGALE request in an unsigned editorial Saturday February 11. The editorial titled, “Equalize the age of consent” said

“Section 159 of the Criminal Code specifically bans anal intercourse between unmarried people under 18. This is plainly discriminatory, a prohibition intended to stigmatize homosexual or bisexual teenagers, suggesting that the nature of their sexual relationship requires special added protection. This is nonsense.” (Click HERE to read the editorial; paid subscription required.)

Continue reading at LifeSite News…

Press release from The Institute on Religion and Democracy, published Dec 18, 2006:

Yesterday’s announcements of the departure of (so far) eight churches from the Diocese of Virginia reveal a seismic shift within The Episcopal Church. This is particularly true since the churches together have a combined average Sunday attendance greater than many Episcopal dioceses.

IRD Anglican Action Director, Ralph Webb commented:

It is sad, but not surprising, that The Episcopal Church’s own self-inflicted wound continues to cause the denomination to bleed. The Episcopal Church was warned by many heads of Anglican Communion provinces not to proceed with the consecration of Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire. These leaders said that it would tear the very fabric of the worldwide Anglican Communion. Tragically, this has proven true. The departure of the Virginia parishes is only one of many negative effects caused by The Episcopal Church’s actions.

While Gene Robinson’s consecration heightened the issues within The Episcopal Church, it is in no way the main issue for the churches that are leaving. It provides one example of how The Episcopal Church has drifted away from its Scriptural foundations, but only one. Beyond wanting to be faithful to Scripture, the churches felt that their mission work was impaired by remaining within The Episcopal Church. Perhaps most importantly of all, they felt that they could not be faithful Anglicans while remaining in The Episcopal Church.

We at the IRD support the faithful Anglicans in the Diocese of Virginia who have now left The Episcopal Church. We recognize that their decisions were made soberly and only after much prayer and deliberation. They face a new day before them, a day full of many challenges but also many opportunities.

We also recognize that, in responding to God’s call, some faithful Anglicans will remain within The Episcopal Church. Their call is no less one from God, and we support them in their mission of renewing the denomination.

The Episcopal Church now needs to ask itself some tough questions. If this many churches leave a diocese regarded as moderate like Virginia, what will happen in other dioceses that are progressive in their theology and social witness?

The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori, said in an e-mail response to a request for an interview that such splits reflect a polarized society, as well as the “anxiety” and “discomfort” that many people feel when they are asked to live with diversity. “The quick fix embraced in drawing lines or in departing is not going to be an ultimate solution for our discomfort,” she said.

How ridiculous — and deceptive — it is that Ms. Schori characterizes the attitude of Episcopalians who are outraged at the denomination’s embrace of homosexuality as being uncomfortable with “diversity.” After all, we are talking about at least 10 percent of her congregants from the state of Virginia (home of the capital of the Confederate States during the Civil War and birthplace to General Robert E. Lee) refusing her leadership, and instead freely placing themselves under submission to a Black African leader. We are talking about other American Episcopal congregations considering affiliation under the spiritual leadership of bishops from Rwanda and Bolivia.

No, it is not resistance to “diversity” that evokes Episcopalian anxiety. It is Ms. Schori’s false teaching, her determination to embrace and approve of homosexuality, that they find intolerable. And well they should. — Sonja Dalton

——————————

From Episcopalians Reach Point of Revolt, by Laurie Goodstein, published Dec 17, 2006, by The New York Times:

For about 30 years, the Episcopal Church has been one big unhappy family. Under one roof there were female bishops and male bishops who would not ordain women. There were parishes that celebrated gay weddings and parishes that denounced them; theologians sure that Jesus was the only route to salvation, and theologians who disagreed.

Now, after years of threats, the family is breaking up.

As many as eight conservative Episcopal churches in Virginia are expected to announce today that their parishioners have voted to cut their ties with the Episcopal Church. Two are large, historic congregations that minister to the Washington elite and occupy real estate worth a combined $27 million, which could result in a legal battle over who keeps the property.

In a twist, these wealthy American congregations are essentially putting themselves up for adoption by Anglican archbishops in poorer dioceses in Africa, Asia and Latin America who share conservative theological views about homosexuality and the interpretation of Scripture with the breakaway Americans.

“The Episcopalian ship is in trouble,” said the Rev. John Yates, rector of The Falls Church, one of the two large Virginia congregations, where George Washington served on the vestry. “So we’re climbing over the rails down to various little lifeboats. There’s a lifeboat from Bolivia, one from Rwanda, another from Nigeria. Their desire is to help us build a new ship in North America, and design it and get it sailing.”

…The archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, is now struggling to hold the communion together while facing a revolt on many fronts from emboldened conservatives. Last week, conservative priests in the Church of England warned him that they would depart if he did not allow them to sidestep liberal bishops and report instead to sympathetic conservatives.

In Virginia, the two large churches are voting on whether they want to report to the powerful archbishop of Nigeria, Peter Akinola, an outspoken opponent of homosexuality who supports legislation in his country that would make it illegal for [“gay”] men and lesbians to form organizations, read gay literature or eat together in a restaurant. Archbishop Akinola presides over the largest province in the 77-million-member Anglican Communion; it has more than 17 million members, dwarfing the Episcopal Church, with 2.3 million.

If all eight Virginia churches vote to separate, the Diocese of Virginia, the largest Episcopal diocese in the country, will lose about 10 percent of its 90,000 members. In addition, four churches in Virginia have already voted to secede, and two more are expected to vote soon, said Patrick N. Getlein, secretary of the diocese.

Two weeks ago, the entire diocese in San Joaquin, Calif., voted to sever its ties with the Episcopal Church, a decision it would have to confirm in a second vote next year. Six or more American dioceses say they are considering such a move.

In the last three years, since the Episcopal Church consecrated V. Gene Robinson, a gay man who lives with his partner, as bishop of New Hampshire, about three dozen American churches have voted to secede and affiliate with provinces overseas, according to The Episcopal News Service…

At one of the four Virginia parishes that has already voted to secede, All Saints Church in Dale City, the tally was 402 to 6.

Continue reading in The New York Times…

From Can One Be a “Gay Evangelical”?, by Dr. Robert Gagnon, published Dec 16, 2006:

On 11/29/06, Neela Banerjee, religion reporter for The New York Times, emailed me to ask my views on “gay evangelicals” and about whether I thought “such a term can be honestly used.” On the same day I emailed my response. She took two quotes from my response for her article in the Times on Tuesday, Dec. 12, entitled “Gay and Evangelical, Seeking Paths of Acceptance” (front page, continued on p. 18; temporarily available on the web here). She was pleasant in her email. However, her handling of my response merits some comment and qualification. Here is the excerpt from the article that quotes me, along with the immediate context of her article and with boldface added to the quotations of my words:

Excerpted from Hannity goes for Brokeback, by Joel Stein, published Nov 28, 2006, by Los Angeles Times:

…Conservatives need late-night, out-of-town hookups just as much as liberals. They also, it seems, need some hot man-on-man action. If you pull down the menu on Hannidate, you can select “I am a male, seeking a male.” This was surprising because not even eHarmony allows same-sex pairings. Stranger still for a Fox News commentator’s site, you can select ZIP Codes in Beverly Hills, Provincetown and San Francisco.

Figuring this was an embarrassing oversight by the Hannity.com administrator who must have bought the dating service software from some liberal company, I immediately contacted Hannity, hoping he’d panic and cry and possibly use his bionic powers. But it turns out Hannity was well aware of the gay Hannidate feature and is fine with it. “Hannidate is open to everyone,” he informed me. “Even lonely L.A. Times reporters.” He may be soft on gays, but Hannity can still hit a lonely, empty-desked, downsizing liberal newspaper where it hurts.

Continue reading in LA Times…